Peavey Mfx-1, Mb-2 , Fh-1 help.

[Fla Dale]

In the old days I used to own SP1 and SP2 cabinets. I ran one cord to each side and used jumpers on the horns. I just bought the speakers listed above and it came with 3 cables for each side ziptied together. How do I hook this set up into my rack and why? Thanks in advance.

[dboomer]

They did come that way ... but it wasn't a very good way to do it. Not much in the way of networks there.

 

They should be tri-amped but it adds costs. Or you could design passive crossovers.

[Fla Dale]

I asked a question before I found the site ( yorkville.com ) I guess I am going to run from my non powered board into a three way crossover and then to 3 power amps. One for each ( high, low ,mids ) and that would explain the three cords. It sounds like a good way to do it. I will be using 3-1000 watt amps. Thanks for the response.

[Dookietwo]

I asked a question before I found the site ( yorkville.com ) I guess I am going to run from my non powered board into a three way crossover and then to 3 power amps. One for each ( high, low ,mids ) and that would explain the three cords. It sounds like a good way to do it. I will be using 3-1000 watt amps. Thanks for the response.

 

Things to know about the system. The first horns had a 20 watt rms rating.

The subs are more a Mid-sub. They run from 59hz to 250 hz. You will want a low cut filter set at the 50/60 hz range. If you run the sub lower than 59hz or so it will unload and make poping sounds. This could damage the driver.The Midrange as well should not go lower than 250hz. The sub can be crossover as high as 500hz. If you run the midrange below 250hz you run the risk of unloading the driver and maybe causing some damage. The crossover points were 250hz and around 1.2k for the system if I remember right.

Also the sub driver is reached by removing the bottom plywood sheet on the box. There is a foam double sided tape that seals it to the box. Be sure to see if the foam is still alright. If it is leaking this could cause some problems with the box/driver combination.

 

This is a very loud horn loaded system. It does have a limited low freq response. If you have the $ for a digital crossover I bet if the system was setup right it would perform well in its designed range. I had one for some time and it served me well. I used the peavey Crossover Mainframe with a PL-250hz and a PL-800EQ crossover can crossover system and it worked pretty well with a little eq tweeking. (The horn could be used as low as 500hz in lower power setups)

 

My best advice again would be to use a 50/60hz low cut on the subs. They do thump hard in the 60 to 150 hz range.

 

Let us know what you think of the system when you have it up and going.

 

Dookietwo

[dedmeet]

Ah, yes, the old Peavey 'Project' series; I think those were sold as a the Project 4 system. Saw a lot of those banging around medium sized gigs in the 80s. I remember a band in my high school auditorium (500 seats) ran two stacks of these per side!

 

Peavey used to have a neat system with these where you would drive them off CS series amps each with a suitable plug-in crossover module plugged into a socket on the amp. Usually CS-800 for the lows and mids and a CS-400 for the highs, if memory serves correctly. The modules looked like little silver cans, but these cans were tweaked for specific systems and made setup easier as they handled crossover and basic corrective EQ for the cabs.

 

Those are old cabs and need to be driven carefully. They won't take as much power as some newer amps can put it, but they can very loud on not a lot of power.

 

I hope your set came with a roadie, as those monsters are heavy!

 

Oh, post pics of those cabs! I'd love to see 'em.

[clayface74]

My first band bought a set of these. I remember riding home in the back of a borrowed pickup picking the cat hair out of my mouth.....the giuy who had them had cats living in the "shelves". Never could keep the hf diaphrams from blowing. Once we upgraded to p118's the bass player used one of the fh1's for his bass rig....the good ol days!!!

[agedhorse]

The good ol' days weren't all that good actually

[bjm362]

The good ol' days weren't all that good actually

 

That depends on your perspective! Unfortunately there just doesn't seem to be anything commercially made thats as good overall (Quality and quantity of sound,flexibility,portability and price) as The Peavey Project 2 for the working musician!

 

P.S. Dookietwo, excellent post there on the optimal setup. Thats the way I remember it too!

 

I actually found this forum while looking for plans for Project 2 's. I am still looking for good plans BTW!

[agedhorse]

 

That depends on your perspective! Unfortunately there just doesn't seem to be anything commercially made thats as good overall (Quality and quantity of sound,flexiblity,portability and price) as The Peavey Project 2 for the working musician!

 

 

Really? You might want to get out and see what's available. Quality of sound and portability were not their high points by any stretch of the imagination. They made loud noise and lots of it.

[modulusman]

That depends on your perspective! Unfortunately there just doesn't seem to be anything commercially made thats as good overall (Quality and quantity of sound,flexibility,portability and price) as The Peavey Project 2 for the working musician! P.S. Dookietwo, excellent post there on the optimal setup. Thats the way I remember it too! I actually found this forum while looking for plans for Project 2 's. I am still looking for good plans BTW!

 

Yeah nothing says portable like over 250 pounds a stack. Not counting the amps. I had some Fh-1s and the MF-1s back in the day. I remember stuffing a bar napkin behind the metal nameplate on the sub to keep it from rattling.

[bjm362]

 

Really? You might want to get out and see what's available. Quality of sound and portability were not their high points by any stretch of the imagination. They made loud noise and lots of it.

 

 

Unfortunately what I had was not Project 2s. I had a pair of SP-1s. SP-1s are FH-1 and MF1x cabinets from the Project 2 series.They lacked the MB2 mid bass cabinets.

 

I did have the opportunity to do a direct comparison of my two SP-1s to 4 Klipsch Lascalas!

My SP-1s thorougly outrocked the far more expensive klipsches!!!!!

 

The main trick with SP-1s was not to run them below 60hz. run correctly they were good sounding and very potent!

 

If you had some making noise you might want to check the setup !

[Miket156]

by bjm362: If you had some making noise you might want to check the setup !

 

I'd say Andy (Aged Horse) knows more about any setup both you and I know on his little finger nail.

 

 

 

Mike T.

[dboomer]

I did have the opportunity to do a direct comparison of my two SP-1s to 4 Klipsch Lascalas!

 

They practically ARE LaScallas

[agedhorse]

No need to check them out, I serviced plenty of them in the "good 'ol days" and compared with what's available now there is no contest at all regarding sound quality. The mid level stuff today stomps on that stuff in sound quality. Just stomps.

[bjm362]

 

No need to check them out, I serviced plenty of them in the "good 'ol days" and compared with what's available now there is no contest at all regarding sound quality. The mid level stuff today stomps on that stuff in sound quality. Just stomps.

 

From 60Hz to 16kHz there are very few cabinets in existence as efficient as those Peaveys were.

For multiple grand more you can get close to what you could do with a pair of Project-2s and some good subs.

By the time you add in ALL the extra cabinets and power amps your no longer more compact or lighter,and your electric bill went up dramatically!

 

I also have a Question for You Aged Horse. Were you dealing with early models? It could make a MAJOR difference. My SP-1s were late model and had the Anti bump plate in the LF horns. Early SP-1s and to my knowledge all Lascalas of that era lacked this feature.

 

As to the potential for a re-issue of a modernized version from Peavey, we can always hope. After all Klipsch already has put Lascalas back into production. They are an improved version too! The feature a 15 inch LF driver ( Like the Peaveys did) as opposed to the old 12s that originally came with Lascalas. At $2999.99 per cabinet list price I am not a buyer though!

[oldschooler]

I rather have Yamaha clubs with a pair of 18s then the Peavey any day. We all get attached to our old gear but sometimes it's better off to cut the cord.

[agedhorse]

BJM, whily you might have an unnatural fondness for those speakers, there were plenty of speakers that were both more efficient as well as better sounding back then. Speakers by Altec, EV and JBL all exceeded the sensitivity and the quality of the Peaveys.

 

You also feel free to insult me personally without knowing anything about me, or the products I have designed over the last 30 years in this industry... including some speaker products of the similar era. I know a lot more about those speakers than you assume I do.

 

The bumped backplate had nothing to do with sound quality or efficiency either... it was the result of too many stupid customers using larger and larger amps with those speakers (including bridgin CS-800's into them) and bottoming out the voice coil on the back-plate. Bumping the plate increased X-mech to reduce warranty claims, that was the sole reason.

 

You might look at some of the earlier cinema and stadium products by the pro manufacturers of the era, those designs were responsible for the majority of high efficiency technology as well as rudimentary LF pattern control.

 

A single pair of SRX-712's and 718's would stomp the Projects in maximum SPL, distortion, flatness of frequency response, off-axis uniformity, high frequency response, size, weight, packaging, etc. It's not even close.

[RoadRanger]

Don't know about yous guys but I'm still ROTFL over this one:

Sine waves are the enemy of speakers. Underpowering makes it EASY to produce sine waves. If you can excercise even slight caution you are much better off overpowering than underpowering.

Darn them pesky sinewaves !

[agedhorse]

 

I also have a Question for You Aged Horse. Were you dealing with early models? It could make a MAJOR difference. My SP-1s were late model and had the Anti bump plate in the LF horns. Early SP-1s and to my knowledge all Lascalas of that era lacked this feature. As to the potential for a re-issue of a modernized version from Peavey, we can always hope. After all Klipsch already has put Lascalas back into production. They are an improved version too! The feature a 15 inch LF driver ( Like the Peaveys did) as opposed to the old 12s that originally came with Lascalas. At $2999.99 per cabinet list price I am not a buyer though!

 

 

The oldest ones were particularly awful, and the original 22 diaphgram was heavy and the HF response was all over the map. The 22 was a loose design based on the 806/808 style drives, but weren't able to achieve the same performance. They were also MUCH cheaper to manufacture.

 

Nobody in their right mind would re-issue those cabinets, there's no point other than to make a few fanatics happy and even they might not buy them.

[Unalaska]

I'd like to propose that the OP go thru and set up the system with the CS400's and 800's with the crossover cans and all. 120lbs of amps and some really ugly speakers. FWIW I'd like to hear such a monstrosity in action although it isn't very high on my to do list.

 

Back in the 70's-80's power was very expensive. Horn loaded designed used the increased efficiency to get every last watt out of the power amps. But horn loaded also mean decreased bandwidth, HF gets weird on the top end, LF doesn't go past 60hz, mid range gets hard to control. It is a tradeoff between efficiency and range. 4 way systems were common too, usually in the 100-500 range to take the weight off the mid band.

 

There are still horn loaded designs out there. If I were you, look at the EV MTH1 and MTL1 system from EV, waaaay better job and in it's day was similar to the JBL SR front loaded system at the time (late 90's). And that's just a start, so why the fixation on the old peavey system?

 

These days power is cheap, and light. no use in going back either.

[bjm362]

You also feel free to insult me personally without knowing anything about me' date=' or the products I have designed over the last 30 years in this industry... [/quote']Actually I never insulted you personally. I would be glad to hear about what you designed, especially from that era. I feel like we got off to a bad start and that is correctable.Actually the only comment in this thread I thought should be offensive to anyone was this....

I'd say Andy (Aged Horse) knows more about any setup both you and I know on his little finger nail.



Mike T.

The person that should have been offended was me. I decided to give this person the benefit of the doubt as he does not know me.I expect you are an intelligent and experienced person. For the record though, Peavey called their low cut filters "Null Filters".

[modulusman]

 

Actually I never insulted you personally. I would be glad to hear about what you designed, especially from that era. I feel like we got off to a bad start and that is correctable.

 

Actually the only comment in this thread I thought should be offensive to anyone was this....

 

 

 

The person that should have been offended was me. I decided to give this person the benefit of the doubt as he does not know me.

 

I expect you are an intelligent and experienced person. For the record though, Peavey called their low cut filters "Null Filters".

Are you still using those Peavey boat anchors or did you finally wise up and buy something from this century?

 

[bjm362]

Unfortunately I sold those many years ago. I have a mixture of new and old stuff at the moment.

I am looking to build a "modernized" version of those "Boat Anchors". LOL!

As was pointed out earlier in this thread Klipsch has re-released the La Scala.

That is really still to heavy and out of my budget.

I wish I had inexpensive access to high quality plastic molding technology.

I do have some subs from that era. A pair of Peavey 118s'es. Each one of those is about the equivalent of two modern BR 118 with twice the projection, and although they are bigger...not that much.

 

Unfortunately I missed an opportunity to get some EV SX-500's at a pretty reasonable price.

One of the clubs I currently work at bought my old school Audio Centrons (15 inch 3ways) and my subs are up there at the moment.

For band gigs I generally use my Pr-15 Neos (26 lbs a cabinet) as mains and Pr-12s as monitors and I have a few choices as subs.

[soulx]

What the heck is going on here? Did somebody just pop in with a snappy conversational comeback after 6 years?

 

I guess you've been mulling that one over for what for a while.

[agedhorse]

 

Actually I never insulted you personally. I would be glad to hear about what you designed, especially from that era. I feel like we got off to a bad start and that is correctable.

 

Actually the only comment in this thread I thought should be offensive to anyone was this....

 

 

 

The person that should have been offended was me. I decided to give this person the benefit of the doubt as he does not know me.

 

I expect you are an intelligent and experienced person. For the record though, Peavey called their low cut filters "Null Filters".

Huh, a necro-response?

 

I don't care what Peavey may have called their filter, it was a made-up term as even the early terminology of a notch filter being called a null filter (going back to the 40's and 50's) was long since obsolete and now has an entirely different use in software coding. It's even possible that null was a typo of miscommunication!

 

The low cut filter is also called a high pass filter and everybody in the world (including Peavey) use this terminology.

 

Back in that era, I was designing mixing consoles, power amps and speaker products.