Powered tops

[joelb79]

I have met a handful MI Powered speaker that has impressed me. Most (>80% it seems) of these boxes are designed for DJ's and not sound reinforcement (QSC, Mackie, EV, Yamaha, ect) I guess they are alright for DJ's and short throw gigs where you only need 90-105db indoors with 100 people watching within 30-50ft of the speakers. Most of these designs are a major sacrifice in power to put it all into a small lightweight box. They almost all use 1" exit drivers for horns, which cannot reach into 1Khz which leaves a large gap in the frequency response (unless your talking about 8" woofer which does not beam as bad at 1khz), and to some degree these designs attempt to make up for the shortcomings of the speaker's response by EQ curves.

The only Powered tops that are not line arrays that I see as working well for live sound come from Yorkville. U15P, EF500P or the NX720.

in contrast to several posters here who praise the portability of PAs built around powered speakers, apples-to-apples comparisons are pretty much a wash. And in some common circumstances load in and setup are actually more convenient with passive speakers.

I'll second that. I'd prefer passive speakers for any serious sound reinforcement. I would like to add that repair bills for active speakers are far higher in cost than passive setups. I also find their reliability under pressure fails well before passive stuff. Failing in heat (mackie, jbl), failing in the sun (mackie, jbl), under-powered tweeters (90% of them), bloated specifications (Max SPL is never measured, only calculated theoretical maximux, 1000w is really 500w+500w, bi-amped, with the tweeter amp hard-limited at 125w and the woofer limited to 350w hard limit), fancy sales pitches (which most people buy the sales pitch not the product), and high operation costs are all things I attribute to powered speakers.

Those easily overweight any hesitations I had about bringing a power amp and some speaker cables.

 

[modulusman]

I have met a handful MI Powered speaker that has impressed me. Most (>80% it seems) of these boxes are designed for DJ's and not sound reinforcement (QSC, Mackie, EV, Yamaha, ect) I guess they are alright for DJ's and short throw gigs where you only need 90-105db indoors with 100 people watching within 30-50ft of the speakers. Most of these designs are a major sacrifice in power to put it all into a small lightweight box. They almost all use 1" exit drivers for horns, which cannot reach into 1Khz which leaves a large gap in the frequency response (unless your talking about 8" woofer which does not beam as bad at 1khz), and to some degree these designs attempt to make up for the shortcomings of the speaker's response by EQ curves.

The only Powered tops I see as working well for live sound come from Yorkville. U15P, EF500P or the NX720.



I'll second that. I'd prefer passive speakers for any serious sound reinforcement. I would like to add that repair bills for active speakers are far higher in cost than passive setups. I also find their reliability under pressure fails well before passive stuff. Failing in heat (mackie, jbl), failing in the sun (mackie, jbl), under-powered tweeters (90% of them), bloated specifications (Max SPL is never measured, only calculated theoretical maximux, 1000w is really 500w+500w, bi-amped, with the tweeter amp hard-limited at 125w and the woofer limited to 350w hard limit), fancy sales pitches (which most people buy the sales pitch not the product), and high operation costs are all things I attribute to powered speakers.

Those easily overweight any hesitations I had about bringing a power amp and some speaker cables.[/QUOTE]

yeah,well don't forget your driverack to make your passive gear sound as good as a powered speaker does as soon as it is turned on.

 

[joelb79]

yeah,well don't forget your driverack to make your passive gear sound as good as a powered speaker does as soon as it is turned on.

Yep i did forget that, and I like the control to be given to me for that stuff than to have it all plug and play myself. However, you are aware that Crown I-tech amplifiers have a very nice DSP built in negating the need for that, also making JBL SR's plug and play. I'd certainly go the route of a used I-tech 8000 and some JBL SRX-718/712 cabs and blow away powered gear for $5000-6000 or so. The Yorkville stuff I mentioned does have built in EQ's though.. Two LS801P's and Two E500P's could be bought for $5600. Both systems will do outdoors events at 105db past 50ft from at least 45hz to 17khz +/-4db (although that's really asking a lot from these spec'd systems as well depending on the area in width to be filled).