Powered speaker volume

[twostone]

 

This is interesting. I haven't had a chance to set up and try setting the gain structure the way Agedhorse has suggested (I'll try in my band context tomorrow night at rehearsal, and I'll have a chance with my solo configuration this weekend both practicing at at a gig), but now that I think through the description of the ideal result, I realize that it is more or less what I ended up with at our gig last Friday, with at least one important exception. This was a gig at an art gallery where the space we had for setting up and its relation to the rest of the room made using our full PA both logistically impractical and overkill in terms of volume. We tried that once and it was a mess, but the place is also too big for playing without a reasonable amount of amplification. Last time we played there, we used individual amps for acoustic guitar and lead vocal (a Genz Benz Pro LT), electric guitar (a small Fender amp), and upright bass (a cab and head rig), with 3 background vocals going through an old Peavy keyboard amp and no amplification for our accordion, clarinet, or hand percussionists. The accordion and clarinet got swamped, and the Peavey was less than ideal for the vocals, so this time I set up mics for the accordion and the clarinet and ran them, along with the background vocals, through my new ZED10FX into the RCF 312a, leaving only the hand percussionists unmic'd. I ended up, as I described earlier, with the RCF at 2/3 toward MAX, because that was the loudest I could get before feedback (a good deal louder than we needed). Then, to get the right level, I turned the master volume on the mixer down from nominal, which is where I had started, to what I now see was just about -6dB. Assuming that 2/3 of the way toward MAX is indeed about -6dB on the RCF, as Abzurd has suggested, this is exactly what Agedhorse suggested as an ideal starting point for both settings. The channel volumes were, however, all at about nominal because that's where I set them after setting the input trims just below clipping (I set the imput trims before anything else, using the PFL button and the ZED's meter, with the channel vols and the master vol all turned down and the speaker off). The only tweaking I did later to the channel volume settings was to turn the volume on the accordion channel up a little. I assume, however, from Agedhorse's instructions, that a better practice would have been to set those channel volumes at -6dB to start with. I would then no doubt have found, as I set the channel trims by ear with an eye to the PFL meter, that I was hitting input clip before getting quite the volume I needed. At that point, the thing to do would have been to leave the input trims a few dBs below clip and, instead of turning the channel volumes up to nominal or higher to get more volume, I would have turned the channel, master and speaker volumes all up together just a notch and listened again, then kept doing that a notch at a time until I reached the desired level. At that point, I should have still been below nominal on the channel volumes and have had plenty of leeway to get a good balance for my mix by, for example, boosting the accordion or what-have-you and for whatever EQ adjustments I wanted to make without the danger of pushing the amp in the RCF into clipping. If the power amp on the speaker did clip before I got enough volume that would have simply a sign that I need a bigger set up for the gig. But since I hadn't made that sort of error, once the mix was set I should still have had enough headroom to work with, and I should be able to use the master volume on the mixer to bring the whole thing up a bit if things got more crowded and noisy later in the gig. So, am I starting to make sense now? Sorry to sound like a student, but in relation to you guys that's what I am! I can't tell you how much I appreciate the feedback and information! Louis

 

 

Where you located at Louis? reason I ask I met a experience sound guy here on this forum that lives just a few miles down the road from me, and has help me out a few times in the past. Nothing like having some hands on live training.

[abzurd]

I get one more place for gain balancing. I guess it's a feature, but I don't like it. My Presonus StudioLive has gain adjustment knobs on the back of the mixer. It has these for both the stereo and mono outputs. It's kind of handy in that the mono and stereo outputs can be individually controlled, but I'm not really sure where they "should be" and the location is less than ideal. Provided I can get back there easily, which is gig dependent, it can be a handy place to turn up or down the overall system level slightly. I also just recently added a Driverack PX into the equation so there's one more place to gain stage, especially if you're using the compression/limiting in the Driverack, which I'm not at the moment.

[RoadRanger]

It's Deja-Vu all over again.

 

This subject comes up regularly with the same result - someone gettin' all hurt that everybody doesn't agree with their way of thinkin'. To those in the peanut gallery - its easy enough to try different methods and see what feels and sounds best to you. Heck, feed some music into your pre's and turn the trim up until you hear what clipping sounds like which varies from board to board. Try to overload your mix bus by turning the master way down and the channels way up (at low volumes of course) to hear what that sounds like. Dave Rat likes to sometimes run a channel or two into clipping to get that board's "sound" - not something I'd do but he makes s-loads of money doing it his way. There's more than one way to skin a cat .

[Louis Schwartz]

 

Gain stages work together as a system, that's why they are there, for those who UNDESTAND how it works. That's why I explain it as I do. Familiarizing yourself with a gain stage diagram (look at some of Yamaha's bigger mixer products) can be enlightening. One fader is like driving a truck in one gear, poor use of tools but for folks who don't understand, I can understand the attraction. Input trim should end up being about 6-12dB below input clipping, and there's plenty of gain throughout to get this when operating at lower levels the way I describe without any risk of loss of headroom problems. Are you sure, Louis, that you are reading your input metering correctly? Different manufacturers and models use different scales.

 

 

That's a good question! I'll certainly be paying closer attention to the numbers when I try this again with what you've been saying in mind, but going on my imperfect memory of the other night (and on what I've understood about gain structure in the past), I'm pretty sure I was simply watching for the meter to hit somewhere in the "yellow" range of the ZED's meters (+3 to +9), but to stay out of the "red," which is marked +16. I would have then set the trims so the peaks were hitting around +3 or +6 (the first two "yellow" lights on the ZED). Is that what you mean by about 6 to 12dB below clip? Or should it be lower than that? As I said in my long post, with the trims set at that level, the volume for the gig sounded right with the channel volumes at about nominal, the master volume at what looks to me like around -6dB, but that's an approximation, given that the little knob on the ZED only has an infintiy mark at the low, full counterclockwise setting, a nominal ["0"] mark at about 10:00 and a +10 at the full clockwise position. There are lines that look like they're set at about 3dB increments, like the lights on the meters. The channel volumes are the same. I'm assuming this means that -6dB is about the 12:00 position on these knobs (two lines back from the nominal position at about 10:00). I will test this soon to make sure, but I think that the overall volume would be a little low (at least for that gig, but maybe not a quiet solo gig?) with the trim settings I just described, but with the channel volumes at 12:00 (if that's indeed -6dB, but maybe not?). I wish the ZED indicated the levels more clearly.

 

But I'll let you know what I discover when I get a chance to try all this with the new information in mind.

 

Thanks, again, for your patience and advice!

 

Louis

[Louis Schwartz]

 

Where you located at Louis? reason I ask I met a experience sound guy here on this forum that lives just a few miles down the road from me, and has help me out a few times in the past. Nothing like having some hands on live training.

 

 

I'm in Richmond, VA. When I bought my band's larger PA a few years ago, I bought the core of it (a Yorkville powered mixer and a pair of YX15's) used from a local sound guy here in town, and he has given me lots of good advice about setting up, maintaining and expanding that system. I've been using what I learned from him in that context to set up this new little powered speaker system, but with the Yorkville M810 all I ever have to do is set the channels with an eye to the little blinking green lights on each channel trim and the red clip lights on each channel volume. The FOH level is then controlled simply with one master volume (same with the amp that powers the monitors). I was glad to see Jersey Jack's question come up because I'd been having the same question about how to handle the volume control on my new little passive mixer/powered speaker rig.

 

Thanks for the reminder about the "local talent." I'll have to run all this by him, too!

 

Louis

[Craig Vecchione]

The way I understand gain staging is that you want to have each successive link in the signal chain as high as possible (without clipping) to mask the background noise that builds up through successive gain points. This makes sense to me, and it's easy enough to manage this process through metering. But what always confuses me is where one controls volume. I always thought that this would be the mixer faders--channel and master. But with yet another volume control beyond the mixer faders--especially as it is labeled on the RCFs--this model gets confusing. Don't we want to use the final control as a volume control? If not, if the speaker control is after the volume control, how do we set it? In the context of the full system it functions neither as a gain setting nor a volume setting. By the way, I pretend to no special knowledge in live sound, so please do correct me if anything I say is wrong.

 

What you adjust for volume only depends on what part of the mix you are trying to adjust. If you mean the entire mix, then you should use the mixer master fader(s). If you are only adjusting one instrument or voice, then use its channel fader. If you need simultaneous control of several levels at once, they should be routed through a group, and that group's fader would be the control to use.

 

Yes, the "final" control, usually the amp's attenuator (it's not a volume control, but that's a technicality we can discuss another time) is the "best" place to adjust level if you are only concerned with maximum signal/noise ratio, but that's awfully inconvenient due to the physical location of the amps, which chould be on stage, and frankly, you could have a dozen or more amps...how you gonna adjust them all at once??? Point made? Cool. The reality of experience teaches us that signal/noise is not as big an issue as armchair audiophiles would lead us to believe. Good pro audio gear is quiet, and if it's quiet at high volume, it'll still be quiet at lower volume. Human hearing compensates for a lot.

[agedhorse]

 

and the red clip lights on each channel volume. Louis

 

 

The red clip LED that you say is volume is still part of the pre-fader metering and is controlled by the trim.

 

Generally, consoles have a channel strip overload point of around +16 to +18dB, and this level is affected by the channel trim and eq conrols. Hitting between +3 and +9 is about right IMO.

 

Starting out there and with your average channel fader and master fader in roughly the same position will pretty much insure that you do not overdrive the mix bus, and withthe speaker's volume only 6dB down from nominal max is a good compromise between noise and drive electronics headroom.

 

Specifically, on the Zed, the channel electonics clip at about +21dB (must have +/-18V rails), so working backwards the PFL's +16dB LED starts blinking 5dB before actuall clipping takes place BUT, if you were to send this level to the mix bus at high channel fader levels but low master level, you would find that there would be clipping as channels are summed together prior to the master fader makeup gain amp.

 

Also, the Zed has 10dB of additional makeup gain availableso starting around -5dB on the fader and master is a good starting point for quieter shows and increasing these as you need more overall volume from the PA is how to progress, including the volume on the back of the speaker.

[Shaster]

 

The red clip LED that you say is volume is still part of the pre-fader metering and is controlled by the trim. Generally, consoles have a channel strip overload point of around +16 to +18dB, and this level is affected by the channel trim and eq conrols. Hitting between +3 and +9 is about right IMO.

 

 

Ultimately the trim will impact the red LED and normally the usual case as stated would apply , but in this instance I believe Yorkville has been busy trying to make the input trim process "foolproof". It is possible (only in this case) that the red LED is relegated to the output channel pot. Or it's possible that it's set up the traditional way, and they have simply stated that it is not.

 

AH, as an engineer and designer, you would have a much bigger understanding of this than I do - just thought I'd point out what Yorkville seems to be saying. BTW, I see that you're spot on about the 16dB channel overload point.

 

From the M810 manual.

 

 

2. Channel 1-6 TRIM Controls and SET LEDs The first 6 mono channels of the M810/M1610 have been equipped with an input TRIM control and are also protected by an overload protection circuit. The TRIM controls are used to make sure that an ideal signal level is flowing through the channel, no matter what the input source. Each channel has a green LED that will flash when the proper signal level has been reached. The channel overload protection circuit will provide additional protection from clipping on peaks of up to 16 dB above normal operating levels. To set the TRIM i. Turn down the channel LEVEL control, ii. With a normal signal present at the input, turn up the TRIM control until the green LED just starts to flash (when the signal peaks). iii. You can then use the LEVEL control to set the channel volume level. Increasing the TRIM beyond this point will compress the signal on that channel.   3. Channel LEVEL Controls and CLIP LEDs This adjustment determines the signal level sent to the MAIN mixing bus. The CLIP LED will illuminate when the channel

[agedhorse]

I was referring to his Zed mixer in my post.

[Zeromus-X]

 

I'm in Richmond, VA. When I bought my band's larger PA a few years ago, I bought the core of it (a Yorkville powered mixer and a pair of YX15's) used from a local sound guy here in town, and he has given me lots of good advice about setting up, maintaining and expanding that system. I've been using what I learned from him in that context to set up this new little powered speaker system, but with the Yorkville M810 all I ever have to do is set the channels with an eye to the little blinking green lights on each channel trim and the red clip lights on each channel volume. The FOH level is then controlled simply with one master volume (same with the amp that powers the monitors). I was glad to see Jersey Jack's question come up because I'd been having the same question about how to handle the volume control on my new little passive mixer/powered speaker rig. Thanks for the reminder about the "local talent." I'll have to run all this by him, too! Louis

 

 

I'm half of a sound company in Suffolk, about an hour and fifteen minutes from you. If you've got any questions, want to check out any other equipment (we have a bunch, though I just sold most of my Meyer stuff), or just want to have some help setting gear/etc, let me know.

[Louis Schwartz]

 

The red clip LED that you say is volume is still part of the pre-fader metering and is controlled by the trim. Generally, consoles have a channel strip overload point of around +16 to +18dB, and this level is affected by the channel trim and eq conrols. Hitting between +3 and +9 is about right IMO. Starting out there and with your average channel fader and master fader in roughly the same position will pretty much insure that you do not overdrive the mix bus, and withthe speaker's volume only 6dB down from nominal max is a good compromise between noise and drive electronics headroom. Specifically, on the Zed, the channel electonics clip at about +21dB (must have +/-18V rails), so working backwards the PFL's +16dB LED starts blinking 5dB before actuall clipping takes place BUT, if you were to send this level to the mix bus at high channel fader levels but low master level, you would find that there would be clipping as channels are summed together prior to the master fader makeup gain amp. Also, the Zed has 10dB of additional makeup gain availableso starting around -5dB on the fader and master is a good starting point for quieter shows and increasing these as you need more overall volume from the PA is how to progress, including the volume on the back of the speaker.

 

 

To Agedhorse: Thank you this is again very useful and clarifies things for me a great deal!

 

More generally: There seems to have been a confusion in the last few posts between my comments about the ZED and the Yorkville M810. My comment about the green and red lights on the M810 was meant only to note their position on the console, not so much their function (the green lights are next to the trim controls and the red ones are next to the channel level controls). Even though the manual isn't as clear as it perhaps could be, in practice it's become clear to me that the trim controls affect both lights. In fact, I'm not sure that the channel level controls affect the red lights at all, but I could be wrong about that. It would be useful to know for sure, though. I'll try and pay closer attention next time I set the trim and the levels.

 

In any case, I understood Agedhorse's comments about the red clip light on the ZED very clearly.

 

It's been my practice in setting the gain on the M810 to simply look, in completely non-technical terms, for plenty of green on the loudest parts of a given input and no red, although I have found that it's hard to get some signals into the green without at least occasional peaks hitting the red. The trickiest things have been managing the solo boost I use on my guitar, the proximity effect of my Heil PR35, and the spikes that come from hard hits to a darbuka (especially when the drummer gets too close to a mic that he's only supposed to use when he's doing finger-work).

 

But as a whole the combination of the M810 with a pair of YX15s for FOH and some YX10s for monitors has worked very well for us at our larger gigs. We're not playing rock and roll, so pushing the YX15s to the point at which their horns become shrill hasn't been an issue. Shaster is right that it's a terrific, rugged and easy to use system for a band like ours. My only problem with it is that now that I have the RCF 312a for the smaller rig, I like it so much that I wish I had a pair of those to use for FOH instead of the YX15s. I wouldn't mind a few more inputs, too. Eventually.......

 

Louis

[Louis Schwartz]

 

I'm half of a sound company in Suffolk, about an hour and fifteen minutes from you. If you've got any questions, want to check out any other equipment (we have a bunch, though I just sold most of my Meyer stuff), or just want to have some help setting gear/etc, let me know.

 

 

Thanks! I'll do that.

 

Louis

[dboomer]

 

... green and red lights

 

 

So my comment in general is that it is fine to stay in the green zone, but you need to know where the red zone starts and how far away from it you are at all times. You want to be as close as possible. another comment in general is , you need to know what is happening when the red LED fires. Are you "at" clipping, are you 3 dB below it or even more.

 

For those that don't know, a mixer can be clipping without firing any red LEDs so simply not seeing red does not guarantee no clipping. This is because most mixers only consider the mic preamps when measuring for excessive level. So if you get your mic pres where they should be and then boost some EQ, that boost may go unnoticed. As a general rule Peavey mixers and newer A&H mixers monitor all gain stages. Others may but a bunch that are in common use do not.

 

Most users are probably experiencing some clipping all the time. It's not a big problem, you don't explode on the first clipped waveform. You have to trust your ears here. If you don't hear a problem then there is probably not a problem (that needs to be dealt with). If your system starts sounding bad then you need to quickly take some action before the smoke gets out, no matter what ANY meters in the system say.

[Louis Schwartz]

 

So my comment in general is that it is fine to stay in the green zone, but you need to know where the red zone starts and how far away from it you are at all times. You want to be as close as possible. another comment in general is , you need to know what is happening when the red LED fires. Are you "at" clipping, are you 3 dB below it or even more. For those that don't know, a mixer can be clipping without firing any red LEDs so simply not seeing red does not guarantee no clipping. This is because most mixers only consider the mic preamps when measuring for excessive level. So if you get your mic pres where they should be and then boost some EQ, that boost may go unnoticed. As a general rule Peavey mixers and newer A&H mixers monitor all gain stages. Others may but a bunch that are in common use do not. Most users are probably experiencing some clipping all the time. It's not a big problem, you don't explode on the first clipped waveform. You have to trust your ears here. If you don't hear a problem then there is probably not a problem (that needs to be dealt with). If your system starts sounding bad then you need to quickly take some action before the smoke gets out, no matter what ANY meters in the system say.

 

 

This is why I said before that it would be nice to know what clipping the red light on the Yorkville M810 refers means. And I think I just found an answer. Here's a link to the sevice manual, which has a block diagram:

 

http://www.yorkville.com/downloads/servman/smm810m1610.pdf

 

Someone who actually knows how to read these things can say for sure, but it looks like the red clip light is post EQ and level. That would explain why it's, of course, affected by the channel trim, but suggests it would be effected also by the channel level and EQ. Does this also mean that what's happening when it lights up is that the main mixing bus is getting within 3dBs of clipping?

 

There are also clip lights in the master section for amps A and B, which light up, I would assume, when those amps get close to clipping (controlled together by the master volume when the unit is in "stereo" or "left/right mode," and separately, with A controlled by the master volume and B controlled by the monitor volume, when it's in "main/monitor" mode). One more clip light can be found next to the effects controls, and I assume that one lights up when the effects bus gets near clipping. All of this suggests (again, I think) that when there are no red lights flashing, there's no clipping going on in the M810. The users' manual also suggests that there are limiters in place. So that means the signal compresses when it gets to clipping, rather than distorting, yes?

 

Agedhorse provided a good description, earlier, of what's going on in the ZED.

 

Louis

[agedhorse]

The FX clip LED on the Yorkville (and most units) indicates clipping of the DSP FX processor, usually the A/D converter.

 

The power amp clip/limit LED indicates clipping (or limiting) of the power amp

 

On the Yorkville, the green LED indicates post eq, pre-fader level but not clipping. There's a sensitivity and low pass network in that metering section.

 

On the Yorkville, the red LED by the fader indicates clipping of EITHER the PRE EQ head amp output OR the post fader output. This HAS to be a design or schematic mistake as it's entirely (and easily) possible to clip the EQ section with no indication. The signal pick-off point of D2A on the schematic should have been at the right side of R48A. Jim, does this match your toughts too? What were they thinking?

 

IMO, dumb, dumb, dumb. (or "oops")

 

To determine mix bus clipping, you would have to look after the summing amp since most mix busses are current summing by nature and there is no "voltage" on the input side of the bus sum amp. You have tolook at the sum output and compare that to the rails.

[dboomer]

 

Does this also mean that what's happening when it lights up is that the main mixing bus is getting within 3dBs of clipping? The users' manual also suggests that there are limiters in place. So that means the signal compresses when it gets to clipping, rather than distorting, yes?

 

 

First question ... not enough info to know. Clip LEDs fire when they reach a voltage threshold so they never actually measure signal distortion directly. It's just assumed that if you reach a certain voltage you will be distorting.

 

Also ... the clip lev only considers the complete input stage. So it is possible to clip the signal but by turning down the channel fader trick the LED not to fire.

 

I don't know exactly how the limiters work (if there are any). Clipping IS limiting:) It depends on a bunch of things I can't tell from the block (and don't have time to dive into the schematic)

[agedhorse]

 

Also ... the clip lev only considers the complete input stage. So it is possible to clip the signal but by turning down the channel fader trick the LED not to fire.

 

 

Entirely possible on this product, not so on other products.

 

This is a critical design issue that all mixer designers should know the (correct) answer to. IMO, this mixer got the wrong answer.

[Louis Schwartz]

Well, I can say for sure that my brain is nearing clip (or at least I'm reaching the limits of my present knowledge and understanding). But I do gather that all this means (unless there's an error in the schematic) that in the case of the Yorkville M810 the meaning of the red lights next to the channel level knobs is unclear. When the light goes on, it does mean that something is clipping, but it's not clear what. Also, just because those lights DON'T light up doesn't mean that nothing is clipping. Something might be clipping without there being any indication beyond what can be heard in the sound that finally comes out of the speakers (an effect of the compression). At least I think I gather that much.

 

And again thank you to everyone. This continues to be both enlightening and useful.

 

Louis

[Shaster]

Interesting points above. And it speaks to my feelings that while trying to make the M810 foolproof, Yorkville got mired in the mud.

 

Still, I've got to say that I've been able to explain this process over the phone and the dual led's have saved me a trip or two to a school.

 

In fact, the school district purchaser for the district I dabble in, purchased an M810 for the district system, based on checking out what I had installed. So design flaw or not, these boards are so simple to operate that even teachers can run them! Hey, I'm allowed to say that - my wife is a teacher

[dboomer]

 

When the light goes on, it does mean that something is clipping

 

 

You would need to know when the LED fires in relationship to clipping. Many mixer leave a bit of headroom when the LED lights up. In a practical sense whether you are or you're not ... you are damned close.

 

 

Also, just because those lights DON'T light up doesn't mean that nothing is clipping.

 

 

Correct. To test this set your channel up in the normal way. Set you fader at "0" and bring your trim up til you just fire the LED. Now continue to turn up the trim til you are well into clipping. Now slide the fader way down. The LED goes off but you are still clipping the mic pre.

 

 

Something might be clipping without there being any indication beyond what can be heard in the sound that finally comes out of the speakers (an effect of the compression). At least I think I gather that much.

 

 

Yes since the mixer doesn't factor the mix buss into the clip light system. So like above, if you send a bunch of very hot, but not clipped channels into the mix buss while the output fader is too low you can get the mix buss to clip without having the channel or main LEDs fire.

[agedhorse]

And this is why I like to factor headroom into my recommendations, there's all kinds of little gottchas that can bite you in the ass.

[Al Poulin]

You live sound guys have it much tougher than I do. As a DJ playing back CDs/Minidiscs I don't have to deal with crazy peaks all the time - except when someone yells in the mic of course... I don't really need extra headroom. My channel gains are set so that they're a safe distance from ever clipping. My powered speakers are sometimes at the 0DB mark but more often at the Max position. I've always found that what adds the most noise to my system is cranking up the masters on my mixer so I prefer having the powered speaker gains higher and having the mixer masters lower. This means most of my speakers are close to limit when my mixer meters are at approx -6DB. Since my masters faders are low (and my channel gains too), I don't have to be as careful with putting up my channel sliders. Getting them up to -3Db or 0 DB gets as loud as I ever need. It probably wouldn't work for you guys, but for playback music it works fine for me and I find my system is very quiet. Mind you, I have very few things in my signal chain. MD/CD players or mic to mixer and mixer to speakers. Not much to generate noise.

 

Even when I had a passive system, I always preferred to set my amplifier attenuators to the max position and set my mixer master outs (and channel gains) lower. My reasoning was that I didn't want to amplify a distorted/clipped signal from my mixer AND at the same time, I found my system generated less hiss with my mixer masters set lower. That has been my experience anyway but is probably only applicable to my type of application.

 

Al

[agedhorse]

Hiss levels should be almost identical or even less with the amp attenuator turned down a little. Never more. There's no reason it sihould work this way, perhaps you are overlooking something Al?

[RoadRanger]

While I laud Al on setting his gains "The One True Way™" I agree with AH that running the master up and the speaker or amp gains down should not increase system noise levels - somethin' weird going on there .

[Al Poulin]

I don't know. My system is about as simple as it gets. Sources into mixer and mixer to powered speakers via XLR. You would never notice any noise or hiss in any venue I played regardless of how I set the masters OR speaker gains, I just notice a little in my ''studio'' and have always found that it was when turning up the masters on my mixer that this noise would increase quickly. It still would be varely noticeable to most people and is not noticeable at all when you have music playing - so it really isn't much of an issue to be honest.

 

I just remember having my Yamaha P5000 hooked up to my NX35s (many years ago) and noticing that the amp produced almost no noise/hiss even with attenuators at max BUT as soon as I put up the masters on my mixer, I would hear some noise that would get louder noticeably as I brought the masters up. So, at that point I had just decided to keep my amp at max and run my mixer masters lower and liked the results. As mentionned, as soon as you got the system in a hall with anyone in there, you would not notice any noise or hiss. I just liked things to be as quiet as can be in my ''studio''. I'll have to play around with my current equipment to see if it's still the same case.

 

Could be the mixer too, I have had more than one issue with my PV10 and it is the one I've had in my studio for a while. I'll have to check with my newer Yamaha MG12 (I have an older and newer MG12 as well as the PV10).

 

Al