Background
I'm a member of Hoboken Grace Community Church in Hoboken, NJ. We rent space on Sunday mornings in the Hope's building at 301 Garden St. Their gymatorium has some pretty terrible acoustics due to its hardwood floors, drywalled walls, and other concrete bits (the structure of an old balcony that has since been closed in). The main seating area is on the basketball court with overflow seating extending to the three sides of the court (and under the old balcony). The stage is along the other long side of the basketball court area. I believe the currently installed speakers are JBL PRX715's and are mounted to the walls to the sides of the stage and angled down on the main seating area. This provides relatively good coverage of the main seating area but leaves all of the overflow seatings areas uncovered. Initially the church brought me in to discuss fill speakers for the overflow areas. Upon contemplating our options, small distributed speakers, more amplifiers processors, etc, I decided to arrange a demo of something that might resolve the issue a little more simply.
Enter the Danley SBH-10
The Danley SBH-10 Loudspeakers look like column loudspeakers from long ago but are packed with modern patented technology and performance. I had heard good things about the cabinets (and watched the Danley youtube videos, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8cX5Xs_vZg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrQODkxx8rM) but wanted to experience them personally. Arranging a demo for Hoboken Grace provided the perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. We arranged the demonstration on a Thursday night so that we would have time to try different arrangements and tracks without interfering with any Sunday services. The first thing that you notice about the SBH-10's is that they look skinny. However, after you try to pick them up, you realize that they're SOLID and weigh 100 LBS! We stood the speakers up on the stage which is probably about 36" off of the ground and powered them via a Powersoft K3DSP amplifier (one cabinet per channel). To round out the low end, we used the church's existing FBT Mittus 118SA subwoofers. Immediately upon hearing the SBH-10's you realize how clear and detailed they are in the midrange and high-end. Even in this terrible acoustic environment you could hear the difference between the Danley's and the PRX boxes. The next thing we noticed was how even the coverage of the room was from the front to back and into the overflow seating areas. The volume definitely increased as you approached the cabinets but as long as you could see the paraline lens in the cabinet, you could hear the high end clearly. The next revelation was when we tilted the cabinets off axis by leaning them back, the sound down to the low midrange disappears! These boxes are incredibly directional in the vertical plane (~10 degrees)!
We were so pleased with the performance of the speakers Thursday night, we decided to try them at our services on Sunday morning. The speakers continued to excel during our services and provided much better coverage throughout the room than the existing speakers. Based on the demonstration the church is looking to upgrade to the SBH-10's in the near future.
One more event!
The week after the demo at Hoboken Grace, my production company, Cobra Sound was providing the production for several stages at the Grey Fox Bluegrass Music Festival in Oak Hill, NY. One of the stages that we provide the audio and lighting for is the Creekside Master's stage. This is a more intimate venue designed to get the audience closer to the band for workshops and up close performances. Last year we had an excellent sounding setup in there using Fulcrum FA12's but due to the almost in the round setup of the tent (seating wrapped around the front and sides of the stage area), the FA12's on sticks blocked sightlines for the patrons. I decided to leverage the SBH-10's for this stage to gain more experience with them as well as improve sightlines for the audience. We used a single Yorkville PSA2S subwoofer to round out the low end and again powered the SBH-10's with a Powersoft K3DSP amplifier. Here again, the speakers sounded very good, looked great, and provided nice wide coverage for the audience but preventing lots of reflections from the tent roof. We and our employer/audience members were also thrilled with the performance.
Conclusion
The SBH-10's are an extremely well built and great sounding loudspeakers! They are perfect for applications requiring wide horizontal and extremely tight vertical pattern control. They also require minimal processing (just HPF and EQ to taste) for optimal sound.
More information about the speakers can be found here: http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/products/loud-speakers/sbh/sbh-10/
Thank you,
Jeff
P.S. Dealer disclaimer applies
I'm a member of Hoboken Grace Community Church in Hoboken, NJ. We rent space on Sunday mornings in the Hope's building at 301 Garden St. Their gymatorium has some pretty terrible acoustics due to its hardwood floors, drywalled walls, and other concrete bits (the structure of an old balcony that has since been closed in). The main seating area is on the basketball court with overflow seating extending to the three sides of the court (and under the old balcony). The stage is along the other long side of the basketball court area. I believe the currently installed speakers are JBL PRX715's and are mounted to the walls to the sides of the stage and angled down on the main seating area. This provides relatively good coverage of the main seating area but leaves all of the overflow seatings areas uncovered. Initially the church brought me in to discuss fill speakers for the overflow areas. Upon contemplating our options, small distributed speakers, more amplifiers processors, etc, I decided to arrange a demo of something that might resolve the issue a little more simply.
Enter the Danley SBH-10
The Danley SBH-10 Loudspeakers look like column loudspeakers from long ago but are packed with modern patented technology and performance. I had heard good things about the cabinets (and watched the Danley youtube videos, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8cX5Xs_vZg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrQODkxx8rM) but wanted to experience them personally. Arranging a demo for Hoboken Grace provided the perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. We arranged the demonstration on a Thursday night so that we would have time to try different arrangements and tracks without interfering with any Sunday services. The first thing that you notice about the SBH-10's is that they look skinny. However, after you try to pick them up, you realize that they're SOLID and weigh 100 LBS! We stood the speakers up on the stage which is probably about 36" off of the ground and powered them via a Powersoft K3DSP amplifier (one cabinet per channel). To round out the low end, we used the church's existing FBT Mittus 118SA subwoofers. Immediately upon hearing the SBH-10's you realize how clear and detailed they are in the midrange and high-end. Even in this terrible acoustic environment you could hear the difference between the Danley's and the PRX boxes. The next thing we noticed was how even the coverage of the room was from the front to back and into the overflow seating areas. The volume definitely increased as you approached the cabinets but as long as you could see the paraline lens in the cabinet, you could hear the high end clearly. The next revelation was when we tilted the cabinets off axis by leaning them back, the sound down to the low midrange disappears! These boxes are incredibly directional in the vertical plane (~10 degrees)!
We were so pleased with the performance of the speakers Thursday night, we decided to try them at our services on Sunday morning. The speakers continued to excel during our services and provided much better coverage throughout the room than the existing speakers. Based on the demonstration the church is looking to upgrade to the SBH-10's in the near future.
One more event!
The week after the demo at Hoboken Grace, my production company, Cobra Sound was providing the production for several stages at the Grey Fox Bluegrass Music Festival in Oak Hill, NY. One of the stages that we provide the audio and lighting for is the Creekside Master's stage. This is a more intimate venue designed to get the audience closer to the band for workshops and up close performances. Last year we had an excellent sounding setup in there using Fulcrum FA12's but due to the almost in the round setup of the tent (seating wrapped around the front and sides of the stage area), the FA12's on sticks blocked sightlines for the patrons. I decided to leverage the SBH-10's for this stage to gain more experience with them as well as improve sightlines for the audience. We used a single Yorkville PSA2S subwoofer to round out the low end and again powered the SBH-10's with a Powersoft K3DSP amplifier. Here again, the speakers sounded very good, looked great, and provided nice wide coverage for the audience but preventing lots of reflections from the tent roof. We and our employer/audience members were also thrilled with the performance.
Conclusion
The SBH-10's are an extremely well built and great sounding loudspeakers! They are perfect for applications requiring wide horizontal and extremely tight vertical pattern control. They also require minimal processing (just HPF and EQ to taste) for optimal sound.
More information about the speakers can be found here: http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/products/loud-speakers/sbh/sbh-10/
Thank you,
Jeff
P.S. Dealer disclaimer applies
