Tour Products "Tour Sub & Tour Trap"

[Evan Kirkendall]

Well in the spirit of writing reviews, Randy Frierson was kind enough to bring his Tour Subs and Tour Traps out to a recent show of mine in Fort Lauderdale, FL. The venue was a 1,400 cap room sold to the max. The House rig(which I didn't take any pictures of...) was a Turbo Floodlight rig. It's quite dated to say the least, and has been pounded on for many years. The house 21" subs didn't do much below 50hz(really much at all), and I knew this coming in, so I had Randy supplement the house rig with 3x Tour Subs per side, and 1 Tour Trap per side for front fill.

First up, the Tour Trap:

It's a pretty basic design. A triple 12, with the top 12 being a co-axial driver. The HF was a beefy 1.4". Randy powers all of his boxes very well, providing plenty of amp for each driver. These were used as front fills for my gig, but enough of them would have probably destroyed the house turbo rig. They're a nice, smooth sounding box out of the gate. Very little EQ was required up top- just a little 2.5 & 5k as you cranked them up. The box stayed solid up to limit- no distortion and no breaking up. They were a bit overkill for front fills, but they did a good job! I'd put them on par with an EV QRX212 or similar. Good little utility boxes that can scale up well.

Next up, the Tour Sub:

These guys are a basic 6th order bandpass dual 18. Nothing too crazy about the design. The boxes are not too bad to move around- 2 guys can easily pick them up and stack them. They have heaps and heaps of output in the 40-60hz range. I found after playing some music through them that they'd make great dance music subs. Lots of rumble, but not a lot of punch. They did very well on the long, sweeping low notes, but not so much with the impact of a kick drum. I did bring this up to Randy and he said that the version 1 sub(which is what I had) isn't as "tight" as their new V2 sub. The V2 addresses the almost "boomy" sound of the v1 tour sub and tightens up the low end a good bit. Hopefully next time I can hear the v2 sub!

The subs held their own though, and passed the Evan(tm) test. No breaking up, and no farting out, even all the way into limit. They do roll off quickly around 35hz, but again, the v2 is said to go lower. During the show, I was hitting them as hard as I could at some points(per their request!) and could not find anything bad sounding. They are protected very well! I ended up low passing them at 63hz and using the house subs for the "punch" and the Tour Subs for the rumble. It worked out very well!

Thanks again to Randy and crew for driving out and letting me play!

Evan

 

[Art Welter]

Re: Tour Products "Tour Sub & Tour Trap"

Next up, the Tour Sub:
These guys are a basic 6th order bandpass dual 18. Lots of rumble, but not a lot of punch.
Evan

Evan,

A "basic 6th order bandpass", as patented by Bose, generally has little punch or rumble :^).
The 6th order BP speaker is enclosed completely, and ported out of the two enclosure sides.

While awaiting Ivan Beaver to respond with clarification about "punch", I noticed your review.
It appears the Tour Sub is a slot loaded bass reflex, normally SLBR are "punchy" even when tuned low.
IIRC, there are electronic filters in the Tour Sub that probably are as much a part of the sound as the cabinet design.

Art

 

[Marjan Milosevic]

Re: Tour Products "Tour Sub & Tour Trap"

D&B B2 is also 6th order bandpass. So i doubt it is the bandpass that lacks kick, but the design of that particular box it self. A true subwoofer will not have a lot of punch.

 

[Art Welter]

Re: Tour Products "Tour Sub & Tour Trap"

D&B B2 is also 6th order bandpass. So i doubt it is the bandpass that lacks kick, but the design of that particular box it self. A true subwoofer will not have a lot of punch.

Marjan,

My old L4 design from 1987, EAWs SB1000, Fulcrum Acoustic's 2x15" or 2 x21", or the Tour Sub could be described as D&B says "a pair of 18" LF drivers mounted in a bandpass horn cabinet" , or in the case of the Tour Sub, a bandpass plenum, but none of those cabinets are 6th order bandpass.

By the way, my Keystone sub goes lower than the D&B B2, and has plenty of punch ;^).

Art

 

[Marjan Milosevic]

Re: Tour Products "Tour Sub & Tour Trap"

B2 also has a punch, i am not saying that PB6 has no punch, but the particular box in question. BTW the B2 is a hybrid BP6/horn box, so the horn in front of the front BP chamber is gaining some dbs at the punch area.
SB1000 is not entirely BP6. It does have sort of a front chamber from the clam shelf loading but still not a true BP6. This should also apply to the fulcrum boxes.
The problem i see with BP boxes is that they do sound a bit "slow". The group delay it rising rapidly at the lower tuning point and not much can be done about it.
Designs where you can actually see the drivers (KV2 boxes as example, or RCF) has a lot of punch, but to my understanding this is actually an artifact from the distortions (think reflex box). At a true BP6 (where you can not see the driver) this is not the case since the box it self is filtering the distortions.

 

[Randy Frierson]

TourSub Update

B2 also has a punch, i am not saying that PB6 has no punch, but the particular box in question. BTW the B2 is a hybrid BP6/horn box, so the horn in front of the front BP chamber is gaining some dbs at the punch area.
SB1000 is not entirely BP6. It does have sort of a front chamber from the clam shelf loading but still not a true BP6. This should also apply to the fulcrum boxes.
The problem i see with BP boxes is that they do sound a bit "slow". The group delay it rising rapidly at the lower tuning point and not much can be done about it.
Designs where you can actually see the drivers (KV2 boxes as example, or RCF) has a lot of punch, but to my understanding this is actually an artifact from the distortions (think reflex box). At a true BP6 (where you can not see the driver) this is not the case since the box it self is filtering the distortions.

As we evolved as a company we learned a lot about box turnings, picking the right components and power matching..I as the owner decided to try some idea's , first I changed the dimensions of the TourSubs to be truck pack both ways, I also decided to change the ports to reduce some of the port noise and to play with the tuning, I initially wanted to gain more kick drum punch and that was the desired goal, and i was willing to sacrifice a bit of ultra low end, Adam Shay my dsp engineer and box tuner really did a great job of delivering the goods, we did gain in the kick drum region but also and very unexpectedly gained sensitivity in the extreme low end..yes there is no big secret in the TourSub but that it is built right, uses the best 18, I could find, SW115/4, each driver gets a ch of amplifier, right now you can order with or without dsp, also we are now selling without amplifiers, we have some that we are using with Xillica dsp and FFA 10000 amplifiers, a really nice match, though they can handle more power....