The Dead Room Mark II raises the bar with an all new design for 2009! This is a easy to use, compact and high quality isolation cabinet that can relieve a lot of stress and headaches associated with recording guitar amps. Your family, neighbors or live sound guy will never be more proud of you then when you use a Dead Room. Don't look at this as a sacrifice either! - the Dead Room Mark II is the only isolation cabinet that sounds as good or better then a standard speaker cabinet.

The Dead Room Mark II compared to the original Dead Room is much more compact, has improved acoustics, sounds better, has high quality microphone cable and is easier to use! It still does have a few things in common with the original Dead Room though; it still features dual microphone support, uses full size guitar speakers, they are still built like a tank and it's the best isolation cabinet being made!

Ready to own a Dead Room Mark II? Place an order on the order page.

The Dead Room Mark II is here with an all new 100% unique and original design! Read more to find out why this is a revolution in the world of speaker isolation cabinets.

Front Interior Shot

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Black Door

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Red Chestnut Door

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Interior

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Mogami Cable

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Optional Speaker Grille

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Feature Overview

Easy Access Front Door

The new upright design of the Dead Room Mark II features a easy access front door. This allows amps to be conveniently placed on top of the cabinet and easily opens up for microphone placement tweaking. Door opening features a rubber gasket to seal the door when closed.

Dual Microphones

The Dead Room Mark II is the only isolation cabinet that ships with dual microphone support as a standard feature. This is useful for blending the sound from two different microphones and gives you many more tonal options. Dual 5/8" thread microphone mounts are installed with dual XLR cables/external jacks and a pair of 6" long goosenecks are included for fast and easy microphone placement.

Acoustically Dead

By treating all 5 open surfaces of the isolation chamber with absorption material, the Dead Room Mark II is arguably the most natural and non-boxy sounding isolation cabinet available. 2" wedges are used on the walls, 4" wedges on the top.

Full Size Guitar Speakers

The Dead Room Mark II uses standard 12" guitar speakers. This size woofer has become the standard for guitar amplifiers because of the pleasant high frequency roll off around 5000hz. Smaller speakers have a frequency response much higher then this so sometimes you will see 10" (and sometimes 8") speakers being used for Jazz or Country clean tones. These smaller drivers will generally sound very thin and fizzy if used on distortion tones. There is an isolation cabinet that uses a proprietary 6" driver on the market and they felt that this is important enough to install a high frequency roll off switch. I'd rather use a digital amp modeler over this particular isolation cabinet since there is no control over microphone choice, placement or speaker. Obviously with the Dead Room Mark II you can use any microphones in any position with any 12" guitar speaker.

Compact Size

The DRMKII is the most compact isolation cabinet of it's kind. Ironically, the microphone compartment is one of the largest. I managed to achieve this by realizing the actual space requirements of the average guitar speaker. Celestion states "the volume of the cabinet is irrelevant with guitar speakers" and they do not provide Thiele-small parameters. I can't say that I agree with any of that since the volume of the enclosure varies the Qtc value of any given set of speaker parameters. This directly affects the response in the midbass region around 80-150hz. After calculating the Thiele-small parameters for common Eminence speakers I found the ideal enclosure volume to be anywhere from 1200-2500 cu in (dependant) and the total Qtc to be anywhere from 0.9 to 1.2. These Qtc values provide up to a 6dB boost in the midbass which adds a lot of warmth and thickness in enclosure volumes much smaller then traditionally used for single 12" drivers. This is why I always find myself having to roll back the bass on many amps when using a 4x12 cabinet versus a 1x12. Single 1x12" cabinets have been traditionally made much larger then needed simply for aesthetic reasons which does not emulate the EQ curve that has made 4x12 cabinets so famous. Needless to say the Dead Room Mark II's unique 1700 cu in speaker chamber gives guitar speakers the extra thick and warm low end usually only found in 4x12 cabinets.

Mogami Cable/Neutrik Connectors

Only the best microphone cable and connectors are used on the Dead Room Mark II. I am of course talking about Mogami Neglex W2549 Microphone Cable and Neutrik XX series connectors with gold contacts. This is a high performance combination designed for sound quality and long term reliability. I solder and insulate all the connections and then check for any intermittence using a cable tester. The cable comes in yellow.

Easy Access Side Jack Panel

The jack panel is now on the left side of the cabinet for easy access. This makes plugging in the microphone cables to run from the Dead Room Mark II to your mixer very convenient. Dual speaker jacks are provided for daisy chaining to other cabinets.

Quality Construction

I build these cabinets with nothing but high quality components, tried and true methods and attention to detail. The DRMKII's are built out of 3/4" MDF which is thicker, more dense (better isolation), void free and easier to work with over Birch Ply. Rabbet joints are used for the cabinet edges and the baffle is set into a dado. All joints are glued and clamped. No screws or nails are used for cabinet construction. A properly glued wood joint is stronger then the material itself. You can sit on it, stand on it, use it as a jack stand for your car, it's very strong! Proudly Made in USA

Carpet Covering

The cabinet is covered in a durable latex backed felt covering. I apply this material with 3M Super 77 spray adhesive so it's never coming off! This felt covering may require grooming from time to time as it likes to collect dirt. It's intended to take a lifetime of beatings so If you do not need the extra protection of the carpet I am able to just paint the cabinet a smooth gloss black finish instead. Just e-mail me!

Top External Handles

Recessed handles should never be used on an isolation cabinet. Reason for this is because you must cut out an opening in the cabinet on either side for them. Now you've removed 3/4" of wood and replaced it with a 0.35" sheet of steel; major sound leaking areas! Be sure to pay attention to this when shopping for an isolation cabinet. I have gone with a pair of very comfortable Penn-Elcom extra wide strap handles with steel end caps on the top of the DRMKII. This makes picking it up off the floor and carrying it very easy and convenient. Notably, they are also rattle-free. (Note: The pictures do not show these handles as those are prototype photographs with the spring loaded external handles on the sides.)

Rubber Feet

The DRMKII ships standard with 1" x 1" rubber feet on the bottom. This helps isolate it from the floor or surface it is resting on and provides a smooth landing if you drop it! The cabinet (with speaker) only weighs around 65lbs, so it's not that much to haul around. Casters are available as an add-on if you want to roll it around!

Easy Speaker Swapping

Looking forward to swapping out speakers for different tones? No problem! T-Nuts and bolts are used to secure speakers in the Dead Room. This makes changing speakers very easy. Just remove the 4 bolts, unplug the speaker from the + and - jacks, plug the new one in, put the 4 bolts back in! You're done!

Specifications