Distributed Speaker System

[SFX]

I'm looking at getting some speakers for a distributed speaker system for use in marquees and corporate venues. Probably looking at 4 to 6 passive speakers which will be on round bases. For that reason they'll probably have to be 8" or 10".

 

What are some mid-level speakers that I should be considering? Budget is around £300 - £500 per speaker. Amp recommendations would also be greatly appreciated.

 

Main use will be distributed playback and speeches.

[TonyMitchell]

For what you've described, an 8" box with a wide horizontal pattern will be ideal. Within your budget, the EV ZX1 could be what you are looking for.

 

http://www.electrovoice.com/product.php?id=250

 

We love 8" boxes for this type of work and have a dozen d&b E8 on inventory for this very purpose. They represent the best of compact size, minimal weight, coverage pattern (a pair mounted on a twin fork 90deg apart will cover a full 180deg) and go low enough and loud enough if & when needed.

 

When you start looking at larger cabinets for this deployment, the system is no longer compact/subtle, weight jumps up significantly, mounting options are limited, whilst performance is not hugely different.

 

If you go down a size to a cabinet with a 6" driver, the LF cut off is generally much higher and the max SPL significantly less than the 8" comparison.

 

In conclusion, the 8" is the best of all worlds.... IMO

 

 

 

[peza2010]

We own loads of zx1's for just this purpose for tighter budgets, and l'acoustics 8xt's when the client has more money to play with.

 

The zx1 have been pretty much faultless and sound fine for this kind of application.

[SFX]

The ZX1s do look like a good little box. What amps are you using with them?

[J Pearce]

I had some ZXa1s at a previous job, they were great little boxes for this sort of thing. Always impressed me by how much sound came out of them. If you can take the cabling hit of going active, the ZXa1s are a very quick and compact solution.

[ninjadingle]

+1 for ZX1's - I only have a pair and for speech one pair will fill our sports halls! Also used them a lot in the corporate world - they just work. Will be buying another set soon!

[Derek Tallent]

The other option could be the FBT J Series. We have the J5A and J8A in hire stock which we use for exhibition work which are the active version, and they are superb for the application.

 

They also have a passive version:

 

http://www.fbtaudio.co.uk/products/j-series-4

[peza2010]

The ZX1s do look like a good little box. What amps are you using with them?

 

We are using Ev's q44 amps for them - which get very very little maintaince yet have survived 5 years or so of medium duty.

[Stuart91]

We had four Q44 amps which, whilst bulky, were solid performers. However several died after about 6-7yrs of use. We've had some similar issues with ones that we installed too.

 

At the moment we have a mixture of QSC GX5 and PLX1604 which have all been fine thus far.

 

The ZX1 is a relatively inefficient box but can cope with a reasonable amount of power.

 

 

My other tip would be to case the speakers, if possible, rather than using padded bags or covers. The cases can crack - typically chunks breaking away at the corners - if they are dropped. We lost a couple this way.

[peza2010]

We had four Q44 amps which, whilst bulky, were solid performers. However several died after about 6-7yrs of use. We've had some similar issues with ones that we installed too.

 

At sub 400 quid list, 6/7 years of service is more than you can ask for.

[Stuart91]

At sub 400 quid list, 6/7 years of service is more than you can ask for.

 

Yeah, no shame to them really.

 

However we've got amps that are significantly older, still in regular use with no signs of imminent demise.

 

One drawback with the design of the Q44 is that everything is on one single board. So for example if you have one amp with a blown PSU, and another with faulty output stage, you can't cannibalise them and combine two broken units into one working one.