So, I needed to upgrade to a small-format line array, mostly because the shows I have been doing have grown in size to the point that 4 Fulcrum DX1565 can barely handle it. These are shows that are >1000 people, up to which the Fulcrum boxes do great. The proposed system needed to satisfy a few key points:
So, that said, there isn't a huge list of small-format boxes out there that would make me happy. JBL's Vertec VT4886 might have worked, but it is not active and probably didn't have quite the output I needed, at least in the low-mid range of the 6.5" woofers. There was the RCF NXL23A, but the coverage is a disaster. There are some higher up RCF TT boxes, but they're REALLY expensive. The DB Technologies T4s are too small and not symmetrical (and they don't sound as good as I need anyway), and the T12 is just a bit too big. And they're both plastic. I like birch.
I happened to see the product announcement for the RCF HDL20-A line array and thought it looked ok, but it was plastic. Not a fan. Then I looked around for 3 more months to see what was out there, and came back to the HDL. I tried to arrange a demo, but RCF USA got hit by the hurricane, the container of boxes was diverted, and no real demo rig was available. I had a show coming up and I needed to pull the trigger on something, or deal with renting again (after my Vertec rental rig was sold off).
After speaking to the rep, I struck a deal with RCF that gave me a return policy on the HDL20-A boxes in case I didn't like them, and I went ahead and took delivery of 8 boxes plus a pair of the associated double 18 subs. Almost. Remember that the container had been diverted because of Sandy? A week before the show the boxes still weren't here. Days before the show the boxes still weren't here. I was in contact with the RCF warehouse (great guys there too!) and got word that the container was coming two days before the show, and only one day before I left for the show. So I showed up at the warehouse literally 10 minutes after the container left - amazing timing, and great coordination on the part of RCF.
When I chose the rig, it seemed that 8 tops plus 2 subs would work well. The subs are designed to have the tops ground stacked on top both standing on its end and sitting down as usual. The regular array frame flips over and has feet to sit in cutouts in the sub, making the stack very secure. It supports 4 boxes in a ground stack configuration.
There is also a 'light' flybar which allows pole-mounting of 2 boxes or up to 4 boxes to be flown or clamped to truss. I thought it was a cool idea and picked these up 'just in case'. Additionally, RCF has carts that 4 boxes stack nicely on, with locking casters, etc. Very well thought-out design here.
At the show, things loaded in nicely and stacked up as expected. The RCF line array calculator wouldn't give me anything that made sense for angles (and I set my Disto to Meters so it was native for the program). I ended up eyeballing it, and it turns out I make a pretty good line array calculator myself.
The rigging on these boxes is OK, I'm not a giant fan, other than these boxes are so light (62 pounds) that I can deal with whatever. The rigging is way better than Vertec, that's for sure. A single angle point in back and some captive sliding bars in front to connect the boxes. Angle increments of 2.5 degrees seem to work OK for a box this small. My only issue is that in a ground stack situation, since the front bars slide, they don't take the weight off the box itself. There is a 'stack pin' hole that could lock the bar out and take all the weight on the rigging, but they didn't provide enough pins. So for this show, the boxes held their own weight and the rigging kept things centered.
The venue was a usual theater, 780 seats, very well designed for unamplified concerts. I put the stacks on each side of the stage as the area directly in front was a fire egress path. FOH was set up at the top of the lower seating section, I think it was about 40 feet away? About 400 people fit between me and the stage. I fired up the rig, aligned the RCF SUB8006AS subs, and got to doing some EQ. Things were a little odd in the room, I don't think acoustics were on my side, the low end was a bit flabby, but I worked with it. Unfortunately I don't remember what EQ was required, but I know it was not very much. A few small cuts, and at least a couple of them were due to the stack being up against a wall on the side of the stage.
Just because I like to be excessive, I happened to have a pair of Fulcrum Acoustic TS221 double-21 subwoofers with me for 'supplemental' low-end. These were powered with bridged IT5000HDs, one amp per sub. These were placed behind the RCF subwoofers and slightly off to the side (the Fulcrum subs were against the proscenium opening on the sides, the RCF subs and arrays were slightly downstage of that). After some aligning, I had an end-fire array with 2 elements. Comparing the Fulcrum subs to the RCF subs told me I liked the RCF subs better - and you would think that the Fulcrum insanity subs would outrun the RCF subs easily, right? Not the case. They were about neck and neck @ limit. I liked the sound of the RCF subs better, they seemed to go lower and sound smoother, though the Fulcrum subs were flatter on Smaart.
The rig had TONS of output, much much more than I had expected. The place filled up quite a bit, and the sound was excellent. Very close to Fulcrum-like, and very even front to back and side to side. The coverage is stated as 100 degrees, and it absolutely is. It tapers off nicely beyond the 100 degrees also. Did I mention it was LOUD? With no remote monitoring, I had to radio my stage tech to tell me if any limit lights were flashing on the subs or tops - not one limit light ever showed itself the whole show. These do not have super-flat phase like the Fulcrums do, and the sound overall was more, maybe, fatiguing? than it usually is with the Fulcrum rig. It still sounded very hi-fi and the crowd, artist, and promoter were extremely happy. I gave out a slew of business cards.
Surprisingly, I'm now a believer in RCF's plastic boxes. Unlike the DB Tech boxes, the RCF ones are 'aluminum reinforced'. I'm not sure what that means, but rapping on the RCF box sounds just like a wood box, and the sides do NOT flex. The DB Tech boxes flex easily.
Overall, I'm very impressed with the HDL20-A line array, but even more impressed with the SUB8006AS subwoofer. The sub is absolutely excellent. Vastly better than the SRX728S subs I was using before.
So overall, these are light, loud, inexpensive, sound great, have tons of configuration options, and are supported by a great team. The only cons I can think of are that they don't seem to use any filters to achieve flat phase, the response falls off pretty quickly above 10k, the ground-stacking puts weight on the boxes themselves, and the RCF line array calculator has a mind of its own.
- Sound amazing - trying to meet Fulcrum sound quality is not going to get me anywhere, but as close as possible would be great
- Great coverage - the boxes need to have good pattern control and coverage, and match spec. I prefer symmetrical boxes such that coverage is the same on both sides, without any driver spacing-caused coverage issues
- Very loud - I'm trying to get louder than boxes that have absolutely ridiculous output. I need to be at least 10dB louder than 2/side Fulcrum boxes, I would think, to make this worthwhile
- Ground-stackable - I know, the bane of a line array's existence, but in the majority of venues, these will get stacked.
- Active - I'm getting sick of carrying amps, though remote monitoring and EQ via System Architect is awesome
- Well-supported - I need to have the manufacturer available any time of the day or night [RCF's local rep (Jon Stafford) is textable any time, even in the middle of the night, ask me know I know] in case I have questions or problems, I need to have great line array shooter software so I can get the angles right the first time, etc.
- Lightweight - I'm not a giant fan of things like Vertec VT4888, where it basically takes two guys just to lift the bumper.
- Cheap - I don't have unlimited money, and neither do my clients. I don't mind paying good money for a great product, though.
- Other cool options - some rigs have options like pole-mounts for small numbers of boxes, cool line array carts, and other accessories that might make my life easier.
So, that said, there isn't a huge list of small-format boxes out there that would make me happy. JBL's Vertec VT4886 might have worked, but it is not active and probably didn't have quite the output I needed, at least in the low-mid range of the 6.5" woofers. There was the RCF NXL23A, but the coverage is a disaster. There are some higher up RCF TT boxes, but they're REALLY expensive. The DB Technologies T4s are too small and not symmetrical (and they don't sound as good as I need anyway), and the T12 is just a bit too big. And they're both plastic. I like birch.
I happened to see the product announcement for the RCF HDL20-A line array and thought it looked ok, but it was plastic. Not a fan. Then I looked around for 3 more months to see what was out there, and came back to the HDL. I tried to arrange a demo, but RCF USA got hit by the hurricane, the container of boxes was diverted, and no real demo rig was available. I had a show coming up and I needed to pull the trigger on something, or deal with renting again (after my Vertec rental rig was sold off).
After speaking to the rep, I struck a deal with RCF that gave me a return policy on the HDL20-A boxes in case I didn't like them, and I went ahead and took delivery of 8 boxes plus a pair of the associated double 18 subs. Almost. Remember that the container had been diverted because of Sandy? A week before the show the boxes still weren't here. Days before the show the boxes still weren't here. I was in contact with the RCF warehouse (great guys there too!) and got word that the container was coming two days before the show, and only one day before I left for the show. So I showed up at the warehouse literally 10 minutes after the container left - amazing timing, and great coordination on the part of RCF.
When I chose the rig, it seemed that 8 tops plus 2 subs would work well. The subs are designed to have the tops ground stacked on top both standing on its end and sitting down as usual. The regular array frame flips over and has feet to sit in cutouts in the sub, making the stack very secure. It supports 4 boxes in a ground stack configuration.
There is also a 'light' flybar which allows pole-mounting of 2 boxes or up to 4 boxes to be flown or clamped to truss. I thought it was a cool idea and picked these up 'just in case'. Additionally, RCF has carts that 4 boxes stack nicely on, with locking casters, etc. Very well thought-out design here.
At the show, things loaded in nicely and stacked up as expected. The RCF line array calculator wouldn't give me anything that made sense for angles (and I set my Disto to Meters so it was native for the program). I ended up eyeballing it, and it turns out I make a pretty good line array calculator myself.
The rigging on these boxes is OK, I'm not a giant fan, other than these boxes are so light (62 pounds) that I can deal with whatever. The rigging is way better than Vertec, that's for sure. A single angle point in back and some captive sliding bars in front to connect the boxes. Angle increments of 2.5 degrees seem to work OK for a box this small. My only issue is that in a ground stack situation, since the front bars slide, they don't take the weight off the box itself. There is a 'stack pin' hole that could lock the bar out and take all the weight on the rigging, but they didn't provide enough pins. So for this show, the boxes held their own weight and the rigging kept things centered.
The venue was a usual theater, 780 seats, very well designed for unamplified concerts. I put the stacks on each side of the stage as the area directly in front was a fire egress path. FOH was set up at the top of the lower seating section, I think it was about 40 feet away? About 400 people fit between me and the stage. I fired up the rig, aligned the RCF SUB8006AS subs, and got to doing some EQ. Things were a little odd in the room, I don't think acoustics were on my side, the low end was a bit flabby, but I worked with it. Unfortunately I don't remember what EQ was required, but I know it was not very much. A few small cuts, and at least a couple of them were due to the stack being up against a wall on the side of the stage.
Just because I like to be excessive, I happened to have a pair of Fulcrum Acoustic TS221 double-21 subwoofers with me for 'supplemental' low-end. These were powered with bridged IT5000HDs, one amp per sub. These were placed behind the RCF subwoofers and slightly off to the side (the Fulcrum subs were against the proscenium opening on the sides, the RCF subs and arrays were slightly downstage of that). After some aligning, I had an end-fire array with 2 elements. Comparing the Fulcrum subs to the RCF subs told me I liked the RCF subs better - and you would think that the Fulcrum insanity subs would outrun the RCF subs easily, right? Not the case. They were about neck and neck @ limit. I liked the sound of the RCF subs better, they seemed to go lower and sound smoother, though the Fulcrum subs were flatter on Smaart.
The rig had TONS of output, much much more than I had expected. The place filled up quite a bit, and the sound was excellent. Very close to Fulcrum-like, and very even front to back and side to side. The coverage is stated as 100 degrees, and it absolutely is. It tapers off nicely beyond the 100 degrees also. Did I mention it was LOUD? With no remote monitoring, I had to radio my stage tech to tell me if any limit lights were flashing on the subs or tops - not one limit light ever showed itself the whole show. These do not have super-flat phase like the Fulcrums do, and the sound overall was more, maybe, fatiguing? than it usually is with the Fulcrum rig. It still sounded very hi-fi and the crowd, artist, and promoter were extremely happy. I gave out a slew of business cards.
Surprisingly, I'm now a believer in RCF's plastic boxes. Unlike the DB Tech boxes, the RCF ones are 'aluminum reinforced'. I'm not sure what that means, but rapping on the RCF box sounds just like a wood box, and the sides do NOT flex. The DB Tech boxes flex easily.
Overall, I'm very impressed with the HDL20-A line array, but even more impressed with the SUB8006AS subwoofer. The sub is absolutely excellent. Vastly better than the SRX728S subs I was using before.
So overall, these are light, loud, inexpensive, sound great, have tons of configuration options, and are supported by a great team. The only cons I can think of are that they don't seem to use any filters to achieve flat phase, the response falls off pretty quickly above 10k, the ground-stacking puts weight on the boxes themselves, and the RCF line array calculator has a mind of its own.
