Phil Starr

First of all I'm going to say there are a lot of details to do with phase issues and a whole lot of other thngs involved in designing a really good crossover. Something that 'works' is simple enough and you can design a crossover using theory and software but speakers are far from straight resistive loads and neither are they flat response so combining two without a lot of distortion at the crossover is tough without a lot of experience and good measuring gear. That's not to discourage you or anyone from using a generic crossover but just be realistic about the possibilities. Having said that you can have a great sounding instrument speaker that falls short of perfection. However the BC 112T Mk3 has a really well developed crossover so don't dismiss it as a fully worked out design. You can change teh shape of the box to fit your alcove so long as you keep the volume of the box the same On the other hand it's quite right that the top frequencies above 8kHz aren't really important for bass and won't actually be there art audible levels in the output of a bass pickup. Though even a 4" driver will be beaming at 2kHz so a well designed horn will give you better off axis response. I've been experimenting at home with a 6" driver and a 12" bass driver using DSP for the crossover and found that a 200Hz crossover worked well and gave a remarkably smooth sound. Using a small cone driver to cover all of the mid-range means that these frequencies won't be beaming and a smaller lighter cone is more able to track the mids accurately. Our ears are most sensitive in the 1-3kHz range so moving the crossover out of that region is really helpful. Having nothing above the pass band of a bass pickup is just not having something you will ever use. The tests I've been doing have just been proof of concept, there aren't many reasonably priced midrange drivers available off the shelf. 6" is too big really and I've bought 4x3" drivers for the next stage of development. These little drivers don't have the power handling or sensitivity to achieve the right volumes on their own. There's nothin new in all of this, it's been understood since the 1930's and probably earlier. Ideally you'd split up the entire audio range into 4 or 5 bands but passive crossovers are difficult to design and always bring in some distortion. Fortunately for bass the pickup itself acts as an inductor and cuts all the high frequencies depending mainly upon how many windings there are in the coils. The strings of course don't vibrate well at high frequencies so there is much top to start with. So it's relatively easy to reduce the crossover point for a compression driver and horn to around the 2kHz point without crazy expense and minimise crossover distortion to get great radiation control of the upper frequencies, which is what @stevie has done with the BC112T and his LFSys designs. It's also possible to crossover at much lower frequencies and get better dispersal at sub 2kHz frequencies and let a single driver or array of drivers cover the whole mid range but with significant beaming above 4kHz which is what Genzler have done in their bass arrays. You'll have to design your own crossover for that and probably need to wind your own coils as high inductance/high power coils aren't widely available off the shelf.

Well done, that's a perfectly valid way of getting some control though long term if you are handy with a soldering iron using a stereo /TRS jack in the insert will give you a more reliable connection. You'd need a short lead with two 'stereo' jacks with the ring of one connected to the tip of the other. A half inserted plug is going to be susceptible to knocking too far in or coming out and breaking the contact. Another way of splitting the signal would be to use something like the Behringer di120 before the mixer. The other problem is that you only have the mixer's tone controls so eq options are limited. I've got a SansAmp where the feed is post eq so I could take the XLR to FOH and the jack out to the in-ears channel so that would be another option which gives you more tonal control of the in-ears sound. I've got a BD121 here too I can check if that works the same way if you want.

Thanks for the offer, at some stage I want to update all the old designs with a standard format to make it easier for people to build without having to trawl all through the old threads. I may get back to you

I bought my ART310's as floor monitors, I'd previously been using some old passive Yamahas and Wharfedale Titans and even tried some Behringer monitors. Switching to the 310s gave me a whole ot more headroom before feedback, really dramatically so. All of the things I tried gave way more output than you need from a floor monitor only 2m away from you so gain before feedback was the limiting factor always. The improvement was just because of the smoother frequency response. You'll need to cut the bass a little if you put bass through as they are designed to be flat response on poles radiating 360 deg. On the floor with 180 deg radiation the bass is raised to uncomfortable levels. I shelve out the bass below 120-150 Hz and use a 50Hz filter on mine as i have fully parametric controls on my mixer but just rolling off the bass with a conventional tone control worked with my old analogue mixer Good luck in the studio

With the 310's you'd have two 10's and the Evox uses a 12" sub so you'd expect two Evox to work better at really high volumes, probably more important for the drums than bass. On the other hand the nicest bass sound I've ever had is through my 310's on poles. I can't really say how the other differences would pan out without actually listening to them.

Yeah I've noticed that I had a quick look on Marketplace for the Evox 8, theres a few around but the prices! I'm about to sell on a load of stuff and looking to see what the going rate is, everything has gone up in price in line with the new prices in the shops and maybe a bit more. I almost feel guilty in making a profit on everything but it's all going back out on better gear and that has gone up too so it's really just inflation I suppose. I sold my Wharfedale Titans just over a year ago for £300 and the price now is £450 and upwards for good used ones. Did you see my post about the RCF ART310 offer at Thomann. Under £300 and rated by RCF at 127db max the same as your Evox 8. I've used mine as backline with no problems and as PA in a lot of Somerset's pubs. My advice would be to take your time and buy once though, hang out for the speaker of your choice, I made do for years with whatever I could buy cheap, out of necessity at first but habit later on, then I decided to buy what I saw as the 'perfect' system for any band I was likely to play with and waited until things came up at a price I could just stretch to. I bought things one or two pieces at a time and sold most of my old stuff as I went. It took a couple of years to complete the upgrade but I have just what I need, the band sounds better and I didn't waste money on stuff that was OK but needed upgrading later.

It's worth knowing that the KZ10's have a 10db midrange cut built into their sound so you probably need to be fairly enthusiastic with the eq to get the same sound as the audience are hearing From their website

Thanks, I'll PM you. Oh you are Somerset based, whereabouts? That could be quite convenient.

I did wonder if a second Evox 8 might be the answer since you know you like them anyway. You'll know exactly what you are getting which is always an issue. Depending upon people like us to describe sound is never as good as actually hearing what you are about to buy. I wasn't sure tht this would fit into your £500 budget though. Your TS212's should have some value though and there are used Evox 8's beginning to appear on the used market.

Indeed Mms is quoted as the same so there can't be much difference if any in the cone.

Across the range of Fane Sovereign speakers the Pro version is just the version with a cast chassis. The cast chassis is thicker and probably slightly more rigid than the pressed steel chassis and may help dissipate a little more heat but I've never had a failure due to the chassis so for me the difference is academic. Ther is a peak in response between the pro and the non-pro version (well spotted @stevie) however the standard pressed steel frame is the one we've tested and auditioned and that rising response will add a little brightness to the sound with a bass. It was one of the things that attracted me to the speaker and the peak in response is fairly broad and flat compared with a more harsh cone breakup that other speakers show. I'm not sure if the peak is a function of the basket/frame or of some sort of treatment of the cone itself. I'd choose the pro if i was adding a tweeter but this design uses the cheaper model. They'll both work in the same cab though so you can make your own choice

OK BA21 is Yeovil? that's just down the road from Chard so we are easy driving distance. Do you want to come over sometime and have a session comparing gear at mine?

Oh god he isn't using a shure PG58 is he? They really are dull and he'd be better of with a Behringer. Lot's of vocal mics have frequency peaks in the kHz regions which brighten and lift the vocals, the result is that some mics suit some people and not others. A vocalist needs to find 'their' mic much more than we need to find 'our' bass or our strings and then cherish it and learn all the mics foibles. You'd never believe that from how casually some of them treat their mic., don't singers suffer from GAS? We were getting some bass feedback last weekend every time the singer moved her mic into a particular spot where there was a resonance/standing wave. It's reall difficult to watch what they all do at once sometimes. Anyway a change of mic could emphasise different aspects of his voice, whether he is susceptible to talking about it of course is another matter. Maybe it's time to start sharing You Tube videos with the band It does sound like you know what you are doing though, working systematically through the individual problems.

Ok it was the day after tomorrow The hold up has been because the Basschatter who does the drawings for me has a load of work pressures and not been able to get them back to me. I in turn have been busywith family stuff plus a new band and not really pulled my finger out as a result, maybe that's just an excuse for my inactivity though. On the plus side a few people have said via pm they want to build this and post their build diaries so the pressure to get on with it is building. So, first of all can anyone turn my pencil and paper designs into something that looks like the drawings we have for the other speakers? Something that looks like this would be perfect

It's so tough to choose based upon specs as fundamentally they all lie about them, even the 'good' firms making great kit. Basically the Yamaha/QSC/RCF/JBL/EV 10's are pretty much all roughly equally capable when it comes to sound output simply because of the physical limitations of what you can do with a 10" speaker which is going to be crossed over at around 2-3KHz. Watts aren't unimportant but advertised watts just can't be trusted. Totally agree though about the comparison, I've tried the 12's against each other and there really is very little difference between QSC, Yamaha and RCF in the models I tried.

Just noticed the 310 is back, and on special offer at Thomann. We've been chatting about small PA speakers on a few threads and I have a pair I use a lot. Unfortunately RCF discontinued them as they were at a price for value point which made them a great buy. However Thomann appear to have either bought up all the old stock or commissioned a new production run for their 70th anniversary promotions and are promising to sell them for £289 for a year. They were a bargain at £330 so this looks good to me, I'm tempted to buy a backup pair but I'm supposed to be selling not buying For any who don't know these are really neutral sounding cabs, beautifully flat across the crossover point so vocals are lovely and they make great floor monitors; the absence of frequency peaks means you can push them to really high levels without feedback issues. I use mine as PA with a duo (no back line and bass and programmed drums going direct to PA) and recently at a full gig with bass and drums handled by adding a sub. I have a second pair I use as floor monitors. If you want a general workhorse cab that sounds great, doesn't break the bank and is compact to transport and at 12kg not the heaviest load these are probably as good as you are going to get for under £300 at the moment IMO. https://www.thomann.de/gb/rcf_art_310_a_mk_iv.htm

Hi John. Absolutely. I've got a sub here you can borrow to test it out. I know you still have the Wharfedale Titans I sold you so you can try it out at your next rehearsal/gig.

Hiya, the subs were in front of us, the 'stage' was a raised part of the bar in an old coaching inn, about 120-150cm above the rest of the bar up a few steps on what an estate agent would call a mezzanine but which was the main route to the toilets So the sub was on the floor belowand in front of stage right and directly below said guitarist. Like I said if he had put his in-ears in properly it wouldn't have been a problem. If I stick with this system I'll use the sub in place of one of the stands under on of the tops with the other top on a speaker stand. Positioning will probably be dictated by placing the most vulnerable speaker on the sub. I've not had a stand come crashing down on a drunk yet but it always seems an accident waiting to happen.

Well the 932's have a really good compression driver and that helps the vocals a lot. Really nice speakers. The 910's are not something I've heard yet but given they are two steps up from my 310's and the consistency of RCF at the moment I would imagine they are very capable. I use the 310's for my duo with programmed drum tracks for my duo and they have done a great job so far including an outdoor garden event last year. Although you'll miss the horn driver the smaller diameter mid/bass drivers allow a higher frequency crossover so you retain a great vocal sound. If you use a sub you are going to be able to get some pretty significant sound levels even with bass and drums going through the PA.

I wasn't sure where to put this but I remember @Al Krow speculating about whether you could put a full backline through something as compact as a couple of 10's. Well last night on a mad impulse we did a gig leaving my usual PA (couple of RCF 745's) behind. The pub 'stage' we were playing is really deep and narrow and there is a huge RSJ reducing the ceiling height just where you would want to put the speakers. Two huge 15's would mean guitarist and I would effectively be hidden from the audience so I took a couple of RCF310's which I only normally use with my duo. Crucially I took a sub. So the set up was the 310's, a really old Wharfedale EVP15" compact active sub, an RCF M18 digital mixer, eDrums, bass, guitar, 3 vox fully mixed and everyone with in-ears. The first thing was this was really loud, the pub isn't huge but it was packed with maybe 100 people in two awkward rooms. We had so much headroom left. The drums sounded magnificent with this set up, lovely splashy cymbals, crisp kick drum sound and the floor toms were seismic. I won't pretend we didn't have problems, we didn't have much time to set up and the sub was in a corner and I couldn't really get to it to keep making fine adjustments in a crowded pub, it was probably too loud compared with the tops and I ended up trimming the bottom octave on the graphic by around 5db we were getting a bit of bass resonance on stage too and our guitarist who doesn't sort his in-ears properly was complaining of too much bass. That is the issue with subs, they really do swamp the stage area if they are too close. although theoretically they can go anywhere practical considerations mean placement is an issue. In an ideal world I'd have set up the balance between the sub and tops at a rehearsal but sometimes you have to improvise. Interestingly the set up was no more difficult than usual. The sub weighs a ton (somewhere between 30-40kg in reality) I could have used a trolley but I picked it up. The sub and two 10's took up less space in the car than the two 15" tops. In the pub the footprint of the sub is less than the speaker stand and lifting the two 10's onto their poles was a breeze compared with hefting up the two 15's. 19kg is a lot of speaker to lift above your head. Running the long cables out to the sub then on to the tops somehow seemed tidier than two long cables to either side of the stage, certainly no more difficult. Drums certailnly benefitted from the subs, vocal quality from the RCF 310's has always been fine, integration of the horn and 10" speaekr has been done well. The 4" horn drive means the 745's are outstanding for vocals so there might have been a bit of a loss there but I'd like to A/B the two systems. It wsn't shabby last night. the bar staff said it sounded 'exceptional' and it's been a regular music pub for 25 years+ so I'm happy with that. So a couple of 10's with a sub? Is it a viable system? I would say so absolutely. The ART310's are rated as 127db max (knock off 6db for over claiming) as opposed to 133db (same over-claiming) for the 15's but you really can push the 310's with the subs removing the bass. The sub was filling the room with bass and really not working hard, a single sub would fill most of the pubs in the country for our brand of pop-rock covers band so yes I think this set up would blow most of the stick and a sub line systems out of the water both for sound and volume and be a good match for most single point source 1x12+horn cabs. I note that the RCF ART708 8" cab also claims 127db so you could even go 8" plus a sub. Other brands are available of course.

Like all these things you have to isolate one thing at a time and solve that problem, so forgive me if I ask stupid questions. I think you are saying that you have plenty of gain left and other instruments and vocals are loud enough through the PA just not the lead vocal and sax, and that you can't turn them up because of feedback issues. Logically that says your PA is probably loud enough and clear enough elsewhere and the problem is with the mics or possibly with the musicians and the way they are using the mics. You need to deal with them separately. Sax first: difficult things to mic up. What mic are you using and how is it fixed to the sax? Feedback issues are usually to do with setting off resonances and occur at particular frequencies, you should be able to use the x18 to identify the frequencies and a bit of eq might give you more gain. The mouth of a horn is quite a resonant space and moving the mic might well shift the resonances or even reduce them. What sort of quality is the mic? Anyway I suggest you go onto YouTube and have a look for some tutorials on Sax, this might be a start Then your vocalist, you say they sound muffled? First of all what mic are they using? Shure SM58? Is it genuine? There are a lot of fakes out there and even more clones. If the drummer's mic is clear and the vocalists isn't then get them to swap for a few minutes at a rehearsal. If the drummer goes muffled and the vocalist clear then you know what the proble is and a new mic is in order. If not then it's the vocalist at fault. A whole heap of issues are possible. I've seen vocalists off axis singing with the mic pointing at the side of their mouth or even at their cheeks. i've seen mics held at a steep angle to the mouth so they are singing into the side of the mic which will lose the higher frequencies. They cover the back of the mic capsule with their hands touching the rear of the grille or even draping their finger over it to look cool. Putting your hand anywhere near the grille is a recipe for feedback and of course it's pretty hard to really get on top of the mic, 2cm is too far away for most vocal mics. Halving the distance to 1cm gives you a 6db gain and reduction in feedback halve again to 0.5cm and its 12db. Again You Tube has loads of videos on mic technique. You don't say if the Altos are TS212's or TX212's, the old TS's are better but you can test out any speaker with a good quality recording which at least should show up any faults in the speakers. Finally how have you equalised the PA, just a thought but I've seen so many people start with a smiley face eq with treble and bass boosted. That's guaranteed to push the vocal range (mids) right back and give you feedback issues. So hang on to your £500 for a while and be really clear what the issue is before you spend, it might not be your speakers.

Gigging tonight, back tomorrow

I don't want a thread de-rail or a big discussion here but I'm just a little uncomfortable about the direction this might be headed. BassChat thrives because of the generally good natured ethos of debate here. We don't discuss politics or religion and I've had my knuckles rapped for the former Maybe would be better steering away from discussing national stereotypes? I love getting comments from @agedhorse who is a person of great knowledge and experience. He frequently helps out with individual advice to owners of gear he has designed or had an association with. His insights into what Gibson are attempting or indeed any information about how things look from his part of the industry are always fascinating and worth reading. I would love it if more industry insiders engage with us in this way. Often in the past this has been from bassists who happen to work in the industry and their insights are always interesting and add to our general knowledge of all things bass. Obviously they are a little constrained in what they can say and they are unlikely to criticise their own products or employers My own nationalism is pretty limited, I feel shame about quite a lot of England's past and pride about other bits but I'm really happy to see increasing numbers of people from around the world joining BassChat and I'm proud that we make them welcome. Let's all be friends here.

Not being unhelpful I hope but amp sleeves aren't too difficult to build, certainly simpler than a speaker cab, a bass or indeed the innards. That all depends of course on what level of finish and /or authenticity you want to achieve. Unless you can find a retired carpenter or enthusiatic hobbyist I don't think commisioning someone is going to be cheap either. Certainly in the UK carpenters are in short supply and frequently you can wait longer to secure a chippie than it takes to get a GP appointment. Ireland might be better for both of course. Last time I thought about employing a carpenter mates rates/cash jobs were £140 a day and it'sgoing to take more than a day to build an amp sleeve and finish it as a one off job. Most carpenters are going to be specialists and their workshops set up for whatever is making them most money. Few of them will have ever used vinyl coverings so finding someone will be a matter of good luck or a lot of searching to find the right craftsman. It might be worth asking over in the build diaries forum is anyone is prepared to do it or who knows of a cabinet builder.

That's interesting, a run of gigs in pokey pubs has meant I've gone wired recently with the P2 but the sound was such that I tried it at home connecting my in-ears straight to the desk and then through the P2 which I felt did downgrade the sound. I'd assumed the Xvive would be worse with more to go wrong but an improvement in sound would be welcome if that is possible