New speakers

Subject: New speakers
From: Herge
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 12:05 PM

Hi
I am planning to replace our old Eminence speakers soon. Any suggestions. They are to go with a set of 500w Peavey Bass Bins and will be driven by a Yamaha 2000w amp. I need something portable with good sound for a Ceilidh Band that uses jack plugs. I'm not very tech minded so any recommendations welcome?

Subject: RE: New speakers
From: treewind
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 12:10 PM

I've used EV SX300s (by themselves) in a band and they were excellent.
I think they use speakons, not jack plugs, and so they should - get your cables sorted!

Anahata

Subject: RE: New speakers
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 12:25 PM

Value for money nothing touches Eminence. Everything else costs sheds more and is rarely better.

Subject: RE: New speakers
From: Leadfingers
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 12:33 PM

And Speakon to 1/4 jack adapters are readily available !!

Subject: RE: New speakers
From: Herge
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 12:38 PM

As I said I'm not tec minded - what do Speakons do?

Subject: RE: New speakers
From: treewind
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 01:09 PM

- They are latching connectors
- They have better contacts (much better) than jacks for high current
- They can't accidentally be mismated with jacks!
- no exposed conductors on an umplugged cable. Wuould you want to short out your 200W amp by dropping the end of a jack lead onto a metal surface like a speaker stand leg?)
- There are 4-connector and 8-connector versions with standardized pin assignments for biamping, stereo and balanced drive (both pins live + and - instead of hot and ground) (you probably don't need this though)
- they have screw terminals for reliable and easy assembly
- they are more robust
- any PA speaker you buy with jacks has been designed down to a price, not up to a standard.

Jacks are ok for a 100W foldback rig (I use them for that in my band), but if you're talking about 2kW of amplification and bass bins you're definitely looking amateurish with jacks for your speakers.

Anahata

Subject: RE: New speakers
From: Herge
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 01:48 PM

I take it my desk would need to have the appropriate out-puts? It has only jack sockets.

Subject: RE: New speakers
From: treewind
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 06:39 PM

Not your desk, the Yamaha 2000W amp you mentioned.
Does it really put out 2000W through jacks? I doubt that.

But anyway if that's true and you choose speakers with speakons you can make or buy speaker cables with whatever combination of connectors you need at the two ends - i.e. jack one end, speakon the other.

Anahata

Subject: RE: New speakers
From: Leadfingers
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 08:34 PM

Somehow I have a feeling that the Amp is Two Hundred watt , NOT Two Thousand !!!

Subject: RE: New speakers
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 10:12 PM

Give us the model number of the amp

Subject: RE: New speakers
From: jimmyt
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 10:59 PM

2000 watts should sound rather tidy in Wembley stadium

Subject: RE: New speakers
From: Bert
Date: 12 Feb 05 - 01:20 AM

Ye gods! I remember the time when we used a TEN watt amplifier to fill a square dance hall.

Them salesmen have really got you by the balls .

Subject: RE: New speakers
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 Feb 05 - 05:19 AM

I do a bit of sound.

The most popular size Yamaha separate power amps are probably the 2 kilowatt ones.

I carry 4 kilowatts for a small room, 8 kilowatts for a larger one.

Wembley stadium, I'd probaby want about 100k. Five years ago, 30k.

It's the bass. Modern bass is going down well below 20Hz, and to make that convincing you need lots and lots of power. 30 years ago I ran a mobile disco with only 200 watts, but it would have been unthinkable to get the "smack" of modern bass. We thought we were doing well if we could get a scalp massage by sticking our heads up to the bass drivers, then. Now, the test is whether you can make your balls rattle (or young ladies express interest at a 30hz sine wave) at 20 paces.

Subject: RE: New speakers
From: Herge
Date: 12 Feb 05 - 05:49 AM

As I said I know very little about these things! Its a Yamaha CP2000
Spec as follows:
Output power per channel:
650W continuous @4 Ohm 1kHz
450W continuous @8 Ohm 1kHz
1000W continuous @2 Ohm 1kHz
(Bridge) 1300W continuous @8 Ohm 1kHz
(Bridge) 2000W continuous @ 4 Ohm 1kHz
Frequency response: 20hz - 50kHz ±1dB @1W
Power bandwidth: 10Hz - 40kHz half power
Signal to Noise Ratio: >104dB 12.7kHz LPF
THD: <0.1% from 20Hz to 20kHz half power
IM Distortion: <0.1% 60Hz - 7kHz half power
Damping factor: >200 @8 Ohm 1kHz
Voltage gain: 33.8dB
Input impedance: 30k Ohms (balanced)
                         15k Ohms (unbalanced)
Mains power: 230 VAC 50 Hz
Power consumption: 400W
Weight: 14kg (6.4lbs)
Dimensions: 480 x 88 x 416mm (2u 19" std)

Subject: RE: New speakers
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 Feb 05 - 05:56 AM

Yep, the CP2000 has always been a genuine 2000watts - 1,000 RMS per side into two ohms. I was pretty sure it had speakon outs though.

What you want to do is get an active crossover, like a Behringer Ultracross (they are quite cheap), and a smaller but similar power amp. Then use the small one to drive the tops and teh Yamaha to drive the subs.

Then build some tops - they can be quite small, I have built a useful pair out of two old kitchen cabinets with proper reinforcing, and then put two Motorola Powerline pezo horns and one 10 inch Eminence (I used Kappapro 10s) in them and you'll have a good pair of tops for about £200 all in. THe crossover andthe other amp will be the expensive bit, so you could just put a pair of speakers like this on the top of your existing ones as an interim measure.

Subject: RE: New speakers
From: treewind
Date: 12 Feb 05 - 06:09 AM

So we're really talking about 450W per channel, as far as speaker rating are concerned.

It also has 1/4" jacks and binding posts for speaker connections, and I'm not surprised that it's discontinued now (because the connectors date it as an old design. Binding posts are SO last century!)

Anyway the issue of connectors is not a big deal - you choose your speakers and amp and buy or modify your speaker cables to suit. Only the speaker cables mind - in case it 's not obvious, all your other jack plugs and microphone XLRs and stuff doesn't have to change at all!

EV SX300 and JBL EONS are both popular choices to go with a setup like this. The JBLs with a 15" bass unit are good when have to be used by themselves; if you already have bass bins the 12" EV's won't have to do so much work at the low end and you'll get a nice clean sound from them. They're very light too, for speakers of their size.

If you're anywhere in Europe, buy either from www.thomann.de. Yes, really, in Germany, it's cheaper that way and the delivery system works, allegedly.

Anahata