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Seismic Audio speakers. Any good or crap?


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My band may need to upgrade parts of our PA system soon and I was looking at some Seismic Audio speakers. These in particular. $329 for the pair.

http://www.seismicaudiospeakers.com/...p/sa-155.2.htm

02D-004V-000G4_129491022918522000LiYM6EJ

What we have now are some very old Yamaha single 12" speakers. An older model of these - http://www.music123.com/pro-audio/ya...ay-loudspeaker

51Kx4WEKSrL._SL500_SS500_.jpg


We play mainly small to medium sized bars and clubs and the Yamahas are just ok but they are small and sound as small as they are. We've recently started playing some larger venues and have been asked to play louder and unfortunately our 800 watt Crown amp and the Yamahas don't have any more to give and they distort when we try to turn them up as loud as the venues are asking for.

So, I'm thinking of upgrading to the Seismic Audios above if they are a half decent upgrade to the Yamahas and replacing the Crown amp with a Behringer inuke 3000 amp. I know opinions on the Behringer amps are mixed but what I'm really interested in is getting some feedback on the Seismic Audio speakers.

Are they a decent upgrade to the Yamahas or are they crap? And keep in mind that 90% of the time they will be used in the same venues we've been using the Yamahas, but for that other 10% we need something that with the right amp is capable of being louder and sounding fuller than the Yamahas without distorting.

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$329.99 for the pair with free shipping. Shipping a pair of 2x15s is going to run at least $60-$80. So you're talking about $120 each. Think about that.

1/4" inputs. Also not a good sign.

Going from Yamaha + Crown to Seismic + Behringer isn't even a lateral move, it's a very negative one.

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I think you need to clarify more about what you're doing. What style of music, and what do you consider a "small to medium size" bar and club? What would you say the average attendance is at your shows? What else are you running for a PA, or would this be it?

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Quote Originally Posted by Zeromus-X View Post
I think you need to clarify more about what you're doing. What style of music, and what do you consider a "small to medium size" bar and club? What would you say the average attendance is at your shows? What else are you running for a PA, or would this be it?
We're a classic rock band. Small to medium sized = 20 to 100 people, the occasional outdoor venue with a couple hundred people but most venues are just your regular small bars and taverns. For the main system right now we have the two Yamaha mains, one Peavey 18" sub which is a giant piece of crap but at least it puts out some low frequencies and the Crown 800 watt amp which if I understand correctly probably only putting out about 200 watts per channel since the speakers are 8 ohm. We have one amp for the mains and a second amp which we use one channel for the monitors and the other channel for the sub.

We're just looking for something that will give us more volume than the Yamahas without distorting while still sounding decent. And no, we can't afford expensive stuff like Cerwin Vega.
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Craigslist.
Don't get too hung up on power or running 4ohm speakers.
Yamaha clubs will sound better than the A12's and can be found cheap used.
If you live in a populated area put the word out and something should turn up or just start saving for a new rig.

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Quote Originally Posted by Zeromus-X View Post
$329.99 for the pair with free shipping. Shipping a pair of 2x15s is going to run at least $60-$80. So you're talking about $120 each. Think about that.
I estimated closer to $120 average US shipping costs for a pair. Also, I estimated that a UPS certified shipping carton would have a manufacturing cost of somewhere around $15ea... so the actual shipping cost (including shipping materials), would be possibly somewhere around $150 for a pair.

And all that's free with purchase.
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The dual 12s are defenitely better than the first set you were looking at, which were, just by looking at them, absolute garbage. The cheap piezos and platic grill covers over the woofers are tell tale signs of speakers made to LOOK impressive, but not necessarily sound impressive.

Let's pretend you're looking for a new 4X4 truck. A good new Chevrolet, Ford, Dodge 4X4 can be found for 25-40 000$, but lucky you! - you find a dealer selling their 4X4s for 2500$. I imagine you would ask yourself why they are so cheap... They look pretty similar to the more expensive ones on the outside??? Then you would look under the hood and find a motorcycle engine. Also, you would notice the body is made of reinforced painted foil. The dealer might confirm that his 4X4s do work, and that they get 2 miles per gallon and offer a maximum speed of 10MPH.

Knowing trucks and what they need to be able to do in order to be useful to you, you would likely think to yourself : These trucks are very inefficient, offer very little performance and won't last very long. That's why they're cheap!

Let's pretend these trucks are the first speakers you were looking at. The dual 12s would be the value truck dealer's Elite line (5000$) - getting 7 MPG and offering up to 35MPH speeds which can be useful for some purposes, but not really offering what you need in the real world to get most jobs done right. Their long term value is almost non existent.

There are always reasons speakers are cheap. Unfortunately, you usually only get to find these out once you own them.

Al

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I agree with the others , seismic audio stuff is just plain junk. I have a set of their subs and spent a lot of time working on them rebracing them and padding them on the inside. it's not worth it . now they sound pretty good. but the work i had to put into them i wold have been better off getting something like a yamaha or something. and doesnt that distortion sound through them wouldnt that be not enough wattage through his amp meaning that he needed to use a bigger amp? Is your amp clipping when you turn them up till they distort?

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I guess a lot of this depends on how good your band is, too. If the band is awful, it really doesn't matter what speakers you use. For me, I'd want to know that if we sound bad, it's our fault, and not our gear's fault. So we bought good gear. If the gear can't be blamed, there's nowhere else to put the blame, right?

Anyway, the truck analogy is a good one, except I'd even take it a step further. This is more the equivalent of saying "I need to tow this two-ton double axle trailer", and going out and getting a Prius with a tow hitch welded to its frame. Can it tow something? Yeah... for a few feet, probably.

There comes a point where a job requires the correct tools in order to do the job successfully. If the tools you're currently using aren't good enough for the job, there are only two good options -- get better tools, or pass on the better jobs. The third option, doing the job anyway and hoping for the best, is what leads to disaster (and cancelled gigs... and a bad reputation... and blown speakers).

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Quote Originally Posted by guitarman3001 View Post
My band may need to upgrade parts of our PA system soon and I was looking at some Seismic Audio speakers. These in particular. $329 for the pair.

http://www.seismicaudiospeakers.com/...p/sa-155.2.htm

02D-004V-000G4_129491022918522000LiYM6EJ

What we have now are some very old Yamaha single 12" speakers. An older model of these - http://www.music123.com/pro-audio/ya...ay-loudspeaker

51Kx4WEKSrL._SL500_SS500_.jpg


We play mainly small to medium sized bars and clubs and the Yamahas are just ok but they are small and sound as small as they are. We've recently started playing some larger venues and have been asked to play louder and unfortunately our 800 watt Crown amp and the Yamahas don't have any more to give and they distort when we try to turn them up as loud as the venues are asking for.

So, I'm thinking of upgrading to the Seismic Audios above if they are a half decent upgrade to the Yamahas and replacing the Crown amp with a Behringer inuke 3000 amp. I know opinions on the Behringer amps are mixed but what I'm really interested in is getting some feedback on the Seismic Audio speakers.

Are they a decent upgrade to the Yamahas or are they crap? And keep in mind that 90% of the time they will be used in the same venues we've been using the Yamahas, but for that other 10% we need something that with the right amp is capable of being louder and sounding fuller than the Yamahas without distorting.
The way I see it is that you need something on the bottom end to increase the SPL (subwoofers). Also I don't know if that crossover is helping or not (or a decent solution, is it even balanced in's and outs?) but if you add subs and another amp and a decent crossover your going to get more out of those yamaha's than you are now. Do you have a budget in mind at all for upgrading?
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Quote Originally Posted by nchangin View Post
The way I see it is that you need something on the bottom end to increase the SPL (subwoofers). Also I don't know if that crossover is helping or not (or a decent solution, is it even balanced in's and outs?) but if you add subs and another amp and a decent crossover your going to get more out of those yamaha's than you are now. Do you have a budget in mind at all for upgrading?
We do have a sub. Here's our complete setup. I gave a condensed version of it before but since it seems like it might be important, here's the entire setup:

Crown 800 watt amp - Used for mains (Yamaha A12s)
Another amp (either 800 or 900 watts), I think it's a Crown -- Channel A used for monitors, channel B used to drive a Peavey 18" sub
Mixer - Behringer Xenyx X2222
Crossover - Rolls Tiny Crossover (I bought it based on recommendations from here and on other sites. Everyone said it works very well.)

Our low end SPL is more or less ok but what's happening at the venues where they want us louder is that we are pushing the mains to the point where the amp and speakers, or both, are clipping and the vocals distort. Overall we need more powerful amps and louder mains that can handle more power. A second sub wouldn't hurt but that's not the problem we're having right now.

Unfortunately our budget is practically nothing. Basically, no one in the band wants to spend any money to upgrade our PA as long as there is sound coming out of it. What sucks is that one of the venues that complained about our PA not being good enough is one of the "A" rooms here and they've basically told us that if our PA sucks ass again at our next gig there this weekend, they're not going to book us again.

And of course, they only told us this yesterday so not only don't we have time to upgrade anything, but like I said, the rest of the band doesn't want to upgrade anything as long as our current gear is capable of making any sound of any kind. So, I'm trying to find low cost ways to upgrade what we currently have. There's no way I'm going to be able to talk them into buying higher end Cerwin or Yamaha or JBL stuff so basically I need something that's cheap, louder than what we have, and that sounds more or less as good as what we have. Seriously, forget the higher end stuff. That's not going to happen.
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Quote Originally Posted by Mutha Goose

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Have you considered hiring out?

 

Yeah, it's something we've considered but no one wants to give up any $$$ for something like that as long as our own PA can make noise, even if it sounds like crap. It's a tough spot to be in because our PA is at least sufficient to get us by for probably 95% of our gigs so no one sees much need to upgrade if we're able to get by with what we have. But those 5% of gigs are a problem and we may lose one of them because of our PA. Not to mention that even at the other 95% of gigs, we would sound much better if we had a better PA.
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It is not a tough place to be in at all. IMO if the band is happy to sound like crap and is more than willing to settle for the rooms that accept crap (and pay like crap), than crap is what you should shoot for and embrace. Embrace the mediocrity.Shoot for the bottom (or middle) and be happy with your place.

If you want more than your band does, the way I see it is you have 3 choices:
1) bite the bullet and buy yourself a PA
2) Acquiesce to your bands' desires and ambitions
3) Quit and find a new band...

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I don't know what your making on this gig but I'd consider what goose said and sub contract a sound co for now until you save up your pennies on such short notice as sounds like you will lose future gigs if you blow this one up.

You are probably going to be told not enough rig for the gig. I am supposing you could double up on what you have on each side with used speakers (yamaha clubs mentioned are normally affordable used) for the tops and leave the subs keep all the other gear. If you parallel 2 tops on each side down from 8 to 4 ohms typically the amps output doubles as well. Or trade in the yammies for a decent set of used tops. The tops are where the vocals are that's what they want to hear, you can get by wittout the bass for now. As far as two per side you could stack for now but ideally you want them up high (that's another discussion)

If that cross over is not balanced that is the first thing I'd take out of the equation. Used DBX xover's are cheap used (dbx 223)

Also bigger amps make more noise sooner I like to have about 20 % RMS (amp) higher than the RMS speaker rating (of course this will be objected to) I didn't have time to look up your speaker specs but 800 to 900 watt amp assuming (without looking up specs) maybe tops get 200 WPC RMS from a guess? I'm only suggesting this option due to your budget. QSC RMX amps are pretty cheap used, also dependable but heavey. Even if you had say a RMX 1450 going from memory you only get like 280 Watts per speaker @ 8 ohms and in my experience even DJing it would red line pretty quick, with a band I'm thinking even quicker.

To sum: Add two more used tops, pararellel them and crank it up. Replace crossover if the signal is not balanced (did not research the rolls xover) and if your not using balanced cables get it over with and go balanced top to bottom. out of your two amps you do have I'd use the more powerful one for the tops and let bottoms suffer a bit, people won't miss the bass but they will surely know if your tops are distorting clipping real quick. It hurts human ears and not pleasant but I wonder about that xover and if your sending too many lows to them causing premature distortion.

Re those seismic speakers they would be good kindling for a bonfire in my opinion, if you don't buy them you won't cry later when you get $25 bucks towards trade for both boxes.

.02 Good luck, also GC website has a website listing out used gear if your close to a bigger city you can find some good quality used gear for a nice price and they will haggle on price if been in store for 3 or more months to get it out of store.

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What is this "A" club paying you? Are they lowballing, which is why your bandmates don't want to spend a nickel because they make next to nothing already? The only other scenario is you've got some brain dead band mates. If they're making decent coin there and have been told that well is drying up if they sound like @$$ again why on earth would they not be scrambling for something better?

Not to mention the fact the band has been told outright that the sound stinks and a collective shrug is all you can get out of the guys. Man, I really have to count my blessings.

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Feels like the PA problems are the symptom and the root cause is the band. They aren't listening to the "A" venue and they aren't listening to you. They need to open their ears and use some common sense. PS They probably spent a ton of money on their own kit so they could sound good !

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