Another powered speaker comparison

C

Caleb Dueck

Junior
Jan 11, 2011
542
19
18
Montana
We had another round of speakers together for comparison, this time with Smaart, and captured raw and processed freq/phase for all speakers. However, due to a technical glitch, those all evaporated. I'll try to get the 15" speakers re-measured.

12" plastic - RCF Art722A, QSC K12, Yorkville NX55P, and Mackie SRM-450 (for reference).

15" wood - RCF TT25A, VTC S4P, and QSC KW153.

Speakers were run from an EV DC-One DSP, which we commonly include with small portable systems. All speakers were lightly EQ'd flat where needed, and all had about a 90Hz HPF. This was to equate to real world use (tuned rather than raw). We used a well-known track, non-mp3, and adjusted fader so no speaker had a SPL advantage - IE, slightly louder sounding better.

I have photos of the two groups attached.


In order of ranking, 12":
Overall – none of them sounded good, they were all poor in different ways. No one wanted to go back to re-listen to any of them.

RCF 722a- least bad, scooped, needs a lot of EQ to sound good. Large 2” horn, a bit louder than the rest.

QSC K12- muddy, needs EQ, not very loud, limits early and hard

Yorkville NX55p- even more muddy than K12's

Mackie SRM450- very harsh, even at low levels.




In order of ranking, 15":
Overall, the TT25A and S4P were better than the QSC, which sounded plastic.

RCF TT25a- The overall best by far, tight bottom, loud, physically compact, no extra buttons to confuse novice users, powercon. Clear winner.

VTC S4P- most open mids/highs, but slightly weak and flabby low end. Quite large physically. Makes me want to hear biamped U215, and 2/side S4P's, with Bonded Logic acoustical stuffing. Uses Synergy Horn tech licensed from Danley. With subs would be a solid option.

QSC KW153- very forward mid-range but not in a good way, needs EQ, very tall, way too many knobs and buttons to confuse novice users, very ‘plastic’ sound, poor limiters, quite harsh at higher levels, not as much max output as it should have.



TT25A's over a Danley DBH-218 is my current favorite little portable system.
 

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Re: Another powered speaker comparison

A big part of doing this in the first place is to cut through the trade rag articles, where products are compared against themselves, and thus every single one is good. Everyone is warm and fuzzy, everything is good, circle around the campfire. We have more clients coming to us now, since they are fed up with clueless sales droids, context-less magazine articles, etc, and they want experienced comparisons where not everyone is a winner. We aren't out to make any manufacturer look bad. Look at the 12" plastic boxes; they fill a price/weight point, they aren't intended to compete with pro touring boxes, and it's no surprise that none stood out as spectacular. I'm hoping there aren't any manufacturers out there that are surprised their lower price point offerings aren't on par with high $$ options!

Something interesting - a client was there, that was planning on buying a specific pair of speakers, based on cost. After hearing them all, and seeing how minimal the cost in context of a full system - is now seriously considering the TT25A's. The prices on these are pretty close, enough that the focus can be on audio quality rather than cost. It's also why we didn't have any Meyer or L'Acoustics, for example, but capped it at under $3k street, powered.
 
Re: Another powered speaker comparison

Caleb Dick said:
In order of ranking, 12":
Overall – none of them sounded good, they were all poor in different ways. No one wanted to go back to re-listen to any of them.

RCF 722a- least bad, scooped, needs a lot of EQ to sound good. Large 2” horn, a bit louder than the rest.

QSC K12- muddy, needs EQ, not very loud, limits early and hard

Yorkville NX55p- even more muddy than K12's

Mackie SRM450- very harsh, even at low levels.
Click to expand...

You can add the Yamaha DSR112 as another powered 12in that's not really worth a second listen. We're currently in a search for powered wedge/utility speakers to replace our older Mackie SRM450s. Today we had pairs of the DSR 12s, 15, and single 18 subs on a demo. None of them made us want to buy them. The one thing we walked away from listening to them with was the thought that Yamaha's marketing department is doing a good job.
I know we're going to get a different flavor of mediocre with all the different options in this market segment, so it looks like I'll probably end up making the decision based on functionality/feature differences instead of sound quality. I think at this point QSC has the best feature set with its K and KW lines, but I agree that they're fairly muddy. With the Yamaha's the features just aren't there to go along with underwhelming sound quality, the 12s and subs weren't worth listening to. The 15s were decent, just didn't meet our wedge requirement.
 
Re: Another powered speaker comparison

Caleb ... did you get the opportunity to compare the TT22A vs the TT25A with respect to sound quality? Obviously the larger box will have more grunt, but I've wondered if the smaller box 'sounds better' (I also have listened to the TT25a and was impressed, haven't been able to listen to the TT22a).
 
Re: Another powered speaker comparison

TT25A and TT22A - yes I have heard them both, no they were not together. The 22A wasn't quite as smooth as the EAW NT29, which I heard that day.

I typically like 12" instead of 15", but the 25A doesn't have that typical mid-range mush, nor does the HF sound compromised. For a 1.5" HF throat, it's surprisinly good up high.

I was told the TT25A outsells the TT22A by at least 7:1, FWIW. I didn't notice anything poor about it that would make me want the 22A instead.
 
Re: Another powered speaker comparison

Matt - Haven't heard the NX line. Does it compare to TT?

Don - we didn't slam the limiter in detail, but it seemed to be a basic peak limiter. IE, upping the level gave more output, until limiter kicked in which gave a hard stop and was quite audible. Other speakers like the TT seemed to have a bit more of an RMS type (slower attack time) limiter - even after the limiter lights were flashing, there was more output, that didn't sound as compromised. IE, there were peaks still allowed through when in limit. When K12 limiter was hit, I heard multiple "That's it?" regarding output.
 
Re: Another powered speaker comparison

Robert Kenton said:
I believe that the NX line uses the Art drivers and amp mod's in a birch cabinet.
Click to expand...

At least for the NX12SMA that Matt referenced, that cannot be true. The SMA is a coaxial speaker, definitely not sharing parts with the Art line.

That said, the NX12SMA has been backordered forever, like, 2 months. I hopefully have 4 coming in at the end of this month. I'll try to put together a review once they get here.
 
Re: Another powered speaker comparison

I guess I wasn't surprised that the most expensive speaker sounded best :-)

I have K12s and while I would love the TT25As, they are 3 times the price (I saw them at a little over $3k per box).

What sounds best in the under $2k range? I would like some tops that are not too heavy but sound a bit better than the K12s. Don't get me wrong, I like my K12s. Heck, they are this decade's SRM450 :-)
 
Re: Another powered speaker comparison

Bennett Prescott said:
No, the SRM450 sounds better than the K12.
Click to expand...

It's not a linear better/worse, they're different. All the K/KW have a 'something' off about them. The 450's have their own harsh/thin sound, especially when pushed.

For Rob - the TT25A costs more, but also has a wider dispersion. Both of the other 15" speakers need two arrayed to approximately match the dispersion of the nice one. 2 of either of them cost pretty close to one TT25A. If you're looking to purchase, call us for pricing on the TT25A's. This is also why we don't like to categorize speakers by simple price points for one box; it's the total cost of the system that we look at.
 
Re: Another powered speaker comparison

TT25A and PS15? They are both good speakers, but I haven't heard them together, and it's been a few years since I used the Nexos.
 
Re: Another powered speaker comparison

Fernando Lopez said:
How does the Nexo PS15 compare to the RCF TT-25a?
Click to expand...

Well since the PS15 or PS15-R2 are not powered I would say that you can't compare them in this situation.

Spec wise they look very similar
The only difference is RCF states that the TT25 goes to 20k which I doubt

I personally like having the assymetrical horn that the PS15 and PS15-R2 offer
The new R2 version is a great sounding box and gets very loud

The TT25 has also sounded good in past listening test but the Nexo box has something special
We use the PS15-R2 as wedges and main and anything else needed
I wouldn't want anything else
 
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