Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

Hello all, I am sorry I had to miss the get together. Thank you everyone for all of your thoughts and prayers. I am still in the hospital for at least a few more days at best but am out of intensive care now. It is great reading posts about your impressions. Am I understanding that you guys believe that the SM80 will handle anything that a tri-amped KF650z crossed over at the same frequency will do in terms of general clarity and over all SPL with maybe a little DSP tweak. That seems pretty impressive for a 65lb pole mount box and you actually get a little more pattern to boot.
 
Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

Eric Cagle said:
Hello all, I am sorry I had to miss the get together. Thank you everyone for all of your thoughts and prayers. I am still in the hospital for at least a few more days at best but am out of intensive care now. It is great reading posts about your impressions. Am I understanding that you guys believe that the SM80 will handle anything that a tri-amped KF650z crossed over at the same frequency will do in terms of general clarity and over all SPL with maybe a little DSP tweak. That seems pretty impressive for a 65lb pole mount box and you actually get a little more pattern to boot.
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Glad to hear you're doing better. Get out of the hospital, they're full of sick people!
 
Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

John Chiara said:
Snap is valid... Strings hitting the pickups is not.
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If the musician mangles his bass sound weather it's right or wrong, JR's initial statement still stands.
We as sound "reinforcers" still should not be clipping channels, busses and amps or bottoming-out our cones to reproduce a musician's pickup-slapping crap-nasty bass guitar output!:razz:

(what also sucks is when backline cones are clacking loud enough to be heard over the mains!)
 
Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

Hey Eric, glad you are feeling better.

Eric Cagle said:
Am I understanding that you guys believe that the SM80 will handle anything that a tri-amped KF650z crossed over at the same frequency will do in terms of general clarity and over all SPL with maybe a little DSP tweak.
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Regarding this statement, I don't think anyone has said anything along these lines. Not that it isn't possible, but we didn't push any of the boxes close enough to their limit to get any real ideas of max output capability. The demo room really isn't big enough for that kind of test.
 
Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

Brandon Wright said:
Regarding this statement, I don't think anyone has said anything along these lines. Not that it isn't possible, but we didn't push any of the boxes close enough to their limit to get any real ideas of max output capability. The demo room really isn't big enough for that kind of test.
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Agreed. If we had tried to push most of the products to "the max", it would have been painful.

At that type of level in that small of a space-our ears would have gone into "protection compression" quickly.

The only way to do that type of test is outside or in a large venue-where we could get far enough away to let "inverse square law" do its thing-drop the level to a point that our ears would not be "saturated".

During the listening tests-we set the levels to "kinda the same" SPL. The test was simple (if not completely "fair"). Pink noise was the source-sub turned off-and measured A weighted slow-and each subgroup (each went to a different loudspeaker) was adjusted to get the same SPL. That way at least they were close in level. We tried to get them within 0.1dB or so. Kinda hard to set it exact-since pink noise has a "randlom" texture-so the level moves around a little bit.

What I mean by "fair" is no attempt was made to adjust each loudspeakers response to match. So ones that had a rise in some areas would sound different.

I have found that half dB can make a difference in the "perceived" sound quality.
 
Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

Ivan,

That is my point. I think the StudioSix app on my phone matches our cheapo SPL meters at church pretty closely up into the mid 90's but it seems like when it gets over 100 or 105 that it seems to compress things a bit. I guess there is a reason that verified and calibrated measurement gear costs money. You get what you pay for; good for relative comparison like you guys were doing but not trustworthy in absolute terms it seems.

Loren

Ivan Beaver said:
An SPL meter can be used for a variety of different things. Some times it is important to be accurate-and then others times it really doesn't matter.

Such as what we were doing during the demo. When we were setting levels-it didn't matter what the numbers said-as long as they were all the same (or very close anyway). We just turned the noise up to a level that was comfortable and louder than the background noise-chose a easy to remember number and set all to that.

Other times it is about relative differences.

So I would also ask the question-"How many people have actually had the apps/mics CALIBRATED?" How do you know what the meter is telling you is correct?

Yes the accuracy starts to fall apart when the levels get high-but what is 'high'?

I assume there have been some studies-I am just not aware of any.

Yes the "apps" can be quite handy-but are you willing to testify in court using the numbers they provide?

I was at a sub demo a couple of years ago and we had a good variety of different SPL meters-different models and some of the same models. So we did a quick test and found they all fell within about a 10dB range. TEN dB! That is quite a bit. And if somebody is telling another that their system can do XdB-they could be waaayyy off.

Just try to get another 10dB out of your system and see what happens.
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Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

Loren Jones said:
Ivan,

That is my point. I think the StudioSix app on my phone matches our cheapo SPL meters at church pretty closely up into the mid 90's but it seems like when it gets over 100 or 105 that it seems to compress things a bit. I guess there is a reason that verified and calibrated measurement gear costs money. You get what you pay for; good for relative comparison like you guys were doing but not trustworthy in absolute terms it seems.

Loren
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I respectfully disagree , all that you are using the iPad for is to compare and ensure the same level. It has nothing to do with compression or freq response accuracy. Play pink and get a level say 80 db from speaker 1, do the same thing until you get the same reading for speaker 2. End of story
 
Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

Shane Presley said:
I respectfully disagree , all that you are using the iPad for is to compare and ensure the same level. It has nothing to do with compression or freq response accuracy. Play pink and get a level say 80 db from speaker 1, do the same thing until you get the same reading for speaker 2. End of story
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That is what Loren was saying. For COMPARATIVE measurements it is OK, But I would not want to walk into court and state that the SPL was a certain measurement I took on the phone.

That is what was being said-the ABSOLUTE measurement is the thing that is in question-especially at higher levels.
 
Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

Ivan Beaver said:
That is what Loren was saying. For COMPARATIVE measurements it is OK, But I would not want to walk into court and state that the SPL was a certain measurement I took on the phone.

That is what was being said-the ABSOLUTE measurement is the thing that is in question-especially at higher levels.
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Ivan, are people joking that their phone can measure broadband SPL? PS. (averages)
 
Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

I'll try to give an objective review, although I had many horses in this race.
First off, thanks to Ivan and all that attended. It was a nasty rainy day, limiting the listening to Danley's display room. I find that live music is the best test tone but not this day. Test tones and program material were all we had.
I took a pair of KF 650zs, a 12 + 15" Radian Microwedge, EVQRX 112 and an old Peavey DTH 15. There were also the Tannoy, a pair of VRX, an SH 46,an EV ZX5 and two Danley's monitor offerings, the SM 80M and I believe the SM 100 M . One 650 was bi-amped with an Xilica the other tri-amped with the UX8800. We also tested some subs. There was an SB 1000, a TH 118, the TH 212, Ivan's new beast, the IHOP, and the 812.
Afer a brief set up we started running pink through the top boxes to get a comparitive level between them. As soon as we got levels really close we started comparing boxes. The difference in the 650 was obvious. Anyone have a UX8800 I can get? Maybe a payment plan..LOL. The tri-amped box was really good. No wonder Dave Gunness brags on it. It was pretty flat Smaart wise as well, so it just wasn't my bias. After going through the tops with several different peoples favorite tunes, including pounding each with AC/DC this was my take on the top offerings..The three best sounding boxes were so close that for me in a blind listening test I probably couldn't pick one from the other the were the Tannoy, the UX 650 and the SM80. The SH46 was fourth. It had something in the high end I could probably tame but we didn't spend too much time there. The VRX was next and then the EV. The last two weren't really bad, just not in the same league as the others. I was really impressed with the SM 80. At 65 lb and 800 watts it's going to be a welcome addition to the Danley line up. Maybe a bit wide for indoor use but could easily do 4-500 on a stick outdoors.
I'm going to post this for now. Next up.. The monitors
 
Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

Mark DeArman said:
Ivan, are people joking that their phone can measure broadband SPL? PS. (averages)
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Many people believe that if they get "a reading" it is accurate. Even on decent gear. Just look at the number of posts that have invalid Smaart curves.

Just because it shows up on a screen they think it is "correct".

There is a reason real gear costs real money.

Now that being said-you can get some pretty decent data using phone apps and such. But it REALLY depends on the user and what they expect. Of course some people perfect results with a $2 app. So why does a real meter cost thousands of dollars to do the "same thing"? Once one starts to understand the real differences-then it should become apparent.

It all comes down to what you are trying to do/accomplish at the moment.

So yes they can be very useful/helpful/insightful etc. But would you be willing to sit in the witness chair against peer review of the measurements you took with your phone? Not me!

As a wise man (Don Washburn) drilled into me years ago "What are you hear to do". Focus on that and what it takes to accomplish that. THere are all kinds of fun and interesting things you can do/measure-but are they really important for THE JOB AT HAND?

Now I must admit that I don't always follow my own advice. When I run into an interesting situation-I often (time permitting) go a little bit further to investigate-and to use it as a learning tool.

Just like at Mondays demo. When we heard a big difference with noise between the 650's, I just "had" to pull out a measurement rig-so get a better handle on what we were hearing.

When used properly-various tools (even poor ones) can go a long way towards helping us to understand. But used poorly-and they mean pretty much nothing.
 
Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

OK here is my take, A week later some of the details are vague, but here we go in no particular order.

SM80
Because Eric (the O/P) was unable to be attend, there was not as much emphasis on the SM80 as there might have been. It lived up to my expectations and was as good if not better than any of the other boxes represented. I was surprised to find out it is a sealed design, whereas the monitor version is vented. The world needs more sealed designs imo. It was limited on the low end and I felt the top end of the box could have been tamed a little bit but this is my taste more than anything, The SH46, which is rather dark compared to its siblings is just right for me.

I really wished we would have listened to a pair of SM80s arrayed, this would probably have balanced the low end better. I am interested to know if they array as well as the other Danley designs. What we really need is an SM80/TH-mini lovechild, that would be an incredible box if it could be light enough to fit on a pole.

KF650z with UX8800
I was pleasantly surprised by the 650z. My current employer has a pile of ancient 650e that use the old processor and I have never really cared for them. The 650z was one of the best boxes we heard. I felt it was the only real competition in the room next to the Danleys. Having experienced the before and after of the UX8800 on several different type EAW systems, I would say the UX really is indispensable for most EAW boxes at this point.

Vrx932sp
Someone correct me if this is the wrong model #. I have never really liked the VRX stuff and now I know it's because it sounds bad. Really, quite bad. Granted I have been on shows with it before and it did the job, but the fact that this box has probably sold more than all of the other boxes we listened to combined is kinda disturbing. This obsession with things that look like line arrays has to stop. To be clear we did try the little tweeter switch in all three positions +3, 0, -3, it did not matter, different versions of yuck. I think this was pretty much the unanimous loser.

Tannoy VQ60
Really not much to say, it did not embarrass itself the way the VRX did, it sounded pretty good. But at this level (price and size) there are many really nice options I would pick over Tannoy, But I will say Tannoy makes really nice spec sheets, with harmonic distortion figures!

SH-mini, SH-micro, Meyer UPM-1P
With Music going at moderate volume, listening at 12 feet I have to give the edge to the Meyer, just smoother response overall. The Danley's were very close however and when you consider there was no tweaking whatsoever I have to wonder if the Danley's could have equaled or surpassed the Meyer with minimal eq tweeks.

BUT, and his is a very big butt Simone, the Meyer completely fell apart with a mic running through it, it just choked. That great sounding tweeter really does not matter, it just goes away (into hard limit) with a real live dynamic signal. The Danley's, in particularly the SH-mini just kept getting louder. While I have the Microphone here I will just go ahead and say that while Meyer makes some great sounding boxes, Their spec'd max SPL numbers are complete Bullshit. Every box they make is in hard limit at least 10 dB lower than what they spec. They are saying they go twice as loud as they really do!!!

IHOP
I have always loved the TH115/118, It was the original and in many ways is still probably the most flexible overall, but the IHOP sounds like 4 TH115, it really was astounding to pull the NL4 out of the IHOP put it in the SB1000 and have the level drop 15 dB(guestimate) Granted the IHOP is 2 ohm and the SB1000 4 ohm but still the difference was amazing. I really think one IHOP could replace 4-6 standard double 18 boxes. Ivan says it could be modified to accommodate 4 more drivers by making the box 28" deep, this would be a monster. There was also rumor of a reconfigured IHOP that would be more similar in shape to a standard double 18, feel free to clarify or deny Ivan:)
 
Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

Stephen Robertson said:
I really wished we would have listened to a pair of SM80s arrayed, this would probably have balanced the low end better. I am interested to know if they array as well as the other Danley designs. What we really need is an SM80/TH-mini lovechild, that would be an incredible box if it could be light enough to fit on a pole.



SH-mini, SH-micro, Meyer UPM-1P
With Music going at moderate volume, listening at 12 feet I have to give the edge to the Meyer, just smoother response overall. The Danley's were very close however and when you consider there was no tweaking whatsoever I have to wonder if the Danley's could have equaled or surpassed the Meyer with minimal eq tweeks.

BUT, and his is a very big butt Simone, the Meyer completely fell apart with a mic running through it, it just choked. That great sounding tweeter really does not matter, it just goes away (into hard limit) with a real live dynamic signal. The Danley's, in particularly the SH-mini just kept getting louder. While I have the Microphone here I will just go ahead and say that while Meyer makes some great sounding boxes, Their spec'd max SPL numbers are complete Bullshit. Every box they make is in hard limit at least 10 dB lower than what they spec. They are saying they go twice as loud as they really do!!!

IHOP
I have always loved the TH115/118, It was the original and in many ways is still probably the most flexible overall, but the IHOP sounds like 4 TH115, it really was astounding to pull the NL4 out of the IHOP put it in the SB1000 and have the level drop 15 dB(guestimate) Granted the IHOP is 2 ohm and the SB1000 4 ohm but still the difference was amazing. I really think one IHOP could replace 4-6 standard double 18 boxes. Ivan says it could be modified to accommodate 4 more drivers by making the box 28" deep, this would be a monster. There was also rumor of a reconfigured IHOP that would be more similar in shape to a standard double 18, feel free to clarify or deny Ivan:)
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The SM80 does not array as well as other Danley products. Now that does not mean that it is bad-better than most-just not like the other Danely arrayable products. Basically we could not get the HF drivers close enough-so there is a little bit of "wiggle" in the middle. But how many people need 160° of coverage? But you are correct-the low end would couple since the horn has lost pattern control down on the bottom and the drivers are close enough together at those freq.

Don't hold your breath on adding a good bit of wood and keeping the weight the same. HOWEVER-because the SM 80 is a sealed box-that means that there is a lot of control over the woofer excursion and the impedance is high down on the bottom of the response. This means that you can add a good bit of boost in the 80-100hz range to "round out" the low freq response to make it more of a full range cabinet all by itself. The high impedance means that very little actual power is going to the driver and the sealed configuration means the driver won't be "flopping around" as if you added that boost to a ported box.

Yes you can make it start to "sound ugly" if you apply enough boost and drive it that hard-but if you are needing that type of level you should be using subs anyway.

The sealed alignment makes it easier to align with a subwoofer. The monitor version was chosen to be ported since very rarely would it be used with a sub and there was more internal cabinet volume-so let's make it more full range.

When we were comparing to the Meyer-there was no processing at all (not even a high pass filter) on the Danley SH Micro. So yes-a little bit of processing could have helped.

Since hindsight is 20/20-I really wish I would have put the TH Mini into the sub comparison. I think it would have been "interesting".

We are still doing in the programing stage for the "new sub". Until we do some testing I don't want to comment on how well it will perform. But the form factor should be better for most people.
 
Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

Ivan Beaver said:
The SM80 does not array as well as other Danley products. Now that does not mean that it is bad-better than most-just not like the other Danely arrayable products. Basically we could not get the HF drivers close enough-so there is a little bit of "wiggle" in the middle. But how many people need 160° of coverage? But you are correct-the low end would couple since the horn has lost pattern control down on the bottom and the drivers are close enough together at those freq.

HOWEVER-because the SM 80 is a sealed box-that means that there is a lot of control over the woofer excursion and the impedance is high down on the bottom of the response. This means that you can add a good bit of boost in the 80-100hz range to "round out" the low freq response to make it more of a full range cabinet all by itself.
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Ivan,

SM-80 spec sheet says 115 Hz - 19 kHz +/- 3 dB.
Looks like at best 115 Hz is no more than 92.5 dB, 10 dB down from the 102.5 dB average from about 180 Hz up.

To what frequency does the pattern stay at 80 degrees?
What does the excursion on that 12" look like when you boost 10 dB at 115Hz over the 400 watt "continuos" rating using a 110 Hz high pass to get the cabinet +/- 3 dB to 115 Hz?
I thought absolute maximum SPL possible was under 200 dB, how many watts does it take to hit 1341 dB :^)?

I'm still available to proof read your spec sheets before they are published ;^).

Art
 

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Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

Art Welter said:
Ivan,

SM-80 spec sheet says 115 Hz - 19 kHz +/- 3 dB.
Looks like at best 115 Hz is no more than 92.5 dB, 10 dB down from the 102.5 dB average from about 180 Hz up.

To what frequency does the pattern stay at 80 degrees?
What does the excursion on that 12" look like when you boost 10 dB at 115Hz over the 400 watt "continuos" rating using a 110 Hz high pass to get the cabinet +/- 3 dB to 115 Hz?
I thought absolute maximum SPL possible was under 200 dB, how many watts does it take to hit 1341 dB :^)?

I'm still available to proof read your spec sheets before they are published ;^).

Art
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All I can say is WOW. I will get it changed.

I just looked at the spec sheet I submitted to the "internet guys".

The -3dB should be 155Hz

Yeah it gets loud-but not quite near 1341dB :)

It has good pattern control down to around 400Hz (being just over 100° at 400Hz).

Thanks for the "catch". Sorry it had to be done.
 
Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

First, thanks to everyone at Danley for the hospitality and it was great to get to see some of you again and to meet others.

The Tannoy VQ60 is much more an install box and comparable to the SH60 than it is a SM80 competitor or something you'd typically find used for bar band rigs. At least part of the reason it was there was that I have specified the VQ series on some installed system projects and the folks at Danley created an opportunity to listen to one side-by-side with some of their boxes.

Having heard it a couple of times now I remain impressed with the SM80. With tweaks such as the Gunness Focusing the KF650z is amazing in how well it can still compete with newer designs. The VRX definitely fell short in this company.

The importance of sensitivity was clearly reflected in comparing the SB1000 with the TH118 and TH212 (the IHOP is sort of altogether a different beast). The TH212 definitely sounded like a much bigger box but it could not be pushed quite as hard as the others beofe you found its limits.
 
Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

Brad Weber said:
The TH212 definitely sounded like a much bigger box but it could not be pushed quite as hard as the others beofe you found its limits.
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But in the "let's be honest" type of thing- we had a highpass filter fairly low-and you should use one a bit higher-especially when pushing the sub hard. It was basically being operated below the intended bandpass.

But we weren't changing anything between boxes-just plugging the same cable with the same settings (only a high and low pass filter) into the different boxes.

So as with anything-it should be operated within the rated parameters or you will find the limitations.

Kemper uses TH212's all the time for outdoor shows without issues. I am sure high high pass is higher than what we had.
 
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