Yamaha T3N & Nexo PS15/LS1200 .. Thoughts?

[Spaceman273]

I need some help determining if this is the best option for my group. I am looking into purchasing 2-PS15's and 2-LA1200's from a reputable dealer in my area. I will use them in a live band application for a 4-piece variety rock & roll band. We will have 4 vocals, Live drums, 2 electric guitars, bass, 1 acoustic guitar, and a stereo keyboard going into the system. We currently play venues as small as 300 capacity (inside) up to 2000 capacity (inside), weddings in large rooms of 600 capacities (inside), decks and patios of private parties (Outside), to tents at festivals with 2000-3000 capacity (outside). These are all shows were we must provide our own sound.

 

So here are my concerns before buying a nexo ps15/ls1200 system.....

 

1) Is this enough of a system for these types of venues?

 

2) Power..... I noticed some posts from a few years ago saying the Yamaha amps were not really enough to push these babies and make them sound clear and crisp. I am curious now that Yamaha has taken over Nexo, if their new T3N amplifiers at 1900W would be enough to push these at optimal performance. I am being told by the dealer that they should make these speakers sing at 800w at 8ohms per PS15 on one amp and 1400w at 4ohms per ls1200 on the other amp. Does anyone know about these new Yamaha amps and if they have improved to be closer in performance to the Camco amps?

 

We are getting a chance to demo this system as a rental for two shows of average size so hopefully we will be impressed. The reason we are looking at these is that we have been working with a sound company using the Alpha's (1 sub, 1 top box each side) and for the majority of places we are playing, although they sound unbelievable, these seem to be almost too much for the venue size. Therefore, as we love the nexo sound and reliability, are looking for a smaller system to purchase for ourselves to hopefully better fit our needs.

 

Any input is appreciated.

 

Thanks!

 

Spaceman273

[Simon Lewis]

Spaceman,

 

Others have more experience of Nexo than me, but a few general points:

 

1) The range of venue types and audience sizes would be too much for almost any system. You will still make a noise with this system in a 3000 seater tent, but it's not going to have the same coverage, impact and headroom as when you are playing to 300 indoors. You will need to determine which is the venue you will play most often, and select a system to suit.

 

2) The Fuzion site states for the PS15:

Recommended Amplifiers 550 to 1200 Watts into 8 Ohms for 1 x PS15; 1000 to 1800 Watts into 4 Ohms for 2 x PS15 per channel

 

The T3N states 750W into 8Ohms and 1400W into 4Ohms - which meets the above requirements. However, this is at 1%THD+N. It might just be argued that this slightly inflates the power output figure when compared to other manufacturers who are quoting output power at a lower THD (typically 0.1%). . This may be a minor point, but if you have concerns regarding the amps, could you ask for a comparison with the Yamaha and (say) Camco or Lab Gruppen?

 

3) You have succinctly summarised the difference between the Alpha and the PS15 system. I'm not sure if you hired in the Alpha or the slightly lower performance Alpha E, but the Alpha and PS series are quite different in design and application. For your 300 seater pub gigs, the Alpha system is a pain to lug around and is quite probably overkill, but would be good for the larger gigs. If you try the PS15 rig outdoors, it will work, but won't perform anything like the Alpha rig.

 

The possible solution is to buy the PS15 rig and hire in the Alpha for the occasional large jobs, using your existing PS15s as fills or extra foldback?

 

Simon

[Spaceman273]

Simon,

 

Perhaps it was a typo on the spec sheets you were looking at. I have found two pages on the T3N stating the THD+N rated at .1% as recommended. So hopefully this is not a factor and these will do quite well with the rig. I am assuming that with Yamaha's ownership of Nexo now that they have learned some things and have improved on their support products for the Nexo applications.

 

Hopefully there are others on this forum that can back this up.

 

Thanks for the input!

 

Spaceman

[Simon Lewis]

Perhaps it was a typo on the spec sheets you were looking at.

 

I was looking at this sheet.

 

The reason I mentioned it was having bought a number of Yamaha P7000s amps, the power output is given as 750W per channel into 8Ohm, 1100W into 4Ohm, but THD+N = 1% and the test signal was 1kHz.

 

Further down the spec sheet, the 20Hz - 20kHz 0.1% THD+N figures were given as 700W and 950W into 8Ohm and 4Ohm respectively. For my purposes, an amp that delivers 700W into 8Ohms is fine, and I'm not rueing the "missing" power.

 

If the same issue applies to your T3N, then you may wish to look more carefully and take this into account when making your purchase decision.

 

Simon

[rinkydinkron]

Spaceman,may I suggest you buy 2 PS15's,2 PS15bass and 2 LS1200's for the size of venues you are talking about.

A few years I saw The Proclaimers use pretty much that set up for 1000person venue and the sound was astonishing for the size of the place and cabinet.

I own 2 PS15's and 1 LS1200 and this system will happily cover venues up to around 300,infact I have in the past used it for a 5 piece band outside last summer and though it wasn't "blasting" it coped admirably but I would most definately recommend at least 2 LS1200's for a live band with drums.

I use a Camco Vortex V6 (1200watts@8ohms) for my PS15's and they could probably take even more power than that.

The Yamaha amp will certainly do the job but V6 or something with equivalent output would be even better.

[Matt Riley]

Just a quick thought. Yamaha's product line seems to have two branches - the cheap line (Club V series, P7000 series amps) and the really pro line (pm5d, etc). The Tn series is designed to be part of the pro line as a FP/V6 series killer. The T4n/T5n would seem to be better powered for your application. Alternatively, you could probably save quite a lot of money by going for preowned lab gruppen fp6400, or Camco Vortex 6.

[Rob_Beech]

I feel I must point out that you've mentioned that rig was used for 1000 people in a venue, by venue I shall assume indoors. If we are talking 3 times the number of people, outdoors then we really are talking a different kettle of fish.

 

As for how much power a ps15 will handle, its important to note what you gain (or rather what you dont' gain) with an extra hundred watts here and there. Putting 1200watts through them is fine, if they'll handle more thants great, but how much more, would you put 1400watts through them. Would you notice a difference if you did (answer is no by the way).

 

They certainly have a place for your smaller stuff, your 300 seaters would have the system ticking over nicely, and they'd certainly cope with venues bigger than this. But as Simon says you may find them running out of steam outdoors for larger audiences. Inverse Square law is going to get you no matter what.

 

Rob

[rinkydinkron]

The 1000 people venue was indeed indoors,there's no way the PS15's would cover that amount of bodies outdoors.

I would never recommend them as a dedicated outdoor cabinet,I was just pointing out that I have used them outdoors in the past but as has been pointed out there are far better options for outdoor gigs.

[Spaceman273]

I own 2 PS15's and 1 LS1200 and this system will happily cover venues up to around 300,infact I have in the past used it for a 5 piece band outside last summer and though it wasn't "blasting" it coped admirably but I would most definately recommend at least 2 LS1200's for a live band with drums.

I use a Camco Vortex V6 (1200watts@8ohms) for my PS15's and they could probably take even more power than that.

The Yamaha amp will certainly do the job but V6 or something with equivalent output would be even better.

 

RDR,

 

This outdoor event you say it coped admirably..... How big of an area did you have to cover for your crowd? Was it under a tent or something that would help capture sound? Also, do you think by having 2 ls1200's it may have helped to "BLAST"? I am really not looking to BLAST, but instead have a controlled mix at loud volumes. If the people in the back hear the music but can still carry on a converstaion that is OK too. Was there a significant drop off in the volume at a certain distance that maybe I should pay attention to or be aware of? THere would be very few outdoor shows where we would need this and even then, it would be for a medium-sized outdoor area normally under a festival tent or similar. Most of the larger outdoor events are sponsored by organizations who contract professional sound for the whole event and all the bands.

 

We demo'd 2 tops and 2 bottoms this weekend at a regatta where we were partially indoors and the sound carried beatifully to the outside crowd based on my walk out there. However, we were not completely outdoors so maybe the sound was more directional given the channel of the room we were in facing the outside. The other gig was a wedding and it was great to keep the mix low but still have punch.

 

What are your thoughts on the drop off and Blasting with 2 subs? I considered for larger outdoor events renting 2 more boxes giving us 4 tops and 2 subs since any amps I will be getting could effectively run 4 tops at 4-ohms a side. Does this sound like a more feasable approach to the larger outdoor events, or any for that matter? Is the top boxs what I should add or would another combo top/bottom be better to get us blasting?

 

Spaceman

[Simon Lewis]

I considered for larger outdoor events renting 2 more boxes giving us 4 tops and 2 subs since any amps I will be getting could effectively run 4 tops at 4-ohms a side. Does this sound like a more feasible approach to the larger outdoor events, or any for that matter?

 

The problem with adding more PS15s is that they are not designed to array. You might get away with a reasonable response if the boxes were spaced far enough apart, but that may not be convenient. Put close together, the output from the asymmetrical wide dispersion horns will couple to provide some areas in the audience where the sound is louder and some where it is cancelling out. However, this is frequency dependent, and gives a poor overall frequency response. This is why multiple box systems are designed to cover small audience areas with minimal interference with the adjacent loudspeaker, or (as in the case of "line" arrays) to couple constructively over the passband.

 

Try this - get two PS15s, put them next to each other, play 2kHz octave band pink noise through them and listen whilst an assistant gently moves / rotates one box horizontally. The "phasing" sound is the nulls of the comb filter being moved up and down the audio spectrum.

[Spaceman273]

I actually had read this before somewhere but then learned that Nexo had designated PS15's for right or left speakers. Maybe I misunderstood but is that perhaps why? If so would this be so that you could put L&R together in an array or have I been misled and all the speakers are the same?

 

Anyway, like what I heard this weekend on the demo. Wish I had more time of my own to play with them rather than rushing to get it all setup and ready for a show. I think I will try them again this weekend for another, larger indoor wedding and maybe get time to try your suggestion on the 2khz pink noise when we are setting this up.

 

As far as spacing them further apart...... How far apart to reduce the effect or is this based on the distance related to the loudness and application?

 

I know just enough to be dangerous if you understand what I am saying. Able to recognize what is happening, but not able to describe it or fix it.

 

Thanks!

[Simon Lewis]

As far as I know, the PS15 isn't available as a L&R, but you could conceivably rotate the horn for a paired approach.

 

The distance for two speakers not to interfere isn't easy to give. It will tend to happen to some extent at frequencies handled by the cone driver, but is more noticeable at higher frequencies (handled by the HF driver). However, the dispersion pattern will be affected by the horn flare - hence the comments about pattern control.

 

As a rule of thumb, sources will couple when within half a wavelength, but for a given frequency that distance could produce a null for another frequency.

[Matt Riley]

Guys, as you all know, the PS15 can make a fairly successful monitor wedge. Nexo released a 'left handed' version a few years ago for use when pairing wedges. The short answer is that when they're up on sticks doing FOH duty, the question becomes very academic. Also, I don't think that they sold many of the 'mirror imaged' PS15s, and I've certainly never come into contact with them while working in the UK.

 

M

[Spaceman273]

SITUATION UPDATE.

 

We demo'd the ps15 rig using CARVER amps pushing 1200 watts to each ps-15 and each ls-1200. They pushed a fairly large outdoor area with no issues and also a medium sized open room with acoustical issues with great ease. We loved it and ordered a setup with a set Yamaha T3N amps running them at 800w per top and 1400w per sub. However, the rig just did not sound as good as it had with the carvers. With the Yamahas, the sound was not as full and sounded as though the amps just were working too hard.

 

The Dealer after he listened to them again and a/b'd them even with the carvers agreed there was a huge difference. The tech recommended based on my budget, sending the Yamahas back and trying a pair of CAMCO TECTON 32.4s for a little bit more money. He said they should sound 100% better than the Yamahas and work better with the speakers. I am aware of the CAMCO Vortex series and how great they are, (and also how much more expensive they are) but can anyone tell me if the Tecton Series will be just as great?

 

Please share your thoughts on these amps. The specs would give us just over 900w per top box and around 1500w per sub.

 

Any input is appreciated.