Compact budget PA set-up to put bass through (without back-line).

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

3 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

The moral of the story is don't believe the store guys or You Tubers.

+1. If there is a problem with column arrays it's that most of them are very overpriced for what you get.

Quote

The column length of the.. umm column gives the lowest wavelength that will beam. So therefore if all your power above (say) 2k is being beamed horizintally by the column

The length of the array only affects dispersion on the vertical plane. It has no effect on the dispersion on the horizontal plane. A major benefit of a line array that uses multiple smaller woofers rather than one or two larger woofers is that having smaller cones midrange dispersion is wider. That being the case tweeters can be crossed over to at a higher frequency, reducing the cost of both the tweeters and the crossover. From an engineering standpoint there are no downsides to column arrays when they're properly designed and constructed. Their issue, besides price, is that not many are. A secondary problem with respect to using them for PA is when the array is mounted above a sub. Good placement of mains and good placement of subs usually requires that they don't share the same footprint.

[Woodinblack]

10 minutes ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

The length of the array only affects dispersion on the vertical plane. It has no effect on the dispersion on the horizontal plane.

 

 

Indeed - so surely that means the length of the array effects the dispersion of the array in general, as below the given frequency, the dispersion of the vertical plane means that more power is lost going up and down which is not where you want it, compared to the higher frequencies that aren't doing that.

 

10 minutes ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

A secondary problem with respect to using them for PA is when the array is mounted above a sub. Good placement of mains and good placement of subs usually requires that they don't share the same footprint.

 

Which I would say for commercial items, they all do (unless you mean an additional sub rather than just what thye are sitting on).

 

Although I did notice that you can take the columns off the MAUI ones, and bolt them to something, not that that is practical in a gig.

And I suppose the Bose are just the pole and apart from the compact, the subs are separate.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

24 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

Indeed - so surely that means the length of the array effects the dispersion of the array in general, as below the given frequency, the dispersion of the vertical plane means that more power is lost going up and down which is not where you want it, compared to the higher frequencies that aren't doing that.

With the size of the arrays used in club situations that's not a concern. But even relatively short arrays do have higher intelligibility than point sources, because high frequency early reflections off the floor and ceiling are reduced. Those early reflections result in poor sound quality.

With large arrays the inverse square law no longer applies to frequencies where the array is at least three wavelengths high. Instead of losing output at a rate of 6dB per doubling of distance from the source they lose output at a rate of 3dB per doubling of distance. This greatly improves intelligibility at longer distances, as higher frequencies don't carry as far as lower frequencies due to their absorption by the air molecules that they pass through.

This brings up an important point. Bose for one, and I'm sure others as well, touts this effect, which is known as the near field condition. The Bose array is high enough for upper frequencies to be in the near field. However, distance that the near field extends from the array is also dependent on the array height. These club size arrays are far too short for the near field to extend more than a few meters out, where it then transitions back to far field and the inverse square law again applies.

[Woodinblack]

Understood.

So you think that at the moment, none of them are really worthwhile?

 

TBH, that is what the youtube guy was saying for this sort of application.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

I don't know if any of them are worthwhile, but then I'm not shopping for speakers myself. Mine are, however. 😉

From what I've seen most of them use tiny midbass drivers with no tweeters.  For pro applications I wouldn't use smaller than six inch midbasses other than for a coffee house acoustic gig, and tweeters are not optional, unless you're sure your audience can't hear above 8kHz.

 

[Woodinblack]

The MAUI 28 was 2 x 8" mid bass, in the bass unit and 16 x 3" drivers in the top and then 2 X 1" tweeters at the top.

So quite a few speakers. I guess if you are charging by speaker it works out pretty good value.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

That's an example of a system that IMO makes no sense. Three inch drivers are too small to reach down to 100Hz to cross over to the sub, and if you're going to have a line array of midranges there should also be a line array of tweeters. As for 'Powerful bass reproduction with 2 x 8" Woofers', in a living room that would be marginal. In a club? No way.

[Al Krow]

4 hours ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

That's an example of a system that IMO makes no sense. Three inch drivers are too small to reach down to 100Hz to cross over to the sub, and if you're going to have a line array of midranges there should also be a line array of tweeters. As for 'Powerful bass reproduction with 2 x 8" Woofers', in a living room that would be marginal. In a club? No way.

Thanks Bill. 

 

What's your view / recommendation of a decent set up for powerful bass reproduction then? 

[warwickhunt]

I own a small PA for use with an acoustic duo/trio and I'm going to give it a run out stacked as shown.  BTW this was stacked randomly and not the way that I use it on a regular gig (the Headrush are FOH, the Alto as a monitor or single PA speaker for very small venues).  The speakers are manufactured in such a way that when stacked they angle up/back about 5 degrees which should help with dispersion.  I'll be interested to see how this 5ft mini line array deals with my bass as well: 1x10" 2x8" and 6000w peak 3000w rms but in reality maybe 900w combined.    Oh and the total rig cost £400 used.

 

 

 

[Woodinblack]

44 minutes ago, warwickhunt said:

  I'll be interested to see how this 5ft mini line array deals with my bass as well: 1x10" 2x8" and 6000w peak 3000w rms but in reality maybe 900w combined.    Oh and the total rig cost £400 used.

 

 

Yes, alto are a bit creative with their power statements!

[warwickhunt]

10 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

Yes, alto are a bit creative with their power statements!

 

Purely anecdotal and based on unscientific lugs, I've estimated the the 2000/1000w rating is akin to most 300w amps/combos/active PA cabs I've heard or owned.  They may well be able to claim 1000w rms at a frequency of their choosing under certain settings but it is pretty much nonsense.  Saying all of that, to be able to get a mini line array at these sort of prices (used) is quite impressive and though the quality of sound is never going to worry a quality system, it is easily good enough for most applications where non-pro users will be playing to the average listener.  

[Woodinblack]

I think what would probably work out better for me is to either upgrade the Alto 212s to something a bit more upmarket but basically the same size / shape, or to just get over it and accept it is good enough for what it does and worry about something else!

[Phil Starr]

I think you can tell that for bands this is an immature technology; just by the sheer range of differing approaches. I was listening to an RCF demo on Monday and that one had four 10" drivers in the column plus horn and 15" subs. it sounded fabulous but was around £6k. This if you are going all the way from 2" drivers to 10" then you are having vastly different engineering decisions and results.

 

I'm really attracted by some of the theoretical advantages of this sort of approach, @stevie and I were discussing a bass speaker design along these lines before Genzler brought out their version. One thing we haven't mentioned as an advantage is that you can cross over much lower than you have to with most compression drivers in the typical 12/15 plus horn PA cab. Human hearing is most sensitive in the 1-4kHz range so having a crossover away from the frequencies we are most discriminating in is a definite gain.

 

I think where we are at these systems have great potential and they look good, save the need to lift a heavy speaker onto a pole, offer a simple set up and can offer superb sound in a convenient package. However the cheaper systems are struggling to get to high sound levels and pound for pound you still get higher sound levels out of a conventional two way speaker. I've looked at these really hard recently for my own use and was really tempted by the Evox but to get the sort of sound levels which would cover all our possible gigs that meant the Evox 12. I've gigged with a pair of Maui's and they sound good but can't be pushed. That's £3500 for a pair of Evox 12's. Thomann are offering the ART 710 plus 705subs as a package for £2500 and would have a similar performance. In the end I picked up a couple of used  ART 745's which was my first choice before I started looking. I think it's fair to say that for like for like performance there's probably a 30%ish increased cost  in going for the columns.

 

I guess it still depends upon matching your kit to your needs.

 

[Phil Starr]

1 hour ago, Woodinblack said:

I think what would probably work out better for me is to either upgrade the Alto 212s to something a bit more upmarket but basically the same size / shape, or to just get over it and accept it is good enough for what it does and worry about something else!

Probably the best advice you have had

 

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

5 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Thanks Bill. 

 

What's your view / recommendation of a decent set up for powerful bass reproduction then? 

I don't see the need for a sub plus line array top for electric bass. Standard cabs work just fine, so long as if you do have more than one driver or more than one cab that the drivers are vertically stacked, which, from a technical standpoint, is a line array.

[Chienmortbb]

10 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

 

Yes, alto are a bit creative with their power statements!

Seems like everyone is eg Mackie Thumps quoted at 1000w using a class D chip that the maker rates at 450W (probably about 300W)

Edited July 1, 2022 by Chienmortbb

[Al Krow]

One mounted + one floor PA speaker set up for smaller venues

 

Update from last night's gig. Was an awkward to get S London gig for me, so it was great to be able to jump on a tube and take 45 mins with literally just my bass and lead, rather than a 1.5 hour rush hour drive across town.  Drummers in both my bands have compact PAs now to take to such gigs - and they obviously need to be driving anyway with their drums. Last night we had two, relatively budget, Proel 600W 15" tops.

 

Managed to persuade my (slightly reluctant, haha!) bandmates to give some of the tips from earlier in this thread a try out and it worked an absolute treat. We put bass, kick drum and 2 mics through the PA, dep guitarist had backline. 

 

Set up was as follows:

• One PA speaker on pole in standard set up
• Second PA speaker on floor next to drums - to enhance the bass by making use of floor sonic reinforcement, and to provide stage monitoring

 

End result:

- really happy with overall sound and mix;

- all of us able to hear each other without any separate stage monitor or IEMs;

- no feedback issues, even when Ami (our lead vox) wandered off into the crowd with her wireless mic.

 

Second time we've now used this set up for pub gigs, last night's was a larger venue than first time round but still worked really well.

 

Edited July 2, 2022 by Al Krow

[krispn]

Good to hear that there’s a handy work around 👍🏼

[Al Krow]

No PA no problem? The bass rig's revenge!

 

I'm still in between PAs, so for gigs these are currently being supplied by the respective drummers in my two covers bands, but I'll have to fess really enjoying not being the band roadie - so maybe that partly explains my tardiness in getting the cheque book out.

 

Well best laid plans and all that: we had a bit of an "emergency" with our drummer falling ill and therefore no PA over the weekend, so I ended up using my bass rig as a makeshift PA for a couple of gigs. We managed to get a dep drummer in for Sat's function gig; and the singer in my other band did a solo set for the London 10K on Sunday morning in place of the full band. I used two bass cabs for the full band gig and just a single Berg 212 for the solo gig, powered on both occasions by my DG M900 amp. Worked just fine! Decent amplification seems to do what it says on the tin and provides...decent amplification. Yeah, I accept that my bass rig probably costs as much as many PAs, but it's good to know that it can be put to wider use.

 

Clip from Sunday's solo set (please excuse the noisy generator in the background): Louise Anderson (@singoutlou) 

 

Comment from singer was that she felt her lows came through noticeably better whereas she felt that they were often lost with our PAs. The fact she noticed that got my attention, but I guess not surprising that a bass rig does particularly well at dealing with low end stuff! As for dealing with backing tracks it does the job very nicely. 

[Woodinblack]

29 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

I'm still in between PAs, so for gigs these are currently being supplied by the respective drummers in my two covers bands, but I'll have to fess really enjoying not being the band roadie - so maybe that partly explains my tardiness in getting the cheque book out.

 

There is an element of that that would be nice, but it depends if you can trust anyone else to do it!

 

29 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Worked just fine! Decent amplification seems to do what it says on the tin and provides...decent amplification. Yeah, I accept that my bass rig probably costs as much as many PAs, but it's good to know that it can be put to wider use.

 

When we did the cab shootout, we used just a normal track and my BC112 cab provided the clearest / fullest range. In fact, apart from the markbass, they all did pretty well with just general music.

 

In other news, I bought a RCF Evox 8 the other day on ebay. Having decided I wasn't going down that route it turned up on ebay 15 miles from here pretty cheap, I made a low offer and it was accepted. It was actually listed as a J8, but it clearly wasn't, it is made of wood. Sounds ok in the garden, just need a practice to test it out on

[fleabag]

I went for the Yamaha Stagepas 1k and bought 2 of them.  They're  £1700 from Thomann or  £1900 from Andertons,   for 2

 

I guess these are a compromise, since the tops sit in the sub casing.  There's connectors inside the top of the 12" sub, and the spacers  ( bottom and middle of towers are spacers with electrical connectors ) and of course the very top bit has all 10  1.5"  drivers plus the connectors to the spacer below it.

 

The top tower can sit direct on the sub, on one spacer , or on both spacers, depending on the height one wants the tops to fire at.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 13, 2022 by fleabag

[Al Krow]

10 hours ago, fleabag said:

I went for the Yamaha Stagepas 1k and bought 2 of them.  They're  £1700 from Thomann or  £1900 from Andertons,   for 2

 

I guess these are a compromise, since the tops sit in the sub casing.  There's connectors inside the top of the 12" sub, and the spacers  ( bottom and middle of towers are spacers with electrical connectors ) and of course the very top bit has all 10  1.5"  drivers plus the connectors to the spacer below it.

 

The top tower can sit direct on the sub, on one spacer , or on both spacers, depending on the height one wants the tops to fire at.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This sounds impressive! May need to revisit my decision to get RCF 932As. Any clips of your band using this live?

[fleabag]

Sorry Al, no live stuff.

Our rhyth git and vocalist has a humungus gaff in the country and a monster lounge, so we have fired it up with my bass and a backing drum kit, and vox, and it was damn impressive.  We've been used to an old style PA  ( heavy cabs, heavy amp etc )

 

As Fitzy said, its probably compromised for large auditorium gigs, but club / pub stuff, no probs

[fleabag]

I wonder what on earth a J curve line array is. Did Yamaha invent this as marketing BS and it means nowt. ?

 

Well, we will know if Fitzy laughs at it, whether it's a real thing or not 

 

 

@Bill Fitzmaurice   ?

[Jack]

2 hours ago, fleabag said:

I wonder what on earth a J curve line array is. Did Yamaha invent this as marketing BS and it means nowt. ?

 

Well, we will know if Fitzy laughs at it, whether it's a real thing or not 

 

 

@Bill Fitzmaurice   ?

Clearly it's a way to deliver clear, high quality sound consistently over longer distances, projecting uniform, high-quality sound from the front to the rear of the audience.