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.

Art Welter said:
Is the upper output level similar to the TH-812?
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Within the operating band of the "IHOP", the sensitivity is higher-yet the power capacity is half (4x1000 watt continuous woofers)-so the net output is pretty much the same-up to the top end-in which the IHOP gets louder.

We can easily make the cabinet "double deep" and put 8 12" woofers in it-so the output for the same number of drivers would be a good bit more. And the physical size of the cabinet is smaller. But it doesn't go as deep as the TH812. On the low end the TH812 runs away.
 
Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

I believe that app is "audio tools" from studio six digital. Screen looks the same as the studiosix app on my ipad. What levels do you guys trust your ipad/iphone SPL meter apps to. It seems to me that the mic begins to compress as the level gets very high.
 
Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

Loren Jones said:
I believe that app is "audio tools" from studio six digital. Screen looks the same as the studiosix app on my ipad. What levels do you guys trust your ipad/iphone SPL meter apps to. It seems to me that the mic begins to compress as the level gets very high.
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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.
 
Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

Ivan Beaver said:
I welcome comments-but this was our finding in our limited time and product availability.
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Ivan,

A little more data for you. My experience matches with yours in terms of influencing "punch" on a system that has been properly phase-aligned, as you did. The region from 90-110Hz seems to have the most influence in my experience. I know two globe-trotting system techs who also agree with this conclusion.
 
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Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

Just to add a (now mute) point on the whole "hindsight being 20/20" thing.

Yes the space we held it in was limited-and the weather was not playing nice for most of the day. This prevented us from doing one VERY important thing-that should ALWAYS be considered when listening to a loudspeaker. WALKING THE PATTERN.

It is one thing to listen at a single position (usually on axis). And often quite another to see if the loudspeakers coverage pattern is consistent across the rated/intended coverage area.

Very often you will find that speakers get quite beamy on axis. So off to the sides (and still in the rated coverage pattern) the top end (usually) drops off. So the sound that one person hears is not the same as another person in a different area. This is ESPECIALLY important in the VERTICAL coverage. Not so big a deal if the loudspeakers are 6-8' off the ground, but if flown and pointed down towards the people-you will often find VERY different coverage patterns. MUCH more so than in the horizontal coverage.

I often hear the excuse "Yeah-but people don't often walk up and down in the air Ha-HA" NO-BUT THEY DO walk and sit from front to back-and THAT is where the vertical coverage issue start to raise their ugly heads.

So it is VERY important to not only go side to side-but also from front to back-if possible.

An easy test to listen to the vertical coverage when you can't fly a system up high is to simply put it down low 4-6' off the ground and turn it on its side. Now walk side to side-and you will hear the vertical coverage.

IF we had the room (which would be very hard to do in the space-with the number of people we had), I feel there would be some different opinions that people would have about certain products and overall "how well they do their job".

Just something to consider when evaluating products. There are a number of "aspects" to be considered-which can be very hard in a limited space with a limited amount of time.
 
Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

Always enjoy reading up on these listening events.

Very interested to hear more of folks impressions comparing SM80 with the other common cabs. I'm sure the SQ is great - but what about output? What typical cabs would they be a nice step up from?
 
Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

john lutz said:
Always enjoy reading up on these listening events.

Very interested to hear more of folks impressions comparing SM80 with the other common cabs. I'm sure the SQ is great - but what about output? What typical cabs would they be a nice step up from?
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I did some quite thorough tests to see if they could replace my d&b Q7s, and found that they can. When used with subs, as they're primarily intended, they are about as loud - within a dB or so, when limited to 80V peak which would be about 800W in 8 ohms (half the rated peak power). So that's one reference point.
 
Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

Ivan Beaver said:
Very often you will find that speakers get quite beamy on axis. So off to the sides (and still in the rated coverage pattern) the top end (usually) drops off.
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And in some cases drops off, then goes back up - there are some speakers out there whose peak output is not on the same axis for all frequencies (when you see polars normalized to the on-axis response that also have positive numbers that may be a sign to look for such things). It's not just where the level drops off -6dB but how it drops off and what happens beyond that. There is no inherent right or wrong, but it can affect how speakers array, interact with the room, etc.

The discussion of 'punch' reminds me of how for the 'snap' of a rim shot or any impulsive sounds good phase alignment throughout the entire bandwidth involved makes a noticeable difference in the time 'smear' that results.
 
Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

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.
-clop-

Yes the accuracy starts to fall apart when the levels get high-but what is 'high'?
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I would be apprehensive about trusting a smart phone app for SPL at high levels.

While I do not have first hand data, I am somewhat familiar with the types of ICs they use and inexpensive mics, interface with low voltage ICs. These systems gain structure is optimized for speech capture without annoying hiss levels so I would expect them to run out of headroom more than noise floor issues.

A dedicated SPL meter could use the same components and perhaps get 10 dB or more range by trading low level accuracy for high level, but at the end of the day it is not a very high dynamic range path, using components mostly intended for speech. A smart dedicated SPL meter could electrically reduce gain in response to measured levels and gain some electrical dynamic range, at some point the transducer will overload.

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

Brad Weber said:
The discussion of 'punch' reminds me of how for the 'snap' of a rim shot or any impulsive sounds good phase alignment throughout the entire bandwidth involved makes a noticeable difference in the time 'smear' that results.
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That is why percussive instruments/recording make good test signals. How well does the loudspeaker/system produce a nice "sharp" attack? Does it sound "dull" or smeared.

It was real interesting at WFX with the 13 systems that were there. On some tracks on some systems the sound was a bit "masked", while on others it was nice and sharp.
Yet on other tracks (that didn't have sharp attacks), you didn't hear that kind of difference.

How a loudspeaker reacts over time (ie how many different arrivals you get) can make a big difference. Especially on the clarity side of things.

Historically speech inteligibility was measured in ALCONS (Articulation Loss of CONSonants). Which are the "sharper" attach parts of speech. The vowels are lower in freq-and are stronger in level-but add little to the overall clarity. If the sound was smeared in time (either by the sound system or the room), the clarity goes down.
 
Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

Just one quick caveat.. and most of my testing experience is related to electronic audio paths to take this in that context.

I have seen some misleading unintended consequences of clipping amplifiers or audio paths, where the signal overload adds HF content (distortion). Subjectively a small amount of clipping could add to a sense of wide band response. Clipping only becomes easily identifiable by inexperienced listeners as distortion when the more persistent LF envelope gets stepped on, creating more audible mid-frequency band artifacts..

Clipping short duration LF transients (like drum hits) can add "snap", "crackle" and "pop", that wasn't in the original sound.

JR

PS: Loudspeaker drivers do not clip in a similar way to electronic paths. The distinctive "snap" of a driver bottoming, should never be confused for valid signal.
 
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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Arguably if the musician does it on purpose, it is music. The job of musical instrument amplifiers is a little uncertain about linearity vs. subjective result.

The job of audio path designers is to reproduce whatever signal they get sent without adding artifacts that detract from the sound presentation.

sorry for another unintentional veer.

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

John Roberts said:
I would be apprehensive about trusting a smart phone app for SPL at high levels.
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Indeed, most $100 measurement mics cannot be trusted past about 105dB. That's part of what you're paying for in the $1K microphones, consistency with changing level.
 
Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

Can someone(s) present list of the speakers/subs present, and go over impressions of each?
 
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Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.

Spenser Hamilton said:
No matter how many times you tell them that slapping over the heel will reduce that, they still insist on slapping right over top of the pickup.
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Hmm, the technique is "taught" with the string being slapped over the end, or heel of the neck, preferably on the last fret.

So those pick-up slappers are doing it wrong...:))

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

Loren Jones said:
I believe that app is "audio tools" from studio six digital. Screen looks the same as the studiosix app on my ipad. What levels do you guys trust your ipad/iphone SPL meter apps to. It seems to me that the mic begins to compress as the level gets very high.
Click to expand...

Thats the same conclusion I came to. On my phone its…. w a a a a y out at high SPLs. Have zero trust at any level with the phone apps.

Peter
 
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