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I currently have two Yorkville NX35's being powered by a Yamaha EMX512 powered mixer. This has been a fantastic little setup for the majority of my solo gigs. Lightweight, easy to set up, etc. I use a RCF310A as a monitor for bigger gigs.

Over the past year or so, I've been doing some bigger gigs, and I've moved up to a trio adding a second guitarist and bongo player. We've found some situations where we could have used more sound reinforcement. We've occasionally added on some Mackie Thump's that the bongo player has (which I know are not great speakers). That helps somewhat.

We had a discussion on this a while back in the solo forum. Upgrading to a bigger board is a given. I'd like to get a 12 or 16 channel board board. I was at that time discussing upgrading my cabs to powered mains, then adding a powered sub.

Through the conversation, it was noted that even though the Yamaha head touts big power (500w per side), that it probably is not adequately powering those mains. At the ohm load I'm using, and the fact that the 500w is a peak number, the guess is that it's probably only sending 90-ish watts to each speaker.

So, I'm wondering now if it would be a better starting point to simply get a new board and a power amp that's well matched to the speakers, thinking that move alone would be a great improvement, and much more cost effective than going with powered mains.. A crossover and a powered sub would come next.

First, I ask if that is sound logic? Second, I wonder what amp would be an adequate amount of power for those mains. I believe they are rated 350 watts program.

 

Thanks for the help!

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Howie,

 

The NX35 is rated 500w program/1000w peak. Nominal impedance is 8 Ohms.

Looks to me like your current mixer (120v model I presume), is rated 320w peak into 8 Ohms, so it's probably about 160w program, 80w continuous.

 

How many inputs are you looking to get?.

For small acoustic gigs, I like to travel as light as possible, so I'll usually bring along an NX55P (or two), and a small-format passive mixer. The Soundcraft EFX-8 is a great sounding lil' workhorse, with a built in power-supply, and it tucks away onto a 15"x15" Gator G-Mix B1515 shoulder-bag. It's a very convenient set-up, and the NX55P has plenty of bottom-end for most acoustic gigs. The EFX-8 has 8 mono/XLR channels, and 2 stereo channels, and the built-in Lexicon FX sound very good..

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On a recent thread, I got some very good, detailed advice about upgrading my own powered mixer set up to a more scalable powered speaker set up that would work for my semi-acoustic band as well as my smaller, all-acoustic solo, duo, and trio performances. You can read the details here:

 

http://www.harmonycentral.com/t5/Live-Sound-Production/PA-upgrade-advice/td-p/34711307

 

As you'll see if you read the thread, I use a pair of 310a's and a small mixer for small gigs, and they work beautifully.  My plan, looking toward this summer is to invest in more 310a's, a bigger mixer, and eventually to explore adding a small sub or two.

How big are these new, bigger gigs you're getting?

 

Louis

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Howie22 wrote:

 

My NX35s say 350 Watts Program right on the back?

 

There were seemingly some marketing upgrades done to the power specs... from what information I have, nothing else changed. That's why I commented that 250 continuous was a closer number that the bigger ones and even that is perhaps more marketing driven than anything else.

I would think they would be well powered by ~250-300 watt amp regardless of what the marketing folks may imply.

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agedhorse wrote:

 

The PRX-518 IMO is greatly superior to the zx-1a I'm all respects except size... And the on good board makes it more convenient too.

 

 

   How bout no DBX 223 but instead a  QSC GX5 amp with HPF engaged with NX35s on one side and a passive MXR518 on the other side  Since nobody will notice it not being a stereo rig. I'd hate to double back the balanced sends out of the  PRX518 into a IPR 1600 to HP the passive NX35s.

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Bobby1Note wrote:

 

 

Howie,

 

 

 

The NX35 is rated 500w program/1000w peak. Nominal impedance is 8 Ohms.

 

Looks to me like your current mixer (120v model I presume), is rated 320w peak into 8 Ohms, so it's probably about 160w program, 80w continuous.

 

 

 

How many inputs are you looking to get?.

 

For small acoustic gigs, I like to travel as light as possible, so I'll usually bring along an NX55P (or two), and a small-format passive mixer. The Soundcraft EFX-8 is a great sounding lil' workhorse, with a built in power-supply, and it tucks away onto a 15"x15" Gator G-Mix B1515 shoulder-bag. It's a very convenient set-up, and the NX55P has plenty of bottom-end for most acoustic gigs. The EFX-8 has 8 mono/XLR channels, and 2 stereo channels, and the built-in Lexicon FX sound very good..

 

 

Ideally, I'd like to have 12-16 inputs. We pretty much max out my 8 channel mixer with the trio as it is, and we've talked about adding more members to go the full band route later on. I've been thinking something along the lines of the Yamaha MG166CX or the Soundcraft EFX 12.

 

For solo work, I actually have a small Soundraft Notepad mixer that I can use with my RCF powered speaker. Honestly, for most small solo gigs, I love the simplicity of my current setup and will likely keep that. Using the powered mixer and passive mains, it takes just a few minutes to set up and break down. Thus, I like the idea of keeping the same mains for both setups, and just powering them appropriately for bigger gigs and later adding a sub.

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Howie22 wrote:

 

My NX35s say 350 Watts Program right on the back?

 

Four legs good, two legs bad.  As AH has noted, Yorkville changed their specs overnight - apparently to compensate for a "mistake" that their speaker supplier had made in rating their speakers.  I'm not buying it, but then again my nickname is Sid the cynical!

Anyway, I might have responded to your other thread but.... I own four of the NX350's (ealier model of the 35's) and have used the NX35's for a full band somewhere around half a dozen times, and my 350's more times than I can count.  IMHO the NX35's are rated much closer to 350 watts program than 500 watts program. Especially the horn. I really like the speaker but I would really consider not putting any more than what AH suggested.  I typically power mine somehwere in the 175 to 250 range.  I have gone above that with both the NX35's and the NX350's but they start to cry uncle and sound ugly above that.

FWIW one of my used 350's had a fading horn driver when I got it.  The tweets are not the most robust out there. so watch your levels and amp matching.

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