harshness of cheap speakers

[johndenim]

As title.

 

I have a pair of el cheapo 12's.

 

 

http://www.classd.ltd.uk/1200w_pair-of-cd1...a-speakers.html

to be exact.

The lower range from these is great for a budget cab, but I have to cut loads of mid/high to get a nice sound. (full range)

Is there any way I can introduce a resistor or maybe a cheap passive crossover inside the cab to reduce the 'harshness' ?

 

Suggestions?

(apart from, 'throw them in a skip'!)

[wilkee]

As title.

 

I have a pair of el cheapo 12's.

 

 

http://www.classd.ltd.uk/1200w_pair-of-cd1...a-speakers.html

to be exact.

The lower range from these is great for a budget cab, but I have to cut loads of mid/high to get a nice sound. (full range)

Is there any way I can introduce a resistor or maybe a cheap passive crossover inside the cab to reduce the 'harshness' ?

 

Suggestions?

(apart from, 'throw them in a skip'!)

 

John, without actually hearing them it is very difficult to suggest anything.

 

Looking at the specs. I suspect that the top end is going to be the generic Chinese 3 slot comp driver (some OK, some dire) and the 12" a pretty basic Chinese OEM.

 

Your best bet is probably just to carry on externally EQing them as to start modifying Xovers etc. would not be cost efective.

 

Tony

[J Pearce]

Might be worth flipping the polarity of the high frequency driver.

 

The harshness might well be due to constructive interference between the two drivers in the crossover region, flipping the polarity of one driver might fix this, might make it worse, or might make the high mids disappear completely.

 

Try it out on one cab and give it a listen.

 

Beyond that, just keep eq-ing them, not really worth the expense of any other solution. You could perhaps get a digital parametric eq as a parametric is a bit better for tuning, and the digital-ness means you can set it and save it and then just plug it in and turn it on every time rather than have to check the eq sliders every time.

[Matt Riley]

Maybe get hold of a small amp for the highs and cheap crossover and bi-amp them. Cheap passive crossovers tend to do all sorts of nasty things to the phase response around the crossover region, which translates to them sounding nasty in the mid-highs and not being particularly feedback resistant. We had a load of LE400 copies at work, and they sounded dog awful, until we ripped the crossovers out and ran them biamped through a minidrive. And now they make me very happy.

 

M

[Rob_Beech]

To be fair, when I had some LE400's (not copies) they always needed alot of work in passive mode, I didn't have the money for extra amps and crossovers at the time so I used DEQ2496's parametric eq setting to tame them (stored) and used the graphic for room / feedback / anything else. Having been both sides of many LE400's in my time several hundred gigs on each side, you get used to what you need to do to get the sound you want and the sound different sorts of people want.

 

So John, for your boxes, my first suggestion would be take them the 5 or 6 miles down the road to the manufacturer and tell them what an absolute pile of crap they are, then just live with the fact that they're not expensive, and you get what you pay for. Keep equing them, if you CAN get a nice sound out of them, all be it with work, that's what matters.

 

Do remember though, Class D speakers are comically inefficient as they are, they are THAT inefficient with all that loud harsh mess going on, just think how inefficient that makes them when you tame that. A bit like an inefficient version of a floodlight box, only much worse, and much MUCH quieter.

[drsound]

Ah now, it's not all doom and gloom. You can sort them right out by changing the HF driver, LF driver, crossover and enclosure.

 

Seriously, chuck them in the skip and put it down to a lesson well learned that you should listen to speakers before buying them.

[Jivemaster]

Have to say that I solved a strident tweeter once by restricting the horn throat with foam rubber. It worked but not a skilled bodge.

[Chris Beesley]

What fitting is the compression driver? It might be worth switching to a branded driver (Eminence/Celestion etc)

[johndenim]

Thanks for the advice, I will try reversing the polarity on the HF and maybe look into replacing it.

 

I'm not sure on the fitting Chris, but this may well be the solution.

 

 

Edit to add.

I did put a small square of foam in the horn in the interim, and it did 'deadened' the harshness as such, maybe I will glue it in place this time!

As per the comment on 'throw them in a skip', £230 for a pair of cabs is peanuts, I needed some, and earnt more on the night than it cost for them, so loose the job, or buy some chinese OEM's? What would you do?

[Rob_Beech]

Hire a pair for £20

[drsound]

Hire a pair for £20

Quite. Perhaps should be pointed out that you'd probably hire a pair of £1k+ speakers for £20.

 

Now what if a prospective client either heard your speakers on the night and thought they were ghastly or happens to read this forum? It's entirely possible that someone who might wish to pay for your services would google your name and end up reading this.

 

For £230 you could have bought something reasonable second hand or even spent more on something nice then sold them after the job.

 

You're going to be throwing money at a pair of boxes that will never sound much better than what they are. I'd get them on eBay and take the loss out of the huge profit you made on the job.

[ChazHS]

Hire a pair for £20

Quite. Perhaps should be pointed out that you'd probably hire a pair of £1k+ speakers for £20.

 

Now what if a prospective client either heard your speakers on the night and thought they were ghastly or happens to read this forum? It's entirely possible that someone who might wish to pay for your services would google your name and end up reading this.

 

For £230 you could have bought something reasonable second hand or even spent more on something nice then sold them after the job.

 

You're going to be throwing money at a pair of boxes that will never sound much better than what they are. I'd get them on eBay and take the loss out of the huge profit you made on the job.

 

That's a bit of a 'holier than thou' attitude it has to be said - I would probably have done the same, if you don't have enough speakers availible for a hire then purchase some more. If all that budget allows at the time and you have to get the lower end of the market, why is this a problem?

 

If the client felt the services of the OP were sufficient for the money they paid then why does it matter that maybe now the OP wants to 'brighten' up their speakers a little? Surely at some point you've EQed or modified your speaker cabinets? Isn't this just the same?

 

Granted, I wouldn't trust a pair of speakers for £230 as far as I could throw them, they'd be OEM city inside and I don't think I'd even trust the RMS rating on the coils - but why is the OP simply getting a 'you were stupid to buy them in the first place' attitude from everyone? They are simply trying to get a nicer sound - they don't want the 5th degree on the morality of why they bought the speakers to begin with.

 

PS - If EQing them works then I'd stick to that, either that or spend more than the speakers cost on one of the DBX offerings and make a speaker tunings file for them so they sound how you'd like.

[Rob_Beech]

if you don't have enough speakers availible for a hire then purchase some more. If all that budget allows at the time and you have to get the lower end of the market, why is this a problem?

 

Maybe I've missed something but to me this sounds silly.

 

The budget for a gig consists of in no particular order, HIRING!!!!!!!! of equipment, transportation of that and its operator, time of operator and crew, other generic expenses which may or may not be included in the price.

 

The price doesn't account for BUYING!!!!! equipment.

 

John has paid £230 for a pair of speakers which are now worth £100 in todays market sadly as they've been used, they're not very good and nobody has any money. Had he hired a pair for £20 he's have saved £110 (say less £10 for running about picking them up from the hire company etc)

 

£100 MORE than he would have made by buying some. That's before we look at the fact that the £20 hire would likely have been something like Martin, Turbo, Nexo, RCF, whoever else. The client may or may not have been happier with the £20 hired boxes. Who knows?

 

The budget is constructed to incorporate hire costs not purchase costs.

 

If I ran out of TFM450's and someone wanted to hire a pair for say £40 for a cased pair for the day, I wouldn't go out and buy a pair for a minimum of £1500 cased pairs exc vat (second hand and a bit scabby), my budget DOES allow me to sub a pair in for £20 and charge the client £20 and make them happy and come back in the summer for that festival they want 8 stacks of aspect wide for. I wouldn't BUY another pair if they were hiring £2000 of kit off of me either, I'd still hire in a pair.

 

I only BUY things that are not cost effective to sub hire, there is no point me buying a pair of PM5D's as A) I can sub a pair from down the road and B) They don't sound very nice, but that's OT.

 

One other thing to note is the bulk of the posts were made before we knew why they were purchased.

 

 

I'm guessing that John bought these some time ago before joining the Blue Room. Perhaps he wouldn't do that now after asking a few questions and perhaps learning a few things, he's a sensible guy.

[johndenim]

I'm guessing that John bought these some time ago before joining the Blue Room. Perhaps he wouldn't do that now after asking a few questions and perhaps learning a few things, he's a sensible guy.

 

Ermmm......

I have learnt a lot Rob, but apparently not enough not to buy junk. ;)

 

But seriously, thanks to chaz hs for your comments.

It was pretty recent I bought these, I do still need these though as we now have two set ups, and often do two events a night.

 

As per robs earlier comment, very wise, I can get them to sound 'ok' but loose a lot of volume.

The quality is certainly better than most 'disco's' out there, in a room of 50 - 100 for a 60th birthday party vast amounts of spl are not wanted anyway.

 

With all of that said, I am going to be putting these into my local club in the near future, they are a vast improvement on the 50w carlsbro cabs and a 100w marlin mixer amp they use currently.

So should certainly get my money back.