Reasonably Priced Large Format Line Arrays

[Brandon Blakeney]

Re: Reasonably Priced Large Format Line Arrays

Brandon,

I was in your situation just last year, I even started a thread on here somewhere. Just like you I'm a "weekend warrior" with a full time, but my full time job allows me to play with all the big league toys without having to pay for it out of my pocket. I wanted to purchase a small to mid line array, something like KF730, VT4887A or even a 4888 rig. I don't need to meet riders but was looking at the angle of cross renting MY gear out to the soundco's in my area. There are many soundco's here with JBL VT's, but not many in my market (Portuguese bands and artists)
I would only need the rig for 1 confirmed show I do every year (outdoors with 2-2.5K ppl) with the possibility of landing bigger events with the "RIG". After crunching some numbers and taking into acct all the other expenses I decided not to get into that game.

Here where some of my reasons
1) Gear, transportation, storage and maintenance.
2) What if those bigger events don't come knocking?
3) If they didn't come, how would I be able to pay that gear off?
4) Would it make more sense to cross rent when needed?

A friend of mine actually has alot of the gear I was looking at buying, and even though we are technically competition to each other we help each other out when it comes to gear. I have landed 2 more bigger events where I need a line array bringing my grand total to 3 shows a year, but I'm still cross renting it from my friend as it still isn't feasible to own it myself.

You need to look at the pros/cons of owning the gear.

You make some great points Steve, however, the old saying "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" certainly can be applied to this situation. I rent my staging from one company for several festivals each year and get a good rate, however, we don't have anything in writing neither have I had to reserve the stage more than a month or two out in the past. This past fall I was notified that the local university had contracted to rent that stage for the dates I needed, I don't blame the people I rented it from there was just a mix up on when they thought my dates were :/ When I checked prices on renting stages from other companies in the area I was quoted possibly "fair" but outrageous prices IMO in contrast to what the actual gig paid. In the end some things were shifted around to where I actually was able to get the stage on the days I needed, but the moral of that story is that when you rent gear from other people your reputation, costs, and ability to perform are in their hands. I'm a system owner and aim to stay that way, what if you get a gig with 24 or 48 hours notice for unforeseeable reasons? I would rather be in the position that my trailer is ready to roll.

 

[Art Welter]

Re: Reasonably Priced Large Format Line Arrays

I was thinking more of a complete loudspeaker cabinet-not so much a loudspeaker driver.

You could "argue" that 10% distortion "might" be a target.

But then we get into the whole (exactly how is it measured) type of thing.

And those that don't follow the same "guidlines" will have different max SPL numbers that would be higher. And "OF COURSE" people want a higher SPL number.

Electro Voice and a few other companies used to show distortion charts on drivers.
Like a frequency response curve, the end user can determine whether the distortion at "X" level is acceptable, and compare the curves.

Unfortunately, even EV's distortion specs were at a level far below (more than 10 dB below) the rated input level.

Advances in materials have pushed the power handling on many drivers to four times higher than when distortion curves were available, seems distortion specifications at rated power are not available any more, as they would be an embarrassment.


Art

 

[Ivan Beaver]

Re: Reasonably Priced Large Format Line Arrays

Electro Voice and a few other companies used to show distortion charts on drivers.
Like a frequency response curve, the end user can determine whether the distortion at "X" level is acceptable, and compare the curves.

Unfortunately, even EV's distortion specs were at a level far below (more than 10 dB below) the rated input level.

Advances in materials have pushed the power handling on many drivers to four times higher than when distortion curves were available, seems distortion specifications at rated power are not available any more, as they would be an embarrassment.


Art

Turbo also used to show distortion curves.

I would argue that with a good number of "popular" loudspeakers you can't even get a freq response curve-much less a meaningful (at what level?????) distortion curve.

And if you could get some distortion curves- would that be a single box or an array (specifically a line array)?

And unless everybody measured them the same way-the results could be a bit skewed. and people would jump to conclusions to easily.