Hi people!

I play in a acoustic group and one of our band does sound in a small (80 people max) local cafe bar. Whenever we play out live the quality of our own and in house monitors for our acoustic guitars and vocals is really variable and undermines our ability to play guitar with genuine feel. The monitors are usually harsh & loud with poor dynamics. Hoping to solve this by purchasing some high quality floor monitors that will preferably double as front of house in the cafe bar. So far short list seems to be Turbosound TQ 308 or 310 (DP or non DP), d&B audiotechnik MAX12, Nexo PS10 with (if not active speakers) MC2 amp of about 750watts and if necessary speaker controllers. Can then take this about with us and use to get a consistently good monitoring for the guitars- using them as guitar amps essentially. Would use a small mackie VLZpro or onyx on the front end. The rest of band is fairly subdued bass, percussion, drums.

Questions: Is this a good idea at all? Is shortlist any good? Can I avoid speaker controllers to save money?

Want to keep budget down as much as possible but want hi-fi type sound so might have to accept the pain if expensive is the only way.

I'm an inexperienced forumer so any tips welcome. Thanks.

I hope you searched the old threads as this has been covered a lot in the recent past.

If so in which way did the threads not help?

Ian

you may also want to look at the HK D.A.R.T.s, I've used these for monitors and to do FOH stuff as well

my vote would be with the max12.

We used to use ps10 and ps15 wedges and recently moved to max12's. they arent quite as directive as the Ps10's or 15's but they actually sit at a much more user friendly angle - meaning that you can have them horizontally closer to the listner that you could with a PS.

They also, unlike the rest of the d&b range, don't need to be driven by one of the d&b amplifiers, they can be driven off any old lnear amp. Ive used them with QSC and Yamaha amps and they have sounded good.

They do also do quite nicely at smaller FOH applications, but are primarily for monitor use. I'd say the PS series do better at FOH than they do as monitors.

I found the google search facility even with search blue room ticked just searches the web. With blue room search I seem to be not getting specific enough results.

The main thing I'm after is to get people's opinions on my shortlist as it will take me about a day per brand to go and listen to this stuff so really need to whittle it down to a couple of brands. Also was a bit worried that when bringing our own acoustic guitar monitors to bigger gigs- it could cause conflict with or problems for the onstage sound guy at the venue.

One option I didn't list was Electovoice ZX4 or 5 and I can hear them fairly locally to Portsmouth. Worth a half day out? I'm looking for high quality sound.




Cheers, sounds like they're on the list to listen to as if I can use a power amp without a controller that will make them a better price than turbo or nexo I think. Take it "lnear amp" is a typo or am I missing something?

(a bit off the point) Not sure what I think about controllers- yes stopping damage is good but seems a bit of a way of getting away with making a coloured speaker and eq-ing it to sound ok- and tie you to one brand.

I think the controllers function in many of the applications is a valid solution to an engineering problem. If it sounds good then use it, if it doesn't then I'd be dubious about the rest of the system being up to scratch. Experience of the d&b controllers (built in to their amps) leads me to think that a high quality controller can give excellent results and very good reliability. Obviously the better a box sounds to start with, the less the controller is actually doing to the sound.

In the case of the wedges several current designs can sound good with no controller....maybe because it's not the most difficult design in the world of loudspeakers to execute well.

Seems fair Jim- what seems odd is that some of the speakers are quoted as flat response within 4db tolerence even with the controller which seems that you're paying for DSP eq and still not getting a flat box! Presumably they'd be worse without it. Anyway if you're heared some recently I'd appreciate your opinion on which sounded good. I'm assuming that for acoustic music while headroom is important a fairly well rounded response rather than out and out blood and guts volume is going to be best. I'm not at all keen on a harsh top end! Thanks

Although perhaps not fully in the same league as some of the boxes mentioned, I quite like the JBL SRX712.

As a wedge / small box on a stick (it even has two top hats!) it's very versatile, very light and handles 800W... Naturally, it won't be perfect at both of these tasks, but as an easily carried piece of kit it may be worth considering.

Simon

To be honest with you I think it's easier if you pick a price point you're aiming for-there're so many different boxes that will do the job that it mainly comes down to price point and then looking at contenders from there. Also other things that might sway your opinion are size/profile and weight both of the boxes themselves and of any amps/controllers you'd need to power them.

Jim