tall skinny speakers

Re: tall skinny speakers

Glenn Adams said:
Why does Danley stick with passive? When I saw the size of the crossover on a SH50 I was thinking how much better everything sounds with active systems, and how much better the SH50 could sound.
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You have to recognize that Danley's primary market is installs and there are sometimes considerations that wouldn't necessarily be evident to a portable (or even home Hifi) user. There is often an economic advantage to a passive box that "requires no processing to sound good" for the install market.
 
Re: tall skinny speakers

drew gandy said:
You have to recognize that Danley's primary market is installs and there are sometimes considerations that wouldn't necessarily be evident to a portable (or even home Hifi) user. There is often an economic advantage to a passive box that "requires no processing to sound good" for the install market.
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And when looking at total costs-1 amp channel-1 speaker wire 1 DSP channel-less wires to terminate-less chance for wiring errors and so forth.

It all adds up.

It is amazing to me how many installs (of all loudspeakers) that don't have any eq applied. They could be so much better.

I have seen a good number of installs in which there is a DSP and hte only in the DSP was a volume control-no highpass-no eq-no limit NOTHING!!!!!!!!

I guess they think that just putting DSP in the chain will somehow make it better.

And we are going to trust THOSE GUYS to get the proper filters/time etc? They don't even understand the basics.

And I am not talking about some little 1 man operations. In several cases this has been by companies that do tens of millions of dollars of installs.

A passive box simple gives they less of a chance to screw up and if they don't know better-allows them a better chance to get a decent sound.

Of course if they aim the speakers correctly-but that is a whole different thread-------------------------
 
Re: tall skinny speakers

Ivan Beaver said:
And when looking at total costs-1 amp channel-1 speaker wire 1 DSP channel-less wires to terminate-less chance for wiring errors and so forth.

It all adds up.

It is amazing to me how many installs (of all loudspeakers) that don't have any eq applied. They could be so much better.

I have seen a good number of installs in which there is a DSP and hte only in the DSP was a volume control-no highpass-no eq-no limit NOTHING!!!!!!!!

I guess they think that just putting DSP in the chain will somehow make it better.

And we are going to trust THOSE GUYS to get the proper filters/time etc? They don't even understand the basics.

And I am not talking about some little 1 man operations. In several cases this has been by companies that do tens of millions of dollars of installs.

A passive box simple gives they less of a chance to screw up and if they don't know better-allows them a better chance to get a decent sound.

Of course if they aim the speakers correctly-but that is a whole different thread-------------------------
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Understood.
i forget the follow up work I do when I hand installations over for contract.
Good point.
 
Re: tall skinny speakers

Glenn Adams said:
Understood.
i forget the follow up work I do when I hand installations over for contract.
Good point.
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I find it truly AMAZING how many BAD sound system installs there are out there.

Apparently anybody who can hook up gear and make sound come out is considered "an expert".

And even worse is that these guys get PAID. Apparently somebody said "This is good-here is a check".

For example at my kids high school (which was @22Million when it was built over 10 years ago-they have long since graduated) in the cafeteria the announcement system is so bad-you cannot understand even what language is being spoken YES IT IS THAT BAD!!!!!!!!!!

My kids say it was that way since the first day it opened. But the contractor got paid and they still "try" to use the system-even though nobody can understand it.

And even worse is when perfectly good systems are pulled out because somebody wants a "new line array" and the new system is much worse than the old one.

And nobody is held accountable. WHY NOT? We just spent a pile of money and it is WORSE! And yet the old system were actually "showcases" and "model rooms" that people were brought to as an example of a sound system done right. :(.

Yes it has happened a couple of times on jobs that I have been associated with.
 
Re: tall skinny speakers

Ivan Beaver said:
And when looking at total costs-1 amp channel-1 speaker wire 1 DSP channel-less wires to terminate-less chance for wiring errors and so forth.

It all adds up.

It is amazing to me how many installs (of all loudspeakers) that don't have any eq applied. They could be so much better.

I have seen a good number of installs in which there is a DSP and hte only in the DSP was a volume control-no highpass-no eq-no limit NOTHING!!!!!!!!

I guess they think that just putting DSP in the chain will somehow make it better.

And we are going to trust THOSE GUYS to get the proper filters/time etc? They don't even understand the basics.
Click to expand...

As a listener/member of the public, I've come to the conclusion that installers have ears that do not listen on an artistic or aesthetic level. If the rig doesn't feed back with an open mic at the contract-specified SPL, it's good to go. Sometimes they fail at that criteria, too, and customers sign the acceptance form anyway. I'm in the process of designing a replacement system for such an install right now.
 
Re: tall skinny speakers

Tim McCulloch said:
As a listener/member of the public, I've come to the conclusion that installers have ears that do not listen on an artistic or aesthetic level. If the rig doesn't feed back with an open mic at the contract-specified SPL, it's good to go. Sometimes they fail at that criteria, too, and customers sign the acceptance form anyway. I'm in the process of designing a replacement system for such an install right now.
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And I have heard all sorts of "excuses" from installers and consultants whose systems don't perform.

They start blaming the acoustics of the room and anything they can come up with so to baffle the customer.

We had a LARGE local church in which there was a "no expense spared" system (from the largest manufacturers names in the business) that was installed and the coverage was HORRIBLE.

The contractor (who shall remain nameless-but we have redone a number of their jobs-same issues) told the Church that THEY had to understand that the budget was cut at the last minute so they could not guarantee performance.

SO EXACTLY WHAT WAS CUT for the budget?

They reused the playback gear and wireless mics.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Since when does a wireless mic affect the coverage pattern of the speaker system????????????????????????????????

But to the Church it made sense-"Yeah we cut the budget so we need to live with that" :(

So they brought in the loudspeaker manufacturer to measure the room and give an evaluation.

They said the room was +/- 4dB. I said BULL CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have measure it and found 25dB huge variations. So I wanted to see the data.

Heck you could walk from 1 end of the 56 channel console to the other and hear 4 very different "sounds". :O

So I got a hold of the "report". Nice and fancy. The had a graph that something like 100 seats on the horizontal axis and SPL on the vertical axis.

Yes on THAT graph it only varied +/-4dB.

HOWEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!! they were just showing total SPL. When you actually MEASURED the system you would easily see that 120Hz was something like 18dB higher than the "average" rest of the freq.

So all they were measuring was a loud freq-that is pretty easy to get even in a large space.

THAT IS WORTHLESS.

Any way we go the go ahead to seed what we could do to the system-as long as all it costs was labor-no gear.

So we dropped the entire system (mains-fills-delays) and rehung them the way I wanted. We gave the Church back $40,000 worth of speakers because they were just causing problems.

Previous to our "redo" the church was getting several hundred WRITTEN complaints about the sound every week. After the redo the complaints went to ZERO.

I was still not as happy as I would like with the coverage-but we were stuck using the existing speakers and general locations and DSP.

In this case (and many others) it goes to show that simply using "the best there is" and using it wrong will end up with poor results.

Sorry to rant-but this type of thing happens ALL THE TIME-at some VERY high levels in our industry.

People just "making it up as they go" and finding excuses for their own lack of skill/knowledge.

And in this case SHAME SHAME on the manufacturer as well-since they came up with a story to try to support their local "golden boy" who sell lots of their gear.

They did not want to make the contractor look bad-so they came up with "something" they thought they could fool the customer so they would not believe what they were actually hearing-----------------------------------
 
Re: tall skinny speakers

I was at a youth center for a benefit concert by a few local metal bands, not fun anymore, but it was for a good cause.
I rang out the first band at sound check and turned to the house DJ to play thru the quite expensive and newer gear than I had.
They run bands and DJ through the house system every weekend.

After 2 songs played I threw a line over to his mixer and begged him to plug into my stuff.
at the end of that evening and 5 thrash bands later all the kids, to me, were saying how great it was to hear good sound there for a change. Even commenting that the DJ sounded great and was wondering if I would be back next week.

A large, well known installation company put the stuff in. A Kazoo would have sounded better and I ain't lying.
 
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Re: tall skinny speakers

Very cool - How did the gig go? What kind of music was played?

How are the line arrays attached to the sub and each other Gene?
 
Re: tall skinny speakers

Glenn Adams said:
Ivan - What sub will work best with the SBH when used for a job like in Gene's photos?
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A TH118 is a good match for the SBH10. They pretty much "run out of gas" at the same time.

A TH115 would work (same size as TH118-which gets the SBH10 up in the air nicely), but has less output and doesn't go as low.

A TH112 would also work-but has even less output-but goes lower than the TH115.

If you want lots of output-a DBH218 standing on its end (to get the SBH10 up in the air) would be nice.
 
Re: tall skinny speakers

Glenn Adams said:
Very cool - How did the gig go? What kind of music was played?

How are the line arrays attached to the sub and each other Gene?
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The band music was Southern Soul - heavy left hand keyboard bass - and the Holy Ghost paid a visit too. They alternated with a DJ that played typical disco stuff LOUD.

The double 18's are laid on their sides and they have a pole hole. I cut the poles so the speaker rests directly on the sub. The top skinny speaker is stuck in place with another short pole between them just resting there. You have to stand on top of the sub to lift it up on the other skinny speaker and to take it off at the end of the night. The 18's are Faital loaded and the tops keep up pretty well with them. I use two Crown Xti 6002 amps for the mains - half for the tops and half for the subs. The room was happy and it was LOUD. :)~:)~:smile:
 
Re: tall skinny speakers

Ivan Beaver said:
A TH118 is a good match for the SBH10. They pretty much "run out of gas" at the same time.

A TH115 would work (same size as TH118-which gets the SBH10 up in the air nicely), but has less output and doesn't go as low.

A TH112 would also work-but has even less output-but goes lower than the TH115.

If you want lots of output-a DBH218 standing on its end (to get the SBH10 up in the air) would be nice.
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Will it keep up with a TH412?
 
Re: tall skinny speakers

Gene Hardage said:
Yeah I know - about halfway through it got so hot I had to trade my shoes and socks for flip flops which are approved footware in all but the swankiest of gigs around here.
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Go ahead, rub it in. I have Polar Bears moving into my back yard, and I am in PA.
 
Re: tall skinny speakers

Ivan Beaver said:
I have seen a good number of installs in which there is a DSP and hte only in the DSP was a volume control-no highpass-no eq-no limit NOTHING!!!!!!!!

I guess they think that just putting DSP in the chain will somehow make it better.
Click to expand...

Yep! I certain install company around here has put in DSP's that come with a basic input to output preloaded default and that default preset is what they use......all the time! That "speced" system DSP is a nothing more than acting as a piece of wire.
In one their systems that made very loud popping and snapping as it was powered up and down due to the power amps being in the first two positions on the power sequence cycle I actually head their "technician" say that it was due the DSP eq had not been adjusted. That system worked out to be a good service call for me that included things like, switching amps out of bridged mono that were wired for dual channel operation, finding about half the speakers on one side of a large cafeteria that were in a off tap selector setting (off as in no sound) why there would be an off setting in the first place I have no idea. Among many other issues they also had all of the XLR wall jacks pin 1 tied to the shell ground point, yes there was buzz.

Do get me started on system designers who use copy and paste engineering of the same design regardless of the systems intended purpose or the room it's going into.
 
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