P.A Speakers

[voice of god]

What are the best P.A Speakers for a duo? I'm thinking of upgrading and would like any advice.

800W single 15inch ?
2x15 inch and horn?
subs?
make your own ?
buy brand name speakers?
does size matter?

[Ronny]

I'm not really sure what the best is. Can only tell you what I have. Single 15inch 300 watt and horns in a combo.

Have H&H V800 watt pa and all goes just dandy.

Borrowed a set of EV speakers before I got these and have to say they are magic. Small enough to fit in the car but a great sound. I'm a lover of that big bass sound which the EV's didn't have.

The combo is great but size is a problem. Takes both of us to carry them and we had to buy a van! Our Sat nite venue is upstairs so that's a pain but I think worth it.:thumbsup:

[voice of god]

yeah, I am starting to think that sound comes before everything.
Even the strains of lugging huge amounts of gear around. I think its all worth it if you come away from a show satisfied that it sounded good.

[Ronny]

Check your PM.

[Nyxan]

I still use the PA I had for the band that is two 15's and a horn per side powered by a arc1500 amp. Large I know but a great sound even at low volume.I had the bins custom designed so they would fit in the Van.

[lostdave]

I am running a pair of JBL SR125 (single 15" and 1" horn) over a pair of Custom Made Subs(JBL 2265 Drivers). JMA 900 watt for the tops and FB(in Mono...FOH left chanel and FB Right) and an AT M1000B Bridged for the Subs..
Give me about 1500W FOH with a nice rounded sound...even @ lower levels...

For smaller rooms I just drag out the top bins....quick repatch and minor RE-EQ... full range thru the top bins...no subs

The only Issue I have with the JBL's is they lack bottom end @ lower level so if you have to increase the vol during the evening...as you usually do....you have to adjust the EQ as you go


Keep in mind if you go with the subs option you have the added cost (about A$200-300) for a X-over.


Dave

[jessicag]

It really depends on how big the venue is. JBL is always a good brand but very expensive. I have a duo and use 2 double 18's and 2 double 15's with a seperate horn. If i am playing a very very small venue i just use the 2 double 15's.:p

It is a pain carrying them around, i have trouble lifting them and could not do it by myself by my partner in music is male and much stronger and seems to manage fine with them.

[voice of god]

jessicag, do you use the double18's with the 15's at a big show or do you use the 18's for big, 15 for small?

you must get a decent sound out of those suckers. which ones do you prefer, why?

[voice of god]

hey jessica, must be good having your own personal roadie hehe

[tcrant]

I use 2 peavey sp2x. Nice clean sound

[willi001]

I have 2 setups, one for smaller venue's and a full PA for big gigs..The small system is a set of SP2's and a couple of monitors. The big system is JBL bins with homemade mid speakers(15") and a set of Peavey Horns.Great thump when we need it...

[jeffL]

I too use HH with JBL loaded drivers
I use (4) 15in HH cabs (2) 18in JBL folded bass bins and (2) sound crew (JBL)
tops
although this is alot to drag around it still works well when I scale the system
back and run just a 2 way system 15in and a top
I like my sound always to sound over the top
so I don't worry about the extra work it takes
jeffl

[Raven]

I use two JBL Eon Series Speakers. Gotta lift them up on to tripods for any decent sound. That can be a pain sometimes.

[shorts]

Eat My Shorts - Melbourne Australia - Duo/Trio

We run MSR 12/horn boxes for small gigs, and add MSR 2-12 subs for larger gigs. We can double the Subs as well and use either JBL or Yamaha 15/horn boxes in parallel with the 12/horn boxes.

Amps are 2 Yamaha P4500 (one is spare at the moment or can be used when foldback is required) and one Perreaux 8000B.

We use a Behringer crossover and QuadComp after the crossover outputs so compression is seperate on subs and tops as well as stereo. Also we use a Behringer Dualfex (similer to aphex) across the whole mix.

We run 2 Sony E-12 rackmount Minidisk players, Tascam CD, Ultracurve Pro 1/3 octave, Virtualiser effects and Behringer 2004 Desk

Guitar is POD PRO direct into desk.

Regards,
Craig
shorts-@rocketmail.com

Eat My Shorts... LOUD!!! or VERY LOUD!!!

[SeamyD]

The pa we use for small medium venues ie 50 300 people for our 2 piece consists off : 1 peavey pv2000 amp, deltafex, 8 channel samick desk, 2 x 115 tls subs, 2 times old 15" peavey tops with peizo horns. The amp has a built in crossover so we link bin to bin etz. The backline consists of Trace elliot blx80 + hughes + kettner combo, md player for drums + drum machine. I think if it needs to get any bigger we will need a sound guy.

[hui4o]

BMS are the best speakers u can buy.

[Jobu]

"What are the best P.A Speakers for a duo?"

Thats kind of subjective - depends on what brands you like, your budget, size constraints and what you plan to put through the PA.

"800W single 15inch ? 2x15 inch and horn? subs?"

Wattage dont mean anything until the efficiency of the cabinet is determined. You can throw 500 watts at a nady PS115 or 50 watts at a Yorkville E358 both will produce about the same SPL. Im not a big fan of 2x15" cabs I definately prefer seperate subs. Right now for the duo Im using no subs and while the sound, IMO, is better than most other duo's in my area I want to add a sub(s) in the future to get a better low end sound and to leave more rooms in the tops for vocals.

"make your own ?"

If you dont have experience building cabs I doubt you would be able to make a good quality cab at a great price. You might save a little but your first try is probably going to result in a less than average cab. IMO you are much better off buying from a reputable manufacturer.

"buy brand name speakers?"

yeah, again from a reputable manufacturer and there are some models to definately steer clear of like JBL TR series cabs or Nady PS cabs or cabs loaded with Piezo horns, foster horns are slightly better but I wouldnt want them in my mains, maybe for monitors.

"does size matter?"

Sure it matters, but the size you want/need can be driven by many different factors. For right now I am using 12" mains only for the duo, the reason being - I cant fit 15" cabs plus the rest of my PA equipment and my guitars etc. into my 300ZX, just aint gonna happen until I get a new vehicle.

One thing I think that is often overlooked in a duo setup is at the very minumum a 31 band EQ for the mains. If you find it hard to flatten a room using a 31 band EQ then an RTA unit is a great way to cheat and flatten the room without a lot of effort.

Just my 2 cents.

[voice of god]

very interesting jobu.

I have recently got a set of Mackie 1530's and am having a little trouble tweaking the sound. I have a behringer 1832 desk.

can u tell me more about this 31 band EQ and RTA?

[Jobu]

First a few definitions:

RTA - Real Time analyzer

Used in conjunction with pink or white noise to analyze an enviroments frequency response. In other words, it will show what frequencies are being boosted or limited by an enviroment (room, speakers).

Pink Noise and White Noise

White noise is a sound that contains every frequency within the range of human hearing (generally from 20 hertz to 20 kHz) in equal amounts. Most people perceive this sound as having more high-frequency content than low, but this is not the case. This perception occurs because each successive octave has twice as many frequencies as the one preceding it. For example, from 100 Hz to 200 Hz, there are one hundred discrete frequencies. In the next octave (from 200 Hz to 400 Hz), there are two hundred frequencies.

Pink noise is a variant of white noise. Pink noise is white noise that has been filtered to reduce the volume at each octave. This is done to compensate for the increase in the number of frequencies per octave. Each octave is reduced by 6 decibels, resulting in a noise sound wave that has equal energy at every octave.


Every room you play in will effect different frequencies in different ways but by sending pink noise (a flat volume signal) through your system you can get a measurement of what frequencies are being boosted and what frequencies are being reduced. Then you apply an inverse EQ of that measurement to correct the rooms effect. In essence you are trying to get a flat response from the PA system so that no matter what room you play you will get consistent sounding results.

Im assuming a lot of people in Duo's are like me and dont have the luxury of having a soundtech. I use the RTA for each new room to try and give myself an even starting point for each room I play. Since the unit is a Digital EQ it makes my life easier when I go to play subsequent gigs, at the same place, because then I can just load the EQ settings from the previous gig.

In the end its no replacement for a great soundtech but it enables me to get much more consistent results without having to spend a few gigs tweaking the sound until I find EQ settings that sound good. The unit is not an "on the fly adjustment" type unit, the interface takes longer to navigate since it does not have sliders. But for a person like myself in the duo situation Im not really able to adjust much on the fly anyways.

I bought my unit for $299 at a time when they were selling for $399 new. Now I have heard them advertised as low as $179 which would be a good price for a 2x31 EQ alone. Then you get the RTA, Limiting, Parametric EQ, delay and noise gate and the ability to save settings on top of that. For my situation its a deal that doesnt seem like it can be beat.

[shorts]

Folks,

The unit I think you are referring to is the Behringer Ultracurve which is a dual 1/3 octave soft eq and has built in Spectrum Analyser. (You need the reference mic too)

I have one of these that replaced an Alesis MEQ230. I found just changing EQs cleaned my sound up using the same EQ settings.

Jobu you might want to remember that this is an international board so you might want to specify currencies, like US$xxx
or AUS$xxx. When the exchange rate is almost double (AUS$1 = US$0.56) it can lead to confusion over prices of units..

:)

Shorts

[Jobu]

Yeah the full model name is Ultra-Curve PRO DSP8024

I use my Beta 58 vocal mic for a "reference mic". Thats another nice feature of the DSP8024 - you can apply an inverse EQ of any mic as long as you know its frequency response. I simply went to Shures website and looked up the frequency response of the Beta 58 then input that into the DSP8024 and inversed the EQ.

The Alesis and DOD EQ's do more to hurt your sound than help, IMO.

I usually try to to remember to list a price in US dollars but sometimes I forget, I'll have to edit my profile so that it shows my location as USA so if I forget in the future people can "assume" I mean US dollars.

[shorts]

Jobu.

I got the reference mic because I could get it real cheap. I have also seen reviews of the unit where someone has gone thru and replaced all the capacitors in it to improve the sound quality. A bit over the top IMO but nonetheless interesting... will try and find that site again..

Shorts

[lostdave]

Shorts,
How do you find the ultracurve??
My MEQ-230 went BANG the other night and I need to replace it in the not to distant future i am using a pai of *cringe* phonic 31 Bands that I had lying around in the meantime.

what sort of $A did u pay??

Dave

[shorts]

Dave,

Well I like the Ultracurve. I cant remember what I paid for it but I went thru Music Junction (now Billy Hydes) in Blackburn and they will do a good price for you if you are in Melbourne.

I think the sound became a lot cleaner with the Ultracurve and it is relatively easy to edit on the fly and also stereo link the channels.

On the other hand if you want an MEQ230 mine is sitting in my bedroom gathering dust...

Shorts (Craig)

[lostdave]

I did some ringing around yesterday...

the ultracurve A$350 inc gst
and the mic A$75

I remember the last time I looked at these they were about A$800-1000(from memory)......so it looks like I may have found a new Eq :D


this is why I love this place ;)


Dave

[chriscc]

something noone has mentioned is the size of horn.i have peavey sp5's which work great ($500 each canadian)and have a 1 inch horn and i know now i should have gone with a two inch horn.just has more room for the vocals,crispier