Members RoadRanger Posted December 14, 2012 Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 Originally Posted by guitarman3001 it's a Mackie FR 800. That amp does have clip limiters. Make sure they are switched "on" and that the "level" controls on its front panel are all the way up . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jonthomas Posted December 14, 2012 Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 Even if you double the power it will not be "that" much louder, 3db is all you will get in a perfect world and power compression in the drivers will eat some of that. You can do that experiment if you bridge the Mackie and wire up the speakers in parallel, then you can pull 400 x 2 watts from your amp and have a little more headroom. What you want is better/more efficient speakers, JBL/EV/QSC/RCF and Yamaha have powered boxes that will get louder and sound better than what you have now, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarman3001 Posted December 14, 2012 Author Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 Originally Posted by jonthomas Even if you double the power it will not be "that" much louder, 3db is all you will get in a perfect world and power compression in the drivers will eat some of that. You can do that experiment if you bridge the Mackie and wire up the speakers in parallel, then you can pull 400 x 2 watts from your amp and have a little more headroom. What you want is better/more efficient speakers, JBL/EV/QSC/RCF and Yamaha have powered boxes that will get louder and sound better than what you have now, Hah! That might be the solution for tomorrow. Our speaker cables are the banana/binding post type so we can just piggyback those on each other, use the single bridged output, and voila, 400 watts per channel. I do understand how wattage and overall volume work so I know we're not going to be that much louder but we will be a little louder and it might just give us the headroom we need to push the vocals to where the club wants them without distorting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members modulusman Posted December 14, 2012 Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 Originally Posted by RoadRanger The compression you get bouncing off the limiters can give you an apparent increase of 2-4x the power before the "pumping" of the limiters becomes excessive. How do you think I covered 1000 people outdoors with a pair of 10" mains? Who in their right mind would think a pair of 10 inch speakers could do an adequate job of covering a 1000 people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DaBender Posted December 14, 2012 Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 I read a lot of this thread, but not all of it. To repeat what many of the others have said, a used pair of Yamaha Clubs is just a huge bang for the buck that will make enough difference to notice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted December 14, 2012 Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 Originally Posted by guitarman3001 Hah! That might be the solution for tomorrow. Our speaker cables are the banana/binding post type so we can just piggyback those on each other, use the single bridged output, and voila, 400 watts per channel. I do understand how wattage and overall volume work so I know we're not going to be that much louder but we will be a little louder and it might just give us the headroom we need to push the vocals to where the club wants them without distorting. Just be careful, you are well into the limits of your speakers. Your speakers are 150 watts "RMS". I would recommend no more than 250 watts with a high pass filter. They are not particularly robust, at that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarman3001 Posted December 14, 2012 Author Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 Originally Posted by agedhorse Just be careful, you are well into the limits of your speakers. yep, I'm aware of that. They are rated at 300W program and 500W peak. If we don't run it full blast, we should be ok. Especially if the clip limiter is on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RoadRanger Posted December 14, 2012 Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 Originally Posted by modulusman Who in their right mind would think a pair of 10 inch speakers could do an adequate job of covering a 1000 people. Who said I'm in my right mind ? It was a charity thing and I didn't think they'd fill the whole park . I did have my big subs under them - about equivalent in output to four SRX718 above 50Hz. It was "just" Doo-Wop, family friendly level SPL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RoadRanger Posted December 14, 2012 Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 Originally Posted by guitarman3001 yep, I'm aware of that. They are rated at 300W program and 500W peak. If we don't run it full blast, we should be ok. Especially if the clip limiter is on. Those numbers are meaningless. The only meaningful number is the 150w continuous rating. Even running twice that (both on one channel of an NU3000) is living on the edge. Above that is "smoke 'em sooner rather than later" territory for sure. Hope you're feelin' lucky . I'd suggest leaving them one per channel, make sure the clip limiters are on, level controls on full, and bring the mixer's master up until the clip limit lights just start to flash and then 6db past that. Now bring your stage volume down to balance . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarman3001 Posted December 14, 2012 Author Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 Originally Posted by RoadRanger Those numbers are meaningless. The only meaningful number is the 150w continuous rating. Even running twice that (both on one channel of an NU3000) is living on the edge. Above that is "smoke 'em sooner rather than later" territory for sure. Hope you're feelin' lucky . Sorry, I'm not following this part. Where are you getting the 150w continuous rating? Here are the specs for the Yamaha A12 speakers we have. Enclosure: 2-way bass reflex speaker unit 12" LF speaker cone 1" high frequency horn Frequency Range: 65Hz-20kHz Power Capacity: 300W program; 500W peak Nominal Impedance: 8 Ohms Sensitivity: 97dB SPL (1W, 1m)/125dB SPL (MAX) Input Connectors: Phone jack 1 Speakon 1 Dimension: 15-7/8"W 22-5/8"H 12-3/4"D Weight: 34.4Ib. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarman3001 Posted December 14, 2012 Author Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 Originally Posted by RoadRanger Those numbers are meaningless. The only meaningful number is the 150w continuous rating. Even running twice that (both on one channel of an NU3000) is living on the edge. Above that is "smoke 'em sooner rather than later" territory for sure. Hope you're feelin' lucky . Sorry, I'm not following this part. Where are you getting the 150w continuous rating? Here are the specs for the Yamaha A12 speakers we have. Enclosure: 2-way bass reflex speaker unit 12" LF speaker cone 1" high frequency horn Frequency Range: 65Hz-20kHz Power Capacity: 300W program; 500W peak Nominal Impedance: 8 Ohms Sensitivity: 97dB SPL (1W, 1m)/125dB SPL (MAX) Input Connectors: Phone jack 1 Speakon 1 Dimension: 15-7/8"W 22-5/8"H 12-3/4"D Weight: 34.4Ib. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RoadRanger Posted December 14, 2012 Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 http://www2.yamaha.co.jp/manual/pdf/...akers/a10e.pdfThe "noise" spec is the actual continuous rating - 150w Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted December 14, 2012 Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 Hence I caution you that you may be going to cause bigger problems than you have right now. You need to upgrade both the speakers AND the amp, in fact I suspect that a speaker upgrade might be much more productive than an amp upgrade on just the sensitivity alone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RoadRanger Posted December 14, 2012 Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 Those A12's actually have the same sensitivity rating as the Club S112V ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Musicman717 Posted December 14, 2012 Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 why not just take out a loan at your local bank and then get what you need to do the job. These guys on here will help you get the right bang for the buck. and it wont be that much to pay back , and then get your reputation with the bar owners and then start buying little by little. If you just think about it , thats probably how aged, abzurd and a lot of other ones on here did it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted December 14, 2012 Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 Originally Posted by RoadRanger Those A12's actually have the same sensitivity rating as the Club S112V ... I don't believe it. Perhaps they use a different rating method for the bottom feeder products (as do many manufacturers, ie. different boundery) so they compare favorably to other lower line products. I guarantee that at 150 watts, power compression alone will be a much bigger issue for the A12's reducing the sensitivity when the OP needs it the most. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RoadRanger Posted December 14, 2012 Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 The A12's are rated at 150w, The S112V at 175w - not a big difference there. The biggest difference is that the A12's HF driver has only a 1" VC, the S112V a 2" - so I suspect the protection cuts in sooner on the A12. Also the S112V's HF driver sounds pretty good - the A12 is about the sound quality of a JRX . Completely usable if that's what you have to work with and the typical barflies aren't gonna hear the difference anyways. If he's having distortion problems in a 100-200 people room it's not because the system isn't loud enough. Either the clip limiters are off, the level controls are down, or they are trying to push over 100db and are way more than the 6db into the limiters I'd limit myself to. Better to dial down the stage volume if the PA can't keep up - nobody sane wants to listen to >100db anyways . Oh, and get those cabs up there where the audience isn't absorbing all the sound - I like the bottom of my cabs about at the top of my head. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarman3001 Posted December 14, 2012 Author Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 Are those power ratings accurate though. After doing a little reading, what I've found is that an RMS rating is usually lower than what a speaker can actually take. It's also been my understanding for a long time that it's easier to blow a speaker as a result of clipping due to not enough power than it is to blow one from using more than the speaker's rated power, as long as the signal doesn't clip and the power is within reason. Here are a couple of posts I found on another site in a discussion about power ratings: The program power is really the lowest you want to go. The RMS power is the lowest power rating the company recomends before it could cause damage to the drivers due to overdriving. Even the RMS power is lacking on most major brands of loudspeakers and I would strongly recomend always going with at least the program power. So I would go with the 600 watt amp over the 350 amp for sure.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------If the RMS is 300watts and peak is 1200 watts then a 600 watt amp would be ideal for these speakers. It would be much better than the 350 watt amp because you will have plenty of "headroom" which provides protection and better sound. The bigger amp has the abiltiy to process the loud peaks without distorting the signal and ulitmately blowing the speaker. The purpose of "headroom" is to cleanly process those loud peaks. It is not mean to be used continuously. The specs say that your speakers will handle 1200 watts for a milisecond but you don't really want to test that. If your ears hear the begining of distortion, plain and simply back off the volume. If this information is correct, our Yamaha A12s should be fine running 400 watts into them as long as we don't max the volume and push the signal into clipping. Or is there something I'm misunderstanding? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members StratGuy22 Posted December 14, 2012 Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarman3001 Posted December 14, 2012 Author Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 Originally Posted by StratGuy22 Good luck. lol...thanks, I think. Seriously though, what am I missing? Here's another article: http://www.doctorproaudio.com/doctor...erhandling.htm 5. Selecting amplifier power In general, the amplifier power needs to be larger than the speaker's rated power. This is because an amplifier only delivers its rated output power with sinewave signal, and delivers much less with a real signal with dynamics. As ageneral guideline, it is recommended to use an amplifier delivering 50% more power than the speaker's average ("RMS") power. For example, for a speaker with 450W average power, an amplifier with an output of 700W may be used. If a small amplifier is used, sufficient level will not be reached, nor the perception that it is attained, so the signal will tend to be clipped to compensate, thus endangering the integrity of the speaker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Axisplayer Posted December 14, 2012 Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 The articles are correct, and you are not missing anything in your understanding of them. The concern is that not all speakers are created equal. EAW is a major brand that has a history of making great speakers at world class levels. Most of their speakers conform to the article. However they make a very popular and expensive speaker (LA325) that will not survive the advice in this article. EAW even says on their web site that although it is a 600 watt RMS speaker, you should not feed it more than 800 watts. I have no experience with your speaker, but some here do and you would be well served to pay attention to them. There is something to be gained from collective knowledge. Here is the tradeoff. A doubling of wattage will net you 3db at most, which many people have said is the least change in volume you can generally perceive. However, in this case a doubling of wattage seems to be extreme for your particular speaker based on comments. The issue becomes "is an almost imperceptible gain in volume worth a real risk of burning out your speakers?" Most here would say no, but it is your decision. Understand that losing your PA at practice is inconvenient, but losing it mid show is a disaster. Clubs frown on it, and patrons that came for music will not be staying (and if a cover charge is involved might want the club to refund it.) Since the risk is fairly large, and the rewards are very small, prudent thought is that it is not a good tradeoff with these particular speakers.Your call to make. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarman3001 Posted December 14, 2012 Author Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 Got it. Makes sense now. Back to speaker upgrades - are these worth considering? http://miami.craigslist.org/brw/msg/3425884012.html FOR SALE: TWO (2) YAMAHA S115IV TWO-WAY PASSIVE SPEAKERS IN EXCELLENT CONDITIONS. $ 250 EACH ONE! RARELY USED. CONTACT ME @ . IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THESE ITEMS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jonthomas Posted December 14, 2012 Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 I have seen beat up ones for less, you may be able to get a deal on two but the used market in Flordia is not great, worthwhile upgrade IMOHO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RoadRanger Posted December 14, 2012 Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 Originally Posted by guitarman3001 Seriously though, what am I missing? That most people on the iternet (and in RL ) are idiots and want you to blow your {censored} up . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted December 14, 2012 Members Share Posted December 14, 2012 You don't know enough (yet) to appreciate the advice. I evaluate speakers for a living, including reliability metrics, so I am much closer to what the real world experiences. The Club 12 is a much better speaker than the A series. Regardless of what the marketing might (appear to) indicate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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