Who’s got big bottom?

My EAW KF940’s weigh in at 360 lbs each. They each contain 2 x 12” speakers and have a frequency response of 24hz to 300hz efficiency of 109db @ 1 watt and will put out 145db SPL. I have 2 dual 15 EAW for mids that handle 1000 Watts each and 2 EV DH1A’s on hp9040 horns. Sansui BA 5000 on highs, Mcintosh mc2300 on mids (pushed hard) and crown xti4002 pushing the bottom. Sansui au20,000 for pre and dbx pa2 for crossover, eq and time alignment. Effortless 120 dB listening with lots of headroom and plenty of bottom end
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I work with a small group of guys here in Atlanta, who provide video, lighting and sound support for fan conventions (sci-fi, literary, anime, etc) and for small music events. To do that, we have two systems, that we refer to as our "hi-fi PA".

The first one, that we've had the longest, is mostly my design- from bottom to top, two bandpass subwoofers with 18" drivers, that I designed to go from 24-50Hz at 95dB sensitivity @ 1w, out of 2'x2'x4' enclosures. The pair of them is run, from a crossover point of about 40Hz and down, from an old-school Crest 4001 power amp, which gives them about 550w/ch. Above that, are four double-18" cabinets- also of my design, and containing woofers that I custom built- flat down to 35Hz, about 99dB 1w/1m each. Those are crossed over at about 80Hz lowpass, run off of a pair of Urei 6290 power amps, for about 700w per cabinet. For midrange, we most commonly use four JBL 4648A cabinets, loaded with two JBL 2226H woofers each. Those are crossed over at about 80-1100 Hz, and run from a pair of Crest 4801 power amps, for about 550w per 4648 cabinet. For highs, we use four "hybrid" JBL horns- old-school 2447 1.5" throat, 4" diaphragm drivers, mated to new-school 1.5" throat PT Waveguide horn flares. I did the necessary adaptation to make the different flange designs mate together- and they work amazingly well together- very smooth, very good dispersion, very low distortion. Augmenting these, are four Selenium ST350 supertweeters, two per side, passively crossed over at about 12.5KHz, to add more "air" to the high end of the main horns. These are all run from about 1200Hz and up, from a Urei 6260 power amp.

The whole system is processed by the combination of a DBX Driverack, in 3-way mode, running the double 18s, 4648 cabinets and horn/supertweeters (with asymmetric slope crossovers, offset crossover points and parametric EQ to dial them all in together), and an Ashly crossover set at 40Hz low pass, just on the "megasub" bandpass subs.

This system is capable of true high fidelity in excess of 120dB, flat from 25Hz to 19KHz 3dB point at the center of a 110x90 foot ballroom with a 20 foot ceiling- with imaging that LITERALLY sounds like the performer is on the stage between them, from recorded playback material. Dynamics are, as you could probably expect, pretty much unlimited, and it's flat to within a couple dB - in the aforementioned hotel ballroom. It's really entertaining when it's set up right...

The second system- and the one that we're still learning the limits of its capability-is a four-hang per side of the new EAW Radius line-array system. Four RSX-208L cabinets on each side, self amplified (tri-amped), with built in DSP and tuneable from an iPad via wireless, each cabinet having two 8" drivers and two HF driver/horns. The 8" drivers are run as a "2.5 way" system- one is bass only, the other is bass-mid, and the horns handle the highs. The cool thing- is that the woofers are located on each side of the horns- and the DSP can be set to have EITHER one be the woofer only driver, and the other one the woofer-mid- so you can, by clicking an box in the tuning program, set them up mirror-image, with the woofers on the insides or on the outsides (which can help with room modes, sometimes), without having to do anything else to the cabinets.

Augmenting this on the bottom, is four bandpass subs, each with an extremely high-output 15" woofer in a 2' x 2' x 4' cabinet, flat from 23Hz up to about 45Hz, at close to 96dB sensitivity @ 1 watt. Each pair of these is run from a Behringer EP4000 power amp (about 800w RMS to each cabinet). We usually run four of the same type double-18 subs as the other system, and four single-18" subs, for a total of 12 18" drivers, run from three more EP4000 power amps. The arrays handle their own crossovers and tuning, but we also use a Driverack in this system to tune the bottom- lowpass of about 38Hz on the bandpass subs, and the 18" are low-passed at between 65 and 100 Hz, depending on whether we're running them as a ground-stack or flown as an array (the array cabinets couple with the boundaries more as a ground stack, so they go lower- requiring a lower subwoofer lowpass to blend well).

I haven't gotten much time on these yet- we've only had them a few months now- but on the last gig we did- I, within 25 minutes of tuning- believe it or not- got the whole system to what seemed like 90% as good as the Focal Stella Utopia speakers (which I had heard on the same material, a few hours earlier the same day, so I did have a pretty good reference for comparison). Effortless dynamics, near pin-point imaging (at least run as a ground-stack) and flat to probably within 1.5dB from 25Hz to close to 20KHz. Remarkable lack of distortion and incredible control. It did many of my reference tracks so well, that I think that it would literally take something like the $100K Stella Utopias, or the Von Schweikert VR55 Aktiv system, to give a subjectively, significantly better sonic presentation. And neither of those could do that kind of thing, in a 10000-20000 square foot hotel ballroom...

It's a lot of fun to bring these out.

Regards,
Gordon.
 
here are some fantasy big bottoms for the holidays
I'd hate to be the guy on the board with that horn setup. I dunno, maybe it was easy but it sure doesn't look easy.
Glad to see guys posting their big speaker sets. It makes my retention of the 15^ft. boxes in their location easier. I just need to show Ms westend what others are doing.
 
I work with a small group of guys here in Atlanta, who provide video, lighting and sound support for fan conventions (sci-fi, literary, anime, etc) and for small music events. To do that, we have two systems, that we refer to as our "hi-fi PA".

The first one, that we've had the longest, is mostly my design- from bottom to top, two bandpass subwoofers with 18" drivers, that I designed to go from 24-50Hz at 95dB sensitivity @ 1w, out of 2'x2'x4' enclosures. The pair of them is run, from a crossover point of about 40Hz and down, from an old-school Crest 4001 power amp, which gives them about 550w/ch. Above that, are four double-18" cabinets- also of my design, and containing woofers that I custom built- flat down to 35Hz, about 99dB 1w/1m each. Those are crossed over at about 80Hz lowpass, run off of a pair of Urei 6290 power amps, for about 700w per cabinet. For midrange, we most commonly use four JBL 4648A cabinets, loaded with two JBL 2226H woofers each. Those are crossed over at about 80-1100 Hz, and run from a pair of Crest 4801 power amps, for about 550w per 4648 cabinet. For highs, we use four "hybrid" JBL horns- old-school 2447 1.5" throat, 4" diaphragm drivers, mated to new-school 1.5" throat PT Waveguide horn flares. I did the necessary adaptation to make the different flange designs mate together- and they work amazingly well together- very smooth, very good dispersion, very low distortion. Augmenting these, are four Selenium ST350 supertweeters, two per side, passively crossed over at about 12.5KHz, to add more "air" to the high end of the main horns. These are all run from about 1200Hz and up, from a Urei 6260 power amp.

The whole system is processed by the combination of a DBX Driverack, in 3-way mode, running the double 18s, 4648 cabinets and horn/supertweeters (with asymmetric slope crossovers, offset crossover points and parametric EQ to dial them all in together), and an Ashly crossover set at 40Hz low pass, just on the "megasub" bandpass subs.

This system is capable of true high fidelity in excess of 120dB, flat from 25Hz to 19KHz 3dB point at the center of a 110x90 foot ballroom with a 20 foot ceiling- with imaging that LITERALLY sounds like the performer is on the stage between them, from recorded playback material. Dynamics are, as you could probably expect, pretty much unlimited, and it's flat to within a couple dB - in the aforementioned hotel ballroom. It's really entertaining when it's set up right...

The second system- and the one that we're still learning the limits of its capability-is a four-hang per side of the new EAW Radius line-array system. Four RSX-208L cabinets on each side, self amplified (tri-amped), with built in DSP and tuneable from an iPad via wireless, each cabinet having two 8" drivers and two HF driver/horns. The 8" drivers are run as a "2.5 way" system- one is bass only, the other is bass-mid, and the horns handle the highs. The cool thing- is that the woofers are located on each side of the horns- and the DSP can be set to have EITHER one be the woofer only driver, and the other one the woofer-mid- so you can, by clicking an box in the tuning program, set them up mirror-image, with the woofers on the insides or on the outsides (which can help with room modes, sometimes), without having to do anything else to the cabinets.

Augmenting this on the bottom, is four bandpass subs, each with an extremely high-output 15" woofer in a 2' x 2' x 4' cabinet, flat from 23Hz up to about 45Hz, at close to 96dB sensitivity @ 1 watt. Each pair of these is run from a Behringer EP4000 power amp (about 800w RMS to each cabinet). We usually run four of the same type double-18 subs as the other system, and four single-18" subs, for a total of 12 18" drivers, run from three more EP4000 power amps. The arrays handle their own crossovers and tuning, but we also use a Driverack in this system to tune the bottom- lowpass of about 38Hz on the bandpass subs, and the 18" are low-passed at between 65 and 100 Hz, depending on whether we're running them as a ground-stack or flown as an array (the array cabinets couple with the boundaries more as a ground stack, so they go lower- requiring a lower subwoofer lowpass to blend well).

I haven't gotten much time on these yet- we've only had them a few months now- but on the last gig we did- I, within 25 minutes of tuning- believe it or not- got the whole system to what seemed like 90% as good as the Focal Stella Utopia speakers (which I had heard on the same material, a few hours earlier the same day, so I did have a pretty good reference for comparison). Effortless dynamics, near pin-point imaging (at least run as a ground-stack) and flat to probably within 1.5dB from 25Hz to close to 20KHz. Remarkable lack of distortion and incredible control. It did many of my reference tracks so well, that I think that it would literally take something like the $100K Stella Utopias, or the Von Schweikert VR55 Aktiv system, to give a subjectively, significantly better sonic presentation. And neither of those could do that kind of thing, in a 10000-20000 square foot hotel ballroom...

It's a lot of fun to bring these out.

Regards,
Gordon.
You're way over my head but I'm impressed.
 
My EAW KF940’s weigh in at 360 lbs each. They each contain 2 x 12” speakers and have a frequency response of 24hz to 300hz efficiency of 109db @ 1 watt and will put out 145db SPL. I have 2 dual 15 EAW for mids that handle 1000 Watts each and 2 EV DH1A’s on hp9040 horns. Sansui BA 5000 on highs, Mcintosh mc2300 on mids (pushed hard) and crown xti4002 pushing the bottom. Sansui au20,000 for pre and dbx pa2 for crossover, eq and time alignment. Effortless 120 dB listening with lots of headroom and plenty of bottom end


Two BFM Tuba HT 36x36×24 each loaded with a Dayton RS 390HF4 drivers wired for 8 ohm bridged load to a QSC RMX 2450 pro audio amp with fan mod and audiophile recap.

We have developed several new cracks in the ceiling since installation. My fully restored M&K MX-200 is the geico gecko vs. Godzilla in comparison.
 
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