The Box PA Speakers

[Stub Mandrel]

19 minutes ago, BobBracker2222 said:

I was told if its unbalanced to unbalanced it should be OK but not unbalanced to balanced

Do you think I would get a better signal if I went from my mixer from 1/4" TRS to XLR to the speaker rather then 1/4" TRS from my mixer to 1/4" TRS to the speakers?

Your best using a connector that's the same at each end. For low impedance, buffered signals from mixer to active speaker what matters most if the quality of the cable, so buy low noise ones that won't clack every time you stand on one..

[BassBunny]

2 hours ago, BobBracker2222 said:

unfortunately its a budget mixer
https://www.gear4music.com/PA-DJ-and-Lighting/Behringer-XENYX-1002FX-Mixer/2A7

Do you think XLR is better then 1/4" for audio quality or are the fitting just much stronger and will last longer?

That mixer has only got 1/4'' TRS Jack, Unbalanced Out's, (Main Out L/R), so you may as well just go Jack-Jack.

[paul_c2]

On 25/05/2019 at 16:43, BobBracker2222 said:

So if I bough a pair of these then, do you think it would be OK for a smallish gig?
https://www.thomann.de/gb/the_box_pa_12_dsp.htm

Hopefully someone will call on hear later that has had personal experiences with "The box speakers"
Wondering what they will sound like

Regarding what power you need for a venue, as a rough guide, and it depends on genre:

Jazz 1-2W/seat
Rock 5-10W/seat

Where 'seat' is the number of seats in venue. Eg for a 400 seater venue, plan for 2000-4000W of amplification for a rock band.

[BobBracker2222]

40 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Your best using a connector that's the same at each end. For low impedance, buffered signals from mixer to active speaker what matters most if the quality of the cable, so buy low noise ones that won't clack every time you stand on one..

I had a look at all the brands Thomman sell for cables, quite a few and differ in price. I think the first one "fun gereration" is what they use on there bundle packages

https://www.thomann.de/gb/fun_generation_ins_10.htm

https://www.thomann.de/gb/the_sssnake_sk3613_kabel.htm

https://www.thomann.de/gb/instrument_cables.html?pg=3&ls=25

https://www.thomann.de/gb/pro_snake_tpi_6.htm

https://www.thomann.de/gb/sommer_cable_the_spirit_xxl_instr_30.htm

https://www.thomann.de/gb/cordial_cai5bk_instrumentenkabel.htm

https://www.thomann.de/gb/fender_prof._cable_tweed_red_45m.htm

https://www.thomann.de/gb/monster_cable_classic_instrument_6_ww.htm

[BobBracker2222]

27 minutes ago, paul_c2 said:

Regarding what power you need for a venue, as a rough guide, and it depends on genre:

Jazz 1-2W/seat
Rock 5-10W/seat

Where 'seat' is the number of seats in venue. Eg for a 400 seater venue, plan for 2000-4000W of amplification for a rock band.

Is that wattage per speaker or total wattage? I don't think wattage is a good guide because brands like Yamaha are much more efficient then there budget cheaper brands like "the box" brand we are talking about. Always go on decibels

[paul_c2]

Its a rough guide. What's the guideline with decibels?

 

[Stub Mandrel]

On the cables, the 'snake' ones get pretty poor reviews as being noisy.

The 'fun' ones are probably OK.

My most recent ones are Stagg from Normans and they are cheap but good, no nasty noises.

 

[BobBracker2222]

24 minutes ago, paul_c2 said:

Its a rough guide. What's the guideline with decibels?

 

I don't know, I wish there was some kind of buyers guide out there with mathematical equations. But from what I have researched I'm going to aim for 125 decibels and have 2 speakers

[BobBracker2222]

11 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

On the cables, the 'snake' ones get pretty poor reviews as being noisy.

The 'fun' ones are probably OK.

My most recent ones are Stagg from Normans and they are cheap but good, no nasty noises.

 

When I was last in Dawsons I noticed they had 2 brands of stagg, the cheaper one was in a red packet and coiled up tight. The more expensive one was in a yellow packet and was wrapped up properly in its natural coil.

I imagine they coil them tight to save on shipping costs, but wires, cables and hose pipes have a natural coil and weaken/ break/ kink if you coil them tight and are permanently like that forever.

Needless to say if you want good quality cables, never buy the ones tightly packed

[Stub Mandrel]

1 hour ago, BobBracker2222 said:

When I was last in Dawsons I noticed they had 2 brands of stagg, the cheaper one was in a red packet and coiled up tight. The more expensive one was in a yellow packet and was wrapped up properly in its natural coil.

I imagine they coil them tight to save on shipping costs, but wires, cables and hose pipes have a natural coil and weaken/ break/ kink if you coil them tight and are permanently like that forever.

Needless to say if you want good quality cables, never buy the ones tightly packed

I have these ones:

I also have piles of others, but bought a couple of these because I like right-angle plugs for some of my basses. They have really nice strain relief built in to the connectors. My favourite is an expensive one from the 90s, I bought my brother one as a well and it's still his favourite gigging lead!

[BobBracker2222]

Yer thats the beter type of the 2 types of cables, I have 2 myself

[BobBracker2222]

12 hours ago, yorks5stringer said:

Re the cable , you have 2 inputs on the back which as I said are dual (will take either xlr or jack), the other is an output which is just male xlr.

Before I go and order all of this, including the cables
Are you 100% they are a 1/4" plug input on the back of the speaker as it is very hard to see from the photo

Anyway, 2 of these cable for bough speakers
https://www.thomann.de/gb/fun_generation_ins_10.htm

And again the speakers itself (4th photo)
https://www.thomann.de/gb/the_box_pa_12_dsp.htm

 

And I'll get myself a pair of speaker stands as well https://www.thomann.de/gb/fun_generation_speaker_stand_pair.htm

Thanks

Edited May 26, 2019 by BobBracker2222

[paul_c2]

Yeah they'll all be okay together. Both my PA speakers have that style of socket and will accept a 1/4" jack (as well as XLR).

[BassBunny]

5 minutes ago, BobBracker2222 said:

Before I go and order all of this, including the cables
Are you 100% they are a 1/4" plug input on the back of the speaker as it is very hard to see from the photo

Anyway, 2 of these cable for bough speakers
https://www.thomann.de/gb/fun_generation_ins_10.htm

Yes, they are XLR/Jack combination sockets.

Assuming the leads have decent cable you should be ok as they at least have decent plugs.

[yorks5stringer]

12 minutes ago, BassBunny said:

Yes, they are XLR/Jack combination sockets.

Assuming the leads have decent cable you should be ok as they at least have decent plugs.

Just to clarify for the OP, the inner hole on a dual socket works for jacks and the outer section takes xlr. If you highlight the photo of the rear panel you can then zoom in to see the duality. However these are the inputs from your microphone etc and are best kept xlr but if the outputs on the mixer  to the speakers are jacks, then I agree, keep them all jack.

Edited May 26, 2019 by yorks5stringer

[BobBracker2222]

18 minutes ago, BassBunny said:

Assuming the leads have decent cable you should be ok as they at least have decent plugs.

The problem is the longer the lead gets, the more resistance it puts up, so I don't know if 10 meter is to long and I should just go for the 5

This is just what I purchased
Its a 10 meter 3.5mm jack extension cable that I will use on my monitor
I made sure I got a good quality one as its a little amount of signal going down the cable for a lot of length! They say its oxygen free copper so conducts electricity better
I plan to tape it to my microphone cable with insulation tape about every meter apart so to keep the wires tidy
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10M-Metre-3-5mm-Stereo-Jack-Headphone-Extension-Cable-Aux-Audio-Lead-OFC-GOLD/291289861099?epid=1662370259&hash=item43d23a8beb:g:j4YAAOSwE1tcboRN

Edited May 26, 2019 by BobBracker2222

[yorks5stringer]

1 hour ago, BobBracker2222 said:

The problem is the longer the lead gets, the more resistance it puts up, so I don't know if 10 meter is to long and I should just go for the 5

This is just what I purchased
Its a 10 meter 3.5mm jack extension cable that I will use on my monitor
I made sure I got a good quality one as its a little amount of signal going down the cable for a lot of length! They say its oxygen free copper so conducts electricity better
I plan to tape it to my microphone cable with insulation tape about every meter apart so to keep the wires tidy
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10M-Metre-3-5mm-Stereo-Jack-Headphone-Extension-Cable-Aux-Audio-Lead-OFC-GOLD/291289861099?epid=1662370259&hash=item43d23a8beb:g:j4YAAOSwE1tcboRN

Isn't the cable you've just bought a mini jack size? I'd be using full size 1/4" jacks  unless I'm missing something? Your signal loss will be hardly  significant on a 10m cable. I also don't understand why you'd tape the jack extension to the microphone cable? Surely your jacks leads out of the mixer would go off left and right to the 2 speakers and your microphone xlr lead would follow a different path direct from the mic (usually placed  in the middle) and back to the mixer inputs?

[BobBracker2222]

NO! this 3.5mm cable I ordered from ebay is for the monitor not the PA speakers

[Phil Starr]

 Bob I think you need to decide what you want. As you know by now Thomann are one of the biggest mail order firms in Europe. Their reputation is very good and one of their biggest selling points is the three year warranty on everything and their excellent returns policy.

The Box products like all their own brand stuff is incredible value for money and generally pretty well made, but it is built to a budget and won't be state of the art. The 128dB is quite enough for a rock band playing to 200 people but isn't likely to be accurate. It will be a calculated figure based upon the 800W peak power they claim and the sensitivity at 1W. 12" speakers can't handle 800W and the continuous power could be anywhere from 2-400W so the actual figure is more than likely to be 3-6dB lower, however nearly all PA manufacturers claim similar silly figures. It'll be plenty for you.

If this is your budget then you might be looking at brands like Alto too. They have a growing reputation with a few fans here.

If you are using these speakers as part of a solo act for mainly vocals then you don't really need 12" speakers.

Another question only you can answer is how far are you prepared to go? For an extra £100 you could go to something like these https://www.thomann.de/gb/rcf_art_310_a_mk_iii.htm I have two pairs of these, RCF are currently probably the top brand, the vocal sound is particularly good and you could relax knowing you had bought quality, at a higher but not astronomic price. If I was in your position that's what I would do.

Check the manual for your mixer. many/most mixers with jack outputs are actually using balanced outputs via a stereo jack so using a stereo jack to xlr will give you a balanced output to your speakers

[BobBracker2222]

I was told that 12" was best for vocals, what size cone where you thinking?

afraid its all to late now as I have ordered it all, but hear is a link to my mixer manual anyway

https://media63.musictribe.com/media/PLM/data/docs/P0571/1202FX_1002FX_QSG_WW.pdf

Go down to page 8 and 9 and you will see the main out and monitor ports. Not sure if they are balanced or unbalanced

[Phil Starr]

I won't say size doesn't matter, but it doesn't matter much

For vocals it is the midrange that matters, as speaker size increases the higher frequencies fall of at the sides of the speaker, almost the whole of your vocal range will suffer from this distortion with a 12" speaker. Depending upon your vocal range and timbre a 15 would not be suitable at all. That's why the horn is there, nearly all of your vocal frequencies will come out of the horn. The frequencies are shared out by a crossover and this usually happens in the middle of the vocal range. This introduces it's own distortions and because of where it occurs we are very sensitive to distortions at those frequencies. The best vocal sound then is more dependent upon a quality horn and driver and the crossover design than the bass driver, which is why size doesn't matter much with vocals. The 12 does the bass notes below your vocal frequency.

What you've ordered won't be 'wrong' and will probably be very good at the price. I don't know the actual speaker so I'm only surmising but at that price I don't think a lot will have been spent on the horn driver. the budget speakers I've taken apart for repair have been remarkably well constructed however and have improved their sound quality over the years. The Thomann ad says it has DSP which means the crossover will probably have been done in software and done well because once you have DSP the additional costs are effectively zero.

If you've bought from Thomann, try them out as much as possible and if you are unhappy you can always send them back or exchange them for the RCF's. Thomann will be very helpful and have plenty of English speakers working for them.

I've looked at your manual, all the output connections are unbalanced and take a mono jack.

I hope you enjoy your new system.

Edited May 27, 2019 by Phil Starr

[Jack]

10 hours ago, BobBracker2222 said:

The problem is the longer the lead gets, the more resistance it puts up, so I don't know if 10 meter is to long and I should just go for the 5

...

I made sure I got a good quality one as its a little amount of signal going down the cable for a lot of length! They say its oxygen free copper so conducts electricity better

Actually it's a line level signal (and more) so it's quite a lot of signal going down a quite short cable. I personally wouldn't go much longer than that using unbalanced cables but I'm a worrier.

[paul_c2]

31 minutes ago, Jack said:

Actually it's a line level signal (and more) so it's quite a lot of signal going down a quite short cable. I personally wouldn't go much longer than that using unbalanced cables but I'm a worrier.

The mixer is outputting an unbalanced signal so if he wanted to use balanced line cables, he would need to also buy another mixer, for example Q802USB, Q1002USB or more expensive. Or a trick could be, to send them straight into DI boxes - but then its more wires and boxes to worry about etc.

Personally, I'm not sure if balanced vs unbalanced would make much of a difference.

Edited May 27, 2019 by paul_c2

[BobBracker2222]

9 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

For vocals it is the midrange that matters, as speaker size increases the higher frequencies fall of at the sides of the speaker, almost the whole of your vocal range will suffer from this distortion with a 12" speaker. Depending upon your vocal range and timbre a 15 would not be suitable at all. That's why the horn is there, nearly all of your vocal frequencies will come out of the horn. The frequencies are shared out by a crossover and this usually happens in the middle of the vocal range. This introduces it's own distortions and because of where it occurs we are very sensitive to distortions at those frequencies. The best vocal sound then is more dependent upon a quality horn and driver and the crossover design than the bass driver, which is why size doesn't matter much with vocals. The 12 does the bass notes below your vocal frequency.

 

Are you saying I should of gone for an 8" or a 10"?

[paul_c2]

TBH the equipment you already have, together with the stuff you've just ordered, should do you good for a little while yet. Don't get buyer's remorse! Once you have it, and have a few months experience with using it and pros/cons in your particular situation, you'll have a much better idea of what you might need to upgrade/replace/expand. The stuff you have (or have ordered) isn't massively expensive so you could keep it and put it to use elsewhere, I'm sure.