Some PA advice please

[martthebass]

After a few years hard gigging our full range cabs gave up the ghost last week. In part I think due to the drummer using an electronic kit for the last couple of years. So we need to sort something quickly and as cheaply as possible for upcoming gigs. At the moment with use a Dynacord Powermate 600 and we’ve drafted into use our emergency HK pro 12s. The drummer has gone back to acoustic for the time being. Would we be best adding an active sub to the existing set up (the HK one is about £650) or would chains a couple of passive 15s or 12s be an option? The following might fit the bill in that case.

https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwi04-mszvyAAxXP0u0KHVe8BWgYABAjGgJkZw&ae=2&gclid=EAIaIQobChMItOPprM78gAMVz9LtCh1XvAVoEAQYESABEgKRn_D_BwE&ohost=www.google.co.uk&cid=CAASJeRoGtEkWipUAFOhZiwLL6CfqKSPFfRtbCzB4jLOuHCj6rEQxsc&sig=AOD64_18RU65E56_70Ky_HNAvqQzcR_mEw&ctype=5&q=&ved=2ahUKEwiG1eGszvyAAxXnT0EAHTemAKwQwg8oAHoECAUQbg&adurl=

[Newfoundfreedom]

1 hour ago, martthebass said:

After a few years hard gigging our full range cabs gave up the ghost last week. In part I think due to the drummer using an electronic kit for the last couple of years. So we need to sort something quickly and as cheaply as possible for upcoming gigs. At the moment with use a Dynacord Powermate 600 and we’ve drafted into use our emergency HK pro 12s. The drummer has gone back to acoustic for the time being. Would we be best adding an active sub to the existing set up (the HK one is about £650) or would chains a couple of passive 15s or 12s be an option? The following might fit the bill in that case.

https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwi04-mszvyAAxXP0u0KHVe8BWgYABAjGgJkZw&ae=2&gclid=EAIaIQobChMItOPprM78gAMVz9LtCh1XvAVoEAQYESABEgKRn_D_BwE&ohost=www.google.co.uk&cid=CAASJeRoGtEkWipUAFOhZiwLL6CfqKSPFfRtbCzB4jLOuHCj6rEQxsc&sig=AOD64_18RU65E56_70Ky_HNAvqQzcR_mEw&ctype=5&q=&ved=2ahUKEwiG1eGszvyAAxXnT0EAHTemAKwQwg8oAHoECAUQbg&adurl=

 

I've been using the Behringer Eurolive 15's for about 4 years as our main P.A and they're absolutely bullet proof, never missed a beat, lightweight, cheap and sound superb. 

 

https://www.thomann.de/intl/behringer_eurolive_b215xl.htm?i11l=en_GB%3ABG.GBP%3AEUR

Edited August 27, 2023 by Newfoundfreedom

[martthebass]

5 hours ago, Newfoundfreedom said:

 

I've been using the Behringer Eurolive 15's for about 4 years as our main P.A and they're absolutely bullet proof, never missed a beat, lightweight, cheap and sound superb. 

 

https://www.thomann.de/intl/behringer_eurolive_b215xl.htm?i11l=en_GB%3ABG.GBP%3AEUR

These are only 250W rms handling, not sure they’d handle it?

[Newfoundfreedom]

1 hour ago, martthebass said:

These are only 250W rms handling, not sure they’d handle it?

They're the exact same rating as the ones you posted the link to. 

 

I suppose it depends on what you will put through them and how loud a band you're in. We've used them for everything from small coffee shops to outdoor festivals and never had a problem. 

[martthebass]

8 hours ago, Newfoundfreedom said:

 

1 hour ago, Newfoundfreedom said:

They're the exact same rating as the ones you posted the link to. 

 

I suppose it depends on what you will put through them and how loud a band you're in. We've used them for everything from small coffee shops to outdoor festivals and never had a problem. 

Just worried that we’d blow them, we’re normally handling clubs up to 300. We’re not exceptionally loud but we do use an electronic drum kit through the PA. Bass and guitar are back line not through PA. The tops we will use in addition are HK Pro12 which are 400W rms, 800W programme. The powered mixer is 2x1000W at 4 Ohms.

[Newfoundfreedom]

10 hours ago, martthebass said:

 

Just worried that we’d blow them, we’re normally handling clubs up to 300. We’re not exceptionally loud but we do use an electronic drum kit through the PA. Bass and guitar are back line not through PA. The tops we will use in addition are HK Pro12 which are 400W rms, 800W programme. The powered mixer is 2x1000W at 4 Ohms.

 

In that case you might be better off looking for something which is better matched power wise to the 12's. The Behringers would probably "cope" but there would always be that worry that you're pushing them too far. 

[Happy Jack]

 

[Phil Starr]

You don't say what the blown speakers are or what went wrong, they may be fixable. Or it may have been an accident waiting to happen which is kind of the assumption you are making.

 

Speakers blow for two main reasons: they overheat because they are getting too much power or they move beyond their safe limits (over excursion) due to too much high power low frequency content. They also just degrade with time though they last a long time but not forever.

 

So subs will take the high energy low frequency content away from your tops and will protect them from over excursion but only if you use a crossover, this is usually built into the sub or subs but mixing active and passive speakers makes that a bit more 'interesting'. If you do this with a proper crossover then your tops will bave all that power taken away so will also be less likely to over heat as well as over-excursion and will also be less distorted at high levels. I'm not familiar with your desk, some do have crossovers built in.

 

I wouldn't really recommend just adding extra PA speakers. Adding more speakers that aren't designed to work that way causes other problems with phase issues as the sound from paired speakers interact. the line array speakers you see at big festivals are designed to work together and are stupidly expensive for small bands on a budget.

 

Increasingly fewer passive PA speakers are being made and there isn't a lot of choice, equally a lot of older passive stuff is for sale quite cheaply. Another solution might be to fix or replace your current system with similar but there are tricks you can use to improve the current systems handling of the drums.  A bit of compression and some HPF on that channel might help or you could look into Aux fed subs.

 

It might be worth getting this moved to the PA sub forum to get other opinions

[martthebass]

Thanks for this Phil.  Your advice is pretty much what I got from the online shop I think.

In the end we went with a couple of passive subs and crossovers.  We were able to do a set up last night and all seems good.  We did look at adding active subs but as you say that gets 'interesting'.  The lead vox sets up the PA and it was important to make the set up as simple as possible and the fully passive route with simple unpowered crossovers does just that.

 

Regarding the death of the previous full range speakers.  These have had a hard life over the last 8 years; they were bought before I joined the band and I'm not sure about the quality....they have suffered numerous issues over the last couple of years particularly with the horns so I think they had had their day.  The HK tops came with me from my previous band and had had very little use; these seem far more capable but I was insistent that the bottom end was handled by subs rather than the tops to avoid over excursion.

[BigRedX]

If you want to attract one of the Mods attention to move a thread the most effective way is to "Report" the first post and then say why in the resulting dialogue box.

 

IME anything else will most likely be missed.

[martthebass]

2 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

If you want to attract one of the Mods attention to move a thread the most effective way is to "Report" the first post and then say why in the resulting dialogue box.

 

IME anything else will most likely be missed.

I'll move this one myself BRX in case it's of use to someone else.

[Downunderwonder]

On 28/08/2023 at 05:26, martthebass said:

250W rms

Is a very good spec if it's true. It's only a little shy of what your average "1200w" speaker will handle.

[martthebass]

13 minutes ago, Downunderwonder said:

Is a very good spec if it's true. It's only a little shy of what your average "1200w" speaker will handle.

In the end we went with units rated 300W RMS, 600W peak which the tech assured me would be ok with the Dynacord Powermate

[Pirellithecat]

Bit late to the party here ... but ... 

We recently upgraded our PA, because I wanted to put Drums through the PA.  

So, we moved up from 10inch  active PA (1200W) to (2000W) 12inch active speakers PLUS a  RCF 705 Sub.   The 12 inch speakers are great (but not much louder than the 1200W)  but the Sub is spectacular! 

 

It makes a huge difference to the sound.   Just by adding kick and snare.   Could argue it's not always necessary, but as it sits under one of the   full range speakers it effectively takes no more space, and even when used sparingly it really helps provide a solid underpinning to the music. 

 

It's a revelation. (and will protect you full range speakers from the drummer!!).   

[martthebass]

34 minutes ago, Pirellithecat said:

Bit late to the party here ... but ... 

We recently upgraded our PA, because I wanted to put Drums through the PA.  

So, we moved up from 10inch  active PA (1200W) to (2000W) 12inch active speakers PLUS a  RCF 705 Sub.   The 12 inch speakers are great (but not much louder than the 1200W)  but the Sub is spectacular! 

 

It makes a huge difference to the sound.   Just by adding kick and snare.   Could argue it's not always necessary, but as it sits under one of the   full range speakers it effectively takes no more space, and even when used sparingly it really helps provide a solid underpinning to the music. 

 

It's a revelation. (and will protect you full range speakers from the drummer!!).   

In the last band we had an HK Audio set up with a Allen & Heath powered mixer.  We used the 12" tops with a single HK active sub.  The sound was great but when we split the band I just got the tops.  I remembered that using a powered mixer with active and passive components was a real faff so this time to simplify things just went down the passive route with our powered mixer.  

On first try out yesterday I was quite impressed with how much they have filled out the sound and the tops don't seem stressed at all even with the Roland kit.

[Phil Starr]

2 hours ago, martthebass said:

On first try out yesterday I was quite impressed with how much they have filled out the sound and the tops don't seem stressed at all even with the Roland kit.

Really glad it is working out, love the Roland drums. Electric kits make so much difference to the vocal mics and really cleans the sound up.

[EBS_freak]

On 07/09/2023 at 15:28, martthebass said:

 

On first try out yesterday I was quite impressed with how much they have filled out the sound and the tops don't seem stressed at all even with the Roland kit.

The benefits of playing samples where all the transients have been brought under control! (And no mic bleed)

[martthebass]

An update to this......

 

Unfortunately 2 very fraught gigs and 2 exploded crossovers later we are at an impasse.  Despite the passive crossovers supposedly being rated for 1000W they seem to be being slaughtered by our Dynacord powered mixer which should only be delivering c.700W into 8 ohms.  The only passive crossovers we seem to be able to find on the market are these or rebranded versions of these.  I have no idea on active crossovers, could anyone advise?

[Jakester]

29 minutes ago, martthebass said:

An update to this......

 

Unfortunately 2 very fraught gigs and 2 exploded crossovers later we are at an impasse.  Despite the passive crossovers supposedly being rated for 1000W they seem to be being slaughtered by our Dynacord powered mixer which should only be delivering c.700W into 8 ohms.  The only passive crossovers we seem to be able to find on the market are these or rebranded versions of these.  I have no idea on active crossovers, could anyone advise?

 

What crossovers are you (or, rather, were you) currently using?

[martthebass]

2 hours ago, Jakester said:

 

What crossovers are you (or, rather, were you) currently using?

 

We was using a pair of these but at least one each time overheats and fails......

 

https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwjz497I_LaBAxVFBwYAHVVDCFUYABAOGgJ3cw&ase=2&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI8-PeyPy2gQMVRQcGAB1VQwhVEAQYASABEgKaUvD_BwE&sig=AOD64_0t6AWIU32BjrrMh3T-zG1WqVdzGg&ctype=5&q=&nis=4&ved=2ahUKEwj_pdfI_LaBAxW3U0EAHYUrAp0Qww8oAnoECAQQCw&adurl=

[BigRedX]

Does this device come with a manual?

 

I'm wondering if the power handling of the crossover is "peak" rather than RMS, or if it's presenting a load lower than 8Ω to the amp, both of which would probably mean that your mixer amp is overpowering the crossover.

[martthebass]

13 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

Does this device come with a manual?

 

I'm wondering if the power handling of the crossover is "peak" rather than RMS, or if it's presenting a load lower than 8Ω to the amp, both of which would probably mean that your mixer amp is overpowering the crossover.

 

Sadly no documentation.  These were recommended by the store on the basis of our current powered mixer and tops/subs (we acquired the subs at the same time).  My concerns align with yours in that for some reason I think the load being presented is <8ohms; at 4ohms the amp gives 1000W per side.  We have noted the amp running into clip when the Xover fails pushing it into protection mode which pretty much rains on our parade.

When we use the tops alone (8ohm), without the Xover - no problems.

Edited September 19, 2023 by martthebass

[Dan Dare]

1 hour ago, martthebass said:

We was using a pair of these but at least one each time overheats and fails......

 

Skytec and similar brands are, to put it kindly, absolute bargain basement (their stuff is aimed at the budget disco market) and I wouldn't trust claims of 1000w handling. They might cope with very short bursts in 4 ohm applications, but if your Dynacord can output 700w into 8 ohms, it'll destroy them with no bother, as you've found.

 

You could get some better passives custom made (you're unlikely to find something suitable off the shelf), but passive crossovers, especially heavy duty ones, are inefficient and soak up a lot of power. At the levels you're running at, I'd look at an active crossover plus a power amp to drive your passive subs. Either that or go for active subs.

Edited September 19, 2023 by Dan Dare

[stevie]

@Dan Dare's right. High-powered subs need to be crossed over actively. You can do it passively in theory, but the components needed to cross over at low frequencies are big, heavy and expensive - which is why active is the preferred solution.

[Jakester]

I suspect those products were designed for DJs rather than live band use, where there’s much more of a risk of increased peaks. 
 

I’d use something like a DBX Driverack or the Behringer equivalent.