Playback Speaker on Stage

[bigmow]

I need some opinions on self-powered speakers preferrably 15" 2 way for my sequences to be played thru on stage that aren't too heavy. I'm 54 and would like to make it easier on my back. I'm looking at the Electro-Voice SXA250. Please help.

[thingyy]

What you need is a collapsible fold up trolley and wind up speaker stands makes life a lot easier for golden oldies!
Are you going to use a seperate system for your backing tracks ?

[JohnG]

Hi there,

The previous advice is good, wind up stands are a godsend, but more expensive but a very sound (sorry) investment. Try to get aluminium ones if you can, they're less heavy to lug about. I'm 61 and, believe me, it gets tougher as the years go on!

As for loudspeakers, always, ALWAYS go and hear them first and take a MIDI track or two with you that represent the different types and loudnesses of music you're going to play through them. Check out that they have the facilities to play whatever you take before you go. If they're unhelpful insist or try another dealer. Especially if you're buying second hand, the reason for sale can often be blown tweeters. The ones you mention have amps built into them so here is a list in no particular order or preference.

Speakers: Look for ones with the newer type plastic (not wood, chipboard, plywood or mdf) cabinets. They're much lighter. Try Behringer B215A and the B-415 DSP, Electro Voice SXA300, JBL EON1500, dB Technologies Opera Live 205 and 405, Mackie SRM 350 and 450.

Off the top of my head that's all I can think of. Try browsing through the Sound-on-Sound forum live sound section. There are often interesting stories about different LSs. Look for amplification that soft limits the sound going to the speaker rather than just cutting off.

I'm still a relative novice though when it comes to live sound. So there are probably others here with more experience. Remember the speaker sound that suits one person or genre may not suit you so always go and listen to them.

Try this site www.musicstore.de click on the UK map then you'll find under PA, active speakers. You can check out many brands this way. Prices are in Euro. Divide by 1.5 to get pounds (roughly). You'll also find stands here too.

Hope that helps.
Best regards,
JohnG.

[thingyy]

The timbre is in the wood.

[JohnG]

That's the problem. It should be in the drivers.

[bigmow]

Hi there Thingy,

Tell me more about wind up speaker stands. That's a definite buy for me, I just couldn't seem to find anything like that in the states. Thanks.

[JohnG]

bigmow said:

Hi there Thingy,

Tell me more about wind up speaker stands. That's a definite buy for me, I just couldn't seem to find anything like that in the states. Thanks.

JG here not Thingy,

They're like a normal tripod speaker stand only where there is normally just an adjustable pull-out tube mechanism with a locking screw, on wind-up stands there's a handle that you turn that pushes the tube up. They'll usually extend from around 3 feet high when down to 6 feet fully extended. They cost about 85 Euro for steel ones and about 150 Euro for aluminium. They'll carry up to about 45 kilos of speaker each.

If you go to www.musicstore.de click on the UK map to give you English. Go to the PA section and choose stands and then speaker stands. You'll find two different ones there.

JohnG.

[thingyy]

www.zzounds.com/item--MUPSS8800BPLUS
Here is a link to a display and info.

[pdiroma]

I know about the pain of moving speakers, I allways use a handtruck. My speakers have wood
cabinets and are heavy. 15" with a horn. Plastic would be better, but they cost money. Most musicians are cheap anyway.

[thingyy]

Wood has better sound quality.

[JohnG]

thingyy said:

Wood has better sound quality.

Hmm, what to say to avoid offending people.

The problem, with speaker design, is to enclose the sound output from the rear of the cone which is out of phase with that from the front and, via a tuned port, to change its phase to something as close as possible to that of the front of the cone and thereby reinforce the total bass output.

In an ideal world the cabinet should not vibrate at all. So what you hear is exactly what was created, or at least as near as possible. Loudspeaker cones add huge amounts of distortion anyway. But cabinets do vibrate because they are made of solid materials and by the laws of physics ... (too boring to continue).

So what good cabinet makers do is add damping materials to the inside of the loudspeaker panels and make cabinets increasingly without parallel faces i.e. wedge shaped (to excite fewer modes). And they also use newer materials which either vibrate less or their modes of vibration can be better controlled. e.g. mdf and now an expanded plastic material.

The trouble is for many acoustic instruments we've got used to the distortion that the cabinet produces, guitar cabs are a case in point. Where the extra ringing that the cabinet produces can actually sound rather good. So I do understand where you're coming from Thingyy.

But is it accurate? Absolutely and categorically not! If you measure the output in a room you will discover that the average guitar cab rings like a good'un. If you stick a guitar cab on a hi-fi system you can hear all sorts of peaks and troughs in the sound.

So, in conclusion, it's probably a good idea to have the guitar cab. made of wood which rings away long after the note has ceased on the guitar because that's how we've got used to hearing them. Remember those open combos from the fifties with a fifteen watt (if you were lucky) valve amp on top. But the PA that reproduces the MIDI file needs to do it as accurately as can be. Unless, of course, you actually want to hear that distortion! Besides the newer plastic construction is MUCH lighter.

And that was what was asked for in the original question! "Self-powered speakers ... that aren't too heavy." The new 15" ones can be around 20 kilos, which can be lifted without breaking your back.

So Thingyy is right, they can sound rather good if they're constructed of wood, well plywood anyway. You can use a parametric equaliser and maybe a bass bin (or sub if you like) to add solidity at the bottom end. I'd rather be in control of the frequency response of the sound and alter it myself to suit the room.

But d**n it, those old guitar combos did sound so good!

Just my 0£.0s.2d worth. (real money.
JohnG.

[thingyy]

Link to fold vup trolley's
www.aussietrolleys.com.au/

[pdiroma]

John appears to have hit the nail on the head. Wood does sound better, but tends to be
much heavier.

[JohnG]

pdiroma said:

John appears to have hit the nail on the head. Wood does sound better, but tends to be
much heavier.

Hmm. I didn't think I said "better". It's a very subjective word.
I actually said "sound good" which they do ... for a guitar.

I'd use the word "coloured", and that's not meant in any offensive way to anyone, but is a word often used to describe a kind of good sounding distortion. The old Linn turntables did the same. Sounded nice and warm. But accurate? Hell no! No low bass at all. Couldn't accurately produce grand cass or an organ pedal below about 40 Hz to speak of IMHO. My Hi-fi system goes down to about 23Hz with moderate accuracy.

Like the 2nd harmonic distortion that an over driven valve amp creates, the plywood cabinet gives a nice "bloom" to the lower mid and upper bass frequencies that just isn't there in the first place. But, hey man, that is the rock guitar sound.

Is it the sound of a sax? No. A trumpet? No. A clarinet? No. A violin? No. Even drums? No. You get the picture by now. But if what we want is the sound of a rock band electric guitar then yes, most definitely yes. With a valve amp (or its model) creating loads of yummy 2nd harmonic distortion.

But better? Better for what?
Then again, I could be wrong!
It has been known. ;D
JohnG.

[thingyy]

Depends on the type of wood used,how it is screwed and glued,correct formula used to calculate volume of cabinet, material covering outside cabinet,bass reflex slots,damping material inside box,blah blah blah.
Standing on wooden stage,lino,concrete.
How high off the ground.
How far away from the audience.
Ambience/ acoustics of the venue.

The original poster wanted to use them for a sound module not a rock guitar.

[JohnG]

thingyy said:

The original poster wanted to use them for a sound module not a rock guitar.

Quite right all that stuff.

I spent a while in a hi-fi loudspeaker manufacturer's organisation for a while working on their IT systems back in the days when I was an assembler programmer. So I know a little about all this stuff. (Trying to write code to model it was a nightmare, at least it was 30 or more years ago.) Believe it or not even the glue used to stick the cabinets together has an effect as well as how rounded the corners of the cabinet are, the distance of the drivers from the edge of the cabinet in terms of dispersion pattern etc. etc.

From a cabinet makers point of view wood is highly problematical, even plywood varies physically considerably from batch to batch, even from sheet to sheet. So when you design the damping you cannot rely on the cabinets sounding the same. That's why with better manufacturers they even sell them as acoustically matched pairs.

MDF and the newer plastic materials are consistent with far less variation internally and their modes of vibration are well known and can be properly damped. (I deliberately didn't go into the Young's Modulus of non-linear materials and all that physics for obvious reasons! It's not blah, blah, without it we wouldn't have decent sounding speakers, however boring you (or I) might personally find it (and I do) but view the guys (and gals) who do it with deepest respect.)

So with MDF and the new plastics what you hear should be closer to what goes in electrically. Of course the fact that a manufacturer uses newer materials doesn't necessarily mean that the cabinet has been well designed or properly damped. So that's why I said go and listen. Let your ears be the judge. You may prefer the wooden ones. That's often because the cabinets add colouration that just sounds pleasing to the ear. They can sound terrific. But accurate? There are others more accurate made from modern materials.

And, believe it or not, I did read that he wanted them for a sound module BUT wanted them to be light. That's why I didn't recommend wooden boxes but suggested listening to the newer composition expanded plastic ones. I was just agreeing with you that wood can sound good. I assumed he'd be using stands especially since he asked about the wind up ones.

At the end of the day it's only an opinion as to what sounds good or better. Aesthetics also have to be taken into consideration. Can you imagine paying 1,000 pounds EACH for hi fi speakers made of plastic? They may be more accurate but people also buy them as a piece of furniture.

For me (for PA) it's an accurate sound that can be "distorted" to suit the venue using a parametric equaliser and an FX unit that adds the colouration usually inherent in most acoustic instruments and their amplification. But that's only my opinion. For my Hi-fi its veneered mdf.

Let's let bigmow listen to them all, plywood, mdf and plastic (and lift them) and make his own decision.

Positively my last word ... here.
All the best,
Have fun,
JohnG.

[a.j.]

On the subject of wind-up stands, I bought a pair of Hercules Quik-n-Ez crank stands on a sale - best thing I ever did. It means that one person can rig the stands by themselves. Much easier (and safer) to get the speakers off at the end of the night when you're tired.

www.herculesstands.com/lightsspeakers/SS700B.html

Here is a UK online site when them on:
www.musicroom.com/Search/gsearch.aspx?publisher=Hercules&searchtype=advanced


On the subect of Hercules, they do a very nice mini guitar stand (nice and sturdy - I use one for my bass) - it folds up and fits inside my bass case. Based on this, I also ended up buying a couple of mic stands - I'm quite impressed with all of it, so far.