I bought a used Galaxy Audio microspot unpowered monitor but the volume is barely audible when I plug it into my Fender Rumble 800. I tried pre and post lines out. Should I have bought a powered monitor or did I buy a defective unit.
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Monitor help
- Thread starter That Old Guy
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Those outputs are for going to a mixing console. Your unpowered monitor needs amplification of some kind. So ideally you would use a powered monitor, or you'll need to find a power amp that can properly drive your monitor.
The micro spot only handles 100 watts, and the frequency response only reaches down to about 150 hz, so don't get your hopes too high of what real-world performance you'll get from it trying to reproduce bass in the context of a band. It can work, but I can a imagine it will be easy to crank it up and blow the speaker as well. Even the smallest Crown/QSC amps put out 250-300 watts RMS per channel, which is more than enough to destroy that speaker if you push it to distortion.
The micro spot only handles 100 watts, and the frequency response only reaches down to about 150 hz, so don't get your hopes too high of what real-world performance you'll get from it trying to reproduce bass in the context of a band. It can work, but I can a imagine it will be easy to crank it up and blow the speaker as well. Even the smallest Crown/QSC amps put out 250-300 watts RMS per channel, which is more than enough to destroy that speaker if you push it to distortion.
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An unpowered monitor needs a power amplifier to reproduce sound. A line out signal (the XLR DI?) is too weak to drive a speaker.
The Galaxy Microspot is only meant as a vocal monitor and won’t reproduce much bass at all. Moreover it’s maximum power handling is only 100 watts, so your 800 watt head can easily damage it.
Get a bass cabinet.
The Galaxy Microspot is only meant as a vocal monitor and won’t reproduce much bass at all. Moreover it’s maximum power handling is only 100 watts, so your 800 watt head can easily damage it.
Get a bass cabinet.
Thanks for that! I actually bought it for use with a p/a to hear the front man of the band but Covid shut everything down before I got a chance to even try it out.
Since all the other monitors were powered I'm guessing that's what I will need with the typical p/a. Is that a safe assumption?
That will certainly make things easier, basically grab an XLR from your source, plug it in and go! Having to drag around a power amp for a hotspot-style monitor kind of defeats the "simple" aspect of using that style of monitoring.
- Feb 12, 2006
- 61,062
- 5
- 221,097
- Disclosures
- Development Engineer-Mesa Boogie, Development Engineer-Genzler (pedals), Product Support-Genz Benz
Just note that the 100 watts power handling is not RMS from what I have seen) and the mechanical limitations start at 150Hz which makes the speaker a poor choice for bass guitar.
Assuming it's 50 watts RMS (1/2 of program rating), and a 150Hz low frequency mechanical limit at rated power, the RMS power handling at 75Hz would be between 12 and 25 watts RMS (depends on the displacement curve slope, which may not be linear as there are several variable integrated into a typical curve) and at 40Hz it would be between 6 and 12 watts RMS.
As you can see, it's pretty easy to unintentionally damage it for bass guitar. They work fine for low level near field vocal monitoring however, especially if the signal is high passed.
Assuming it's 50 watts RMS (1/2 of program rating), and a 150Hz low frequency mechanical limit at rated power, the RMS power handling at 75Hz would be between 12 and 25 watts RMS (depends on the displacement curve slope, which may not be linear as there are several variable integrated into a typical curve) and at 40Hz it would be between 6 and 12 watts RMS.
As you can see, it's pretty easy to unintentionally damage it for bass guitar. They work fine for low level near field vocal monitoring however, especially if the signal is high passed.
This isn't particularly good or useful advice. For one thing, the OP said all the other monitors were powered -- they aren't likely to have speaker level outputs. Even if there were a speaker level output available, paralleling that baby speaker in a circuit with higher powered monitors is a recipe for blowing the Galaxy up, even if it is just a vocal mix. You need a powered speaker to do what you're trying to do -- the regular powered Galaxy Hot Spots are workable.
Specs for the older MSVC are 100W powerhandling, frequency response 300hz-15khz, sensitivity 92dB 1W/1m at 16 ohms
Specs for the newer MS5 are 100W power handling, frequency response 150hz-15hkz, sensitivity 88dB 1W/1m at 16ohm
With either model there are several factors working against you.
I use to run a pair of Galaxy HotSpots on a separate power amp. Each HotSpot is pretty much equivalent to a pair of the Microspots, so it can take more power and has a higher sensitivity rating. Even with two HotSpots they really only started making a difference from about 1khz up, so they basically add a bit of clarity. They did not make any different in the lows or low mids.
This HotSpot frequency response chart should make this fairly clear.
The Microspot has more extended low frequency resonse, but they are very limited on volume.
Also the 16 ohm impedance will make the power distribution very uneven, which will exacerbate the problem.
Let's assume you are sending 100W to a 4 ohm bass speaker. The voltage required for 100W is
Now let's insert 20V into the power formula with the 16 ohm impedance of the MicroSpot.
So when the amp develops enough power so the bass speaker dissipates 100W, the MicroSpot will only dissipate 25W.
Let assume the bass speaker has a medium sensitivity of 97dB 1W/1m
The dB change from 1-100W is 20dB. Add this to the sensitivity rating of the bass speaker (97dB)
97+20=117dB. This is about how loud the bass speaker will play with 20V. Remember at 20V the 4 ohm speaker dissipates 100W.
The dB change from 1=25W is ~14dB add this to the sensitivity rating of the Microspot (either 92dB or 88dB)
92+20=112dB or 88+20=108dB. This is about how loud the MicroSpot will play with 20V. Also remember, at 20V the 16 MicroSpot only dissipates 25W
So depending upon which version of the MicroSpot you have, our theoretical bass speaker will be either 5dB or 9dB louder in the mids, and it probably gets progressively worse as the frequency drops below the 1khz peak in the MicroSpots frequency response.
I ran a stereo rig so I could balance levels between my bass speaker and the HotSpots. It would have been even better if I had an HPF on the power amp for the HotSpots, because there was definitely a point where the low frequencies pushed them into overexcursion.
I can't imagine a single MicroSpot would be of much practical use with bass. Two HotSpots pushed to their limit, only added a bit of presence and clarity. They were totally useless for bass without something like an Eden D210XLT carrying the lows.
Specs for the newer MS5 are 100W power handling, frequency response 150hz-15hkz, sensitivity 88dB 1W/1m at 16ohm
With either model there are several factors working against you.
I use to run a pair of Galaxy HotSpots on a separate power amp. Each HotSpot is pretty much equivalent to a pair of the Microspots, so it can take more power and has a higher sensitivity rating. Even with two HotSpots they really only started making a difference from about 1khz up, so they basically add a bit of clarity. They did not make any different in the lows or low mids.
This HotSpot frequency response chart should make this fairly clear.
The Microspot has more extended low frequency resonse, but they are very limited on volume.
Also the 16 ohm impedance will make the power distribution very uneven, which will exacerbate the problem.
Let's assume you are sending 100W to a 4 ohm bass speaker. The voltage required for 100W is
V=sq rt (100x4)=20V
Now let's insert 20V into the power formula with the 16 ohm impedance of the MicroSpot.
P=(20^2)/16=25W
So when the amp develops enough power so the bass speaker dissipates 100W, the MicroSpot will only dissipate 25W.
Let assume the bass speaker has a medium sensitivity of 97dB 1W/1m
The dB change from 1-100W is 20dB. Add this to the sensitivity rating of the bass speaker (97dB)
97+20=117dB. This is about how loud the bass speaker will play with 20V. Remember at 20V the 4 ohm speaker dissipates 100W.
The dB change from 1=25W is ~14dB add this to the sensitivity rating of the Microspot (either 92dB or 88dB)
92+20=112dB or 88+20=108dB. This is about how loud the MicroSpot will play with 20V. Also remember, at 20V the 16 MicroSpot only dissipates 25W
So depending upon which version of the MicroSpot you have, our theoretical bass speaker will be either 5dB or 9dB louder in the mids, and it probably gets progressively worse as the frequency drops below the 1khz peak in the MicroSpots frequency response.
I ran a stereo rig so I could balance levels between my bass speaker and the HotSpots. It would have been even better if I had an HPF on the power amp for the HotSpots, because there was definitely a point where the low frequencies pushed them into overexcursion.
I can't imagine a single MicroSpot would be of much practical use with bass. Two HotSpots pushed to their limit, only added a bit of presence and clarity. They were totally useless for bass without something like an Eden D210XLT carrying the lows.
Excuse me! The Galaxy Microspot Hotspot is a speaker monitor. There are only 2-1/4" output jacks on the back and they are for daisy chaining to other speaker monitors, powered or passive. No XLR jacks are on this unit, it's a speaker!
- Feb 12, 2006
- 61,062
- 5
- 221,097
- Disclosures
- Development Engineer-Mesa Boogie, Development Engineer-Genzler (pedals), Product Support-Genz Benz
No, Redbrangus is correct. The unpowered Galaxy monitors can not be used with powered monitors unless the powered monitor has a speaker level output (very rare).Excuse me! The Galaxy Microspot Hotspot is a speaker monitor. There are only 2-1/4" output jacks on the back and they are for daisy chaining to other speaker monitors, powered or passive. No XLR jacks are on this unit, it's a speaker!
