whats the big craze with pa drivers?

[NT_Hardcore 10+ year member]

its a ll in the tuning

 

[galacticmonkey 5,000+ posts]

What's the big craze?
People are friggin cheap and don't give a fuck what their front stage sounds like as long as it's loud.

Some people are like that... But Im not. I run Peavey mids in my doors. Each door has 1 15" and 2 12" Black Widows. These arent cheap, crappy Pyle mids... They are $160 each, cast basket, 4" coil, reconable, 18lbs each. Soon, these will be seeing around 750w each. I also run 3 Selenium ST350s per door, on their own amplifier.

As everyone says, its all in the install. Cheap mids and tweets with no crossovers sound like garbage. Heck, good mids and tweets with no crossovers sound like garbage. But running these 15s, 12s, and tweets with a 16-band EQ and full 3-way active crossovers on my 80PRS gives me some great sound. Ive owned and ran everything from Eminence, Selenium, and Peavey, to Focal and Hertz. When I went it to be loud (no, your 2 sets of $300 components on 250w a side isnt "loud", and it never will be compared to a real pro audio setup done right), I go with quality pro audio speakers, good crossovers/equalization, and a good install. It will never be a "sound quality" install, but it sounds **** good, better than any $250 set of components Ive ever heard or owned in pure reproduction, and obviously, gets much louder.

People who just trash all pro audio setups or speakers are doing nothing more than showing their ignorance on the subject.

 

[mlstrass 5,000+ posts]

Some people are like that... But Im not. I run Peavey mids in my doors. Each door has 1 15" and 2 12" Black Widows. These arent cheap, crappy Pyle mids... They are $160 each, cast basket, 4" coil, reconable, 18lbs each. Soon, these will be seeing around 750w each. I also run 3 Selenium ST350s per door, on their own amplifier.
As everyone says, its all in the install. Cheap mids and tweets with no crossovers sound like garbage. Heck, good mids and tweets with no crossovers sound like garbage. But running these 15s, 12s, and tweets with a 16-band EQ and full 3-way active crossovers on my 80PRS gives me some great sound. Ive owned and ran everything from Eminence, Selenium, and Peavey, to Focal and Hertz. When I went it to be loud (no, your 2 sets of $300 components on 250w a side isnt "loud", and it never will be compared to a real pro audio setup done right), I go with quality pro audio speakers, good crossovers/equalization, and a good install. It will never be a "sound quality" install, but it sounds **** good, better than any $250 set of components Ive ever heard or owned in pure reproduction, and obviously, gets much louder.

People who just trash all pro audio setups or speakers are doing nothing more than showing their ignorance on the subject.

X2 Had to quote it so some of the misinformed might actually read it....

 

[Chrispy 10+ year member]

X3 with what "GalacticMonkey" said. A bad sounding setup is a bad sounding setup whether its PA or car audio speakers.

 

[gckless 5,000+ posts]

Some people are like that... But Im not. I run Peavey mids in my doors. Each door has 1 15" and 2 12" Black Widows. These arent cheap, crappy Pyle mids... They are $160 each, cast basket, 4" coil, reconable, 18lbs each. Soon, these will be seeing around 750w each. I also run 3 Selenium ST350s per door, on their own amplifier.
As everyone says, its all in the install. Cheap mids and tweets with no crossovers sound like garbage. Heck, good mids and tweets with no crossovers sound like garbage. But running these 15s, 12s, and tweets with a 16-band EQ and full 3-way active crossovers on my 80PRS gives me some great sound. Ive owned and ran everything from Eminence, Selenium, and Peavey, to Focal and Hertz. When I went it to be loud (no, your 2 sets of $300 components on 250w a side isnt "loud", and it never will be compared to a real pro audio setup done right), I go with quality pro audio speakers, good crossovers/equalization, and a good install. It will never be a "sound quality" install, but it sounds **** good, better than any $250 set of components Ive ever heard or owned in pure reproduction, and obviously, gets much louder.

People who just trash all pro audio setups or speakers are doing nothing more than showing their ignorance on the subject.

Definitely this. Most PA installs I have seen are people throwing as many drivers as possible in a certain location. Loud as shit, and extremely distorted. Really hurts the ears simply because it's so distorted.

 

[Chrispy 10+ year member]

Definitely this. Most PA installs I have seen are people throwing as many drivers as possible in a certain location. Loud as shit, and extremely distorted. Really hurts the ears simply because it's so distorted.

The install and tuning of those setups you've heard is what caused the distortion. Not the PA speakers themselves. The majority of the car audio setups I've heard are distorted so does that mean all car audio speakers distort????

 

[gckless 5,000+ posts]

The install and tuning of those setups you've heard is what caused the distortion. Not the PA speakers themselves. The majority of the car audio setups I've heard are distorted so does that mean all car audio speakers distort????

Maybe I typed that in a weird way, but what you said is what I was saying, that it's the install. PA can sound great, just most people for some reason think stuffing the most they can fit in a panel will sound good because they are PA and loud.

 

[Chrispy 10+ year member]

Maybe I typed that in a weird way, but what you said is what I was saying, that it's the install. PA can sound great, just most people for some reason think stuffing the most they can fit in a panel will sound good because they are PA and loud.

Oh, ok. Yes, exactly.

 

[TaylorFade 10+ year member]

People who just trash all pro audio setups or speakers are doing nothing more than showing their ignorance on the subject.

It's not "some" people are like that. It's the overwhelming majority. And when speaking generally, when people ask or talk about PA, they're talking about Sundowns or Seleniums or AQ, Crescendo, et al. Not high dollar REAL professional audio drivers.

I'm far from ignorant on the subject. I've run PA. I've heard a crap ton of it. I've seen real build logs of pros using them. Richard Clark rings a bell. Perhaps the greatest SQ vehicle of all time. All PA drivers. Was it (4) 8's, (4) 6.5's and a pair of super tweeters per door on 1k per side and a grand total of $100 in drivers? No. Is that what people are doing now and what everyone is talking about when referencing it? Yes. Does it sound like shit? Yes.

The simple fact is that for 99% of people, a traditional component set will destroy a set of PA drivers in anything resembling musical reproduction other than how "loud" it gets. I'm glad it's working for you and that you actually put in some work (and EQ) to get them to sound good. That's awesome and I'd love to hear it. Because I've never heard a PA setup that sounded worth a damn.

Personally, I don't particularly enjoy a +10db bump in the response from 2-4khz. And a +20db bump at 8-10khz. If I did, maybe I'd run PA gear. And if you do, maybe PA gear is right for you too. I don't listen to my shit at 150+db 24/7 and need my fronts to "keep up".

The whole loudest front stage fad is worse than everybody using hair tricks as a design goal. Go to YT and search "distance test." What... in the blue fuck is that all about? Really? You need your highs to be heard from a mile away? I mean, it's whatever. If that's your thing then that's cool. It's all in the family. I'm sure people think playing a 60hz tone at 160db is ghey too, but then again... I don't pretend my burp setup is SQ.

 

[Bettr n' Revrse 5,000+ posts]

its a ll in the tuning

No it is a lot more then that...

 

[BlurredVision 10+ year member]

I agree both ways, but the price to get comps sets to match the PAs would be astroastronomical. But I know it was likely sound heavenly

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

You can get PA mids with a 4" VC and 1000+ RMS rating, bring on that ZED //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/up2something.gif.dd110ecf3ae4b76050d87598f2f8de7c.gif

I suspect that sort of PA mid would not easily integrate into a car and may be just as expensive as proper component that's built for automotive application. Was not insinuating that no PA driver could handle that power, just putting it out there, that your average 200$ MSRP set of components probably wouldn't hang.

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

Some people are like that... But Im not. I run Peavey mids in my doors. Each door has 1 15" and 2 12" Black Widows. These arent cheap, crappy Pyle mids... They are $160 each, cast basket, 4" coil, reconable, 18lbs each. Soon, these will be seeing around 750w each. I also run 3 Selenium ST350s per door, on their own amplifier.
As everyone says, its all in the install. Cheap mids and tweets with no crossovers sound like garbage. Heck, good mids and tweets with no crossovers sound like garbage. But running these 15s, 12s, and tweets with a 16-band EQ and full 3-way active crossovers on my 80PRS gives me some great sound. Ive owned and ran everything from Eminence, Selenium, and Peavey, to Focal and Hertz. When I went it to be loud (no, your 2 sets of $300 components on 250w a side isnt "loud", and it never will be compared to a real pro audio setup done right), I go with quality pro audio speakers, good crossovers/equalization, and a good install. It will never be a "sound quality" install, but it sounds **** good, better than any $250 set of components Ive ever heard or owned in pure reproduction, and obviously, gets much louder.

People who just trash all pro audio setups or speakers are doing nothing more than showing their ignorance on the subject.

Cool story, bro. How's that setup look on an RTA?

People generally trash those kinds of setups because they sound awful. They quickly cause listening fatigue because they are horribly non-linear, this IS because of the drivers themselves and because virtually nobody loading thier doors with midranges properly uses EQ.

 

[galacticmonkey 5,000+ posts]

Well just because "most" people don't know what they are doing mean the speakers themselves sound bad. If someone can't get some quality PAs to sound good, you could give them a set of $1,500 Hybrids and they wouldn't sound good either.

I feel like I know what I'm doing, I use massive 15" and 12" mids in my doors with 4" coils and massive 18lb motors. They sound great.

 

[mlstrass 5,000+ posts]

Cool story, bro. How's that setup look on an RTA?
People generally trash those kinds of setups because they sound awful. They quickly cause listening fatigue because they are horribly non-linear, this IS because of the drivers themselves and because virtually nobody loading thier doors with midranges properly uses EQ.

Again these are no more an SQ set up then any other daily set up with normal comps in there.

Personally I listen with my ears, not an RTA so I could care less how it graphs out. Needs to sound good to me since I'm the one listening to them on a daily basis.

It's not just lack of EQ, it's lack of xovers as most of the PA set ups I've heard are running full range for mids and tweeters and obviously that's going to sound like ***. Take the time to set up xover points/slopes and some EQ work and the sound can be very good to all but the most critical listener...