Members tlbonehead Posted June 14, 2004 Members Share Posted June 14, 2004 Nothing wrong with Peavey cabs with Black Widows in them. They are a good bang/buck MOR weekend warrior speaker. But there are others to consider also. I don't know why the newbies are so set against not only buying used stuff,but even just looking around to see what might be available. Of course,it sure helps me to get great deals on used stuff when themarket gets flooded with all the new stuff. Every time one of us mentions "used" that part dies like a lead balloon. Anyway,I'm a huge fan of the PLX amps. NTL,the idea of spending the extra money for one and then getting junky cabs makes no sense at all. Someone who claims to be able to hear a lot of difference between the RMX and the PLX amps certainly wouldn't be happy with the Behr subs,would they? While I understand the helpfullness of the payment options of MF,AMS,etc,it really limits your choices when it comes to sound gear especially. And then,of course,there is the backline gear thing. You can afford a VHT and SVT rig,but you hope to get by on el-cheapo subs like the Behrs. Anyway,if you must buy new and take that first major value hit,I doubt that you would be sorry getting the Peavey that you listed. However,get an RMX amp and save the extra for a second cab ASAP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members abzurd Posted June 14, 2004 Members Share Posted June 14, 2004 As someone that's gigged regularly with the Peavey SP118X and the Yorkville 808, I can tell you the Yorkvilles are smaller, easier to move (built in wheels) and plain ol' sound better. They use a rear horn load design and it just thumps more. They are also about $100 more per, but IMO, worth it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members B. Adams Posted June 14, 2004 Members Share Posted June 14, 2004 I use a pair of Yorkville LS800P's, and they definitely deserve the good reputation they have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members padudeohio Posted June 14, 2004 Members Share Posted June 14, 2004 Not to mention the Yorkies have a 2/10 no fault warranty on them which IMNSHO is worth the extra $100 per cab. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted June 14, 2004 Members Share Posted June 14, 2004 Originally posted by dboomer This plays right into the hands of advertising departments! The difference between a PLX's damping factor of 500 and an RMX's of 300 is a 2 milliohm difference. Once you add speaker cable the difference goes out the window. If you have any kind of reasonable damping factor the rest is just marketing hype ... some fact on paper that nobody can hear. So true! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author Craig Vecchione Posted June 14, 2004 CMS Author Share Posted June 14, 2004 Whatever you do, don't make the mistake of bridging the PLX (or an RMX2450) into the one Peavey sub. I would go no higher than 800w RMS into that cabinet, and even then only if it wasn't mine to worry about! Peavey has to match the competition's ridiculous power handling claims, so their numbers are in my opinion somewhat suspect too. You really don't want to take advantage of the Black Widow's field replaceable baskets for several years...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Keith2 Posted June 14, 2004 Members Share Posted June 14, 2004 PADUDEOHIO,Where near Dayton can I find Yorkies (new or used:D ) I try to buy used when I can (Pawn Shops, music stores, e-bay) but I can't seem to find many decent deals, any other tips? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SteveE9C6 Posted June 14, 2004 Members Share Posted June 14, 2004 I guess I'm the bargain basement king;) I'm running two QW218 subs each using a separate RMX 2450 bridged mono. I ran these this weekend and then ran JBL SR 4719s in comparison. These more than live up to the stuff I read about them from the sub shootout evaluations. For under a grand you get a sub that looks and sounds pretty darn nice. In the grand scheme of things I find this pretty funny. I've always tended to look down on the Peavey stuff (except for their steelguitar amps and the Wolfgang guitar) feeling that Hartley and his "Meridian Mafia" pretty much had the market cornered for mid and low grade bar band PA equipment. Now I find myself a vocal fan of the QW series. Kind of funny... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members padudeohio Posted June 14, 2004 Members Share Posted June 14, 2004 When people use the Yorkville Elite series, they don't wanna sell them. That's why it's hard to find used. Give me a call or get on my web site and e-mail me off board (phone numbers and e-mail info on website) www.candm-audio.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted June 15, 2004 Members Share Posted June 15, 2004 Originally posted by Craigv Whatever you do, don't make the mistake of bridging the PLX (or an RMX2450) into the one Peavey sub. I would go no higher than 800w RMS into that cabinet, and even then only if it wasn't mine to worry about! Peavey has to match the competition's ridiculous power handling claims, so their numbers are in my opinion somewhat suspect too. You really don't want to take advantage of the Black Widow's field replaceable baskets for several years...... That's been my customer's experience too. I generally stock a couple of baskets for those who are non-believers. Those baskets turn over pretty well actually... now that people believe that you can safely power them with 3200 watts Let me clarify something though... the BW drivers are well engineered drivers for their original intended use, but in order to insure uniformity in field replacement, the gap clearances are somewhat looser to accomodate manufacturing tolerances. The net result is a loss of efficiency, but the tradeoff is IMO a reasonable one for customers who insist on blowing speakers. This is true of all field replaceable basket product that I have tested. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dboomer Posted June 15, 2004 Members Share Posted June 15, 2004 What's up with all this watts crap? Nobody needs 3200 watts for woofers. What you need is a reasonable amount of watts and more speakers. 300-400 per 18" should be just fine. If you NEED more than that you should have bought something more efficient to begin with. It's not the amount of horsepower you have ... it's who crosses the line first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tlbonehead Posted June 15, 2004 Members Share Posted June 15, 2004 Originally posted by SteveE9C6 I guess I'm the bargain basement king;) I'm running two QW218 subs each using a separate RMX 2450 bridged mono. I ran these this weekend and then ran JBL SR 4719s in comparison. These more than live up to the stuff I read about them from the sub shootout evaluations. For under a grand you get a sub that looks and sounds pretty darn nice. In the grand scheme of things I find this pretty funny. I've always tended to look down on the Peavey stuff (except for their steelguitar amps and the Wolfgang guitar) feeling that Hartley and his "Meridian Mafia" pretty much had the market cornered for mid and low grade bar band PA equipment. Now I find myself a vocal fan of the QW series. Kind of funny... You think the Wolfgang is a good guitar,you should play an Odyssey,made from about 90-92. They are stunning guitars and sold for about $650 new back then($1098 list) They are a lot better guitar,IMO,but of course,trendiness sells. And some player that the kiddies wanted to emulate didn't play or endorse them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members abzurd Posted June 15, 2004 Members Share Posted June 15, 2004 Originally posted by dboomer What's up with all this watts crap? Nobody needs 3200 watts for woofers. What you need is a reasonable amount of watts and more speakers. 300-400 per 18" should be just fine. If you NEED more than that you should have bought something more efficient to begin with. It's not the amount of horsepower you have ... it's who crosses the line first. I agree with the spirit of what you're saying, however 300 - 400 is a little on the low side for a SOME boxes. No doubt the new Peavey's can handle more than that (there is quite a difference between 800w to a dual cabinet and 3200w). The single 18" Yorkville LS1208 does well with 1200w and our sound company uses an RMX2450 bridged @ 8 ohms to give it 1500w. Over 50 shows with no problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members flanc Posted June 15, 2004 Members Share Posted June 15, 2004 I too have given the LS1208's 1500 watts with no problem...probably about 50 shows too. I also have limiters in place just in case. I have also screwed up and given the Peavey SP118x 1000watts each for about 10 shows (my rookie rig...rookie mistake!). On show number 10...I discovered the field replacable basket mechanics on one of the subs. Now, they advertise 500/1000/2000 which is all bunk... Probably more like 300/600/1200. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members padudeohio Posted June 15, 2004 Members Share Posted June 15, 2004 Yep, Got 2 SP118X's in the shop right now waiting on replacement baskets for the same reason. Both of them burned the tinsel leads right off the VC. Running at 1000 Watts clean power......never clipped..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted June 15, 2004 Members Share Posted June 15, 2004 I'm going to tread on Mark's analogy territory here... 500HP in a sports car is not going to be a big problem for a professional driver to deal with safely and effectively but give that car to a non-pro and he's sure to wrap it around a telephone pole due to lack of experience, judgement, skill whatever. Same thing with speaker power. If you know what you are doing AND have enough PA to do the job properly then you will probably be ok at 2x the RMS power rating... but too many people use the extra power to make up for lack of PA... so they pour on the power, the cone excursion exceeds the linear limits and the spyder starts to fatigue, provided something catastrophic doesn't happen first. An even better example is with an electric motor (which a speaker actually is). Say you have a load that requires between 1 and 2HP to run but you choose to power it with a 1HP motor, then allow the motor to draw more current so that it will generate 2HP. It will work for a while, but will operate with increased temperature rise and eventually the winding insulation will fail causing the motor to stop working. It may last a week or a month or even a year, but it will not last 20 years+ like a properly sized motor. A speaker's excursion depends on a variety of parameters, including the box tuning and the parameters of the high pass filter being used. Steeper slopes allow a lower HPF freq to be used to protect against driver unloading, which increases the mechanical power handling of the driver. Thermal power handling is very dependant on the amount of compression being used (or how hard you hit the limiter), and the LF to HF ratio of the program material. The result is that I am seeing far more drivers needing repair due to excessive power... that's a fact, not opinion or supposition. This is true of all of the manufacturers product the we recone. I am also seeing more evidence of catastrophic mechanical damage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SteveE9C6 Posted June 15, 2004 Members Share Posted June 15, 2004 I believe that there are significant differences between the QW series and Peaveys other stuff. The QW series appears to be aimed at the regional sound company as a market. After all, how many weekend warrior bar bands need flyable arrays? I haven't played a gig with any Peavey stuff in the last seven years as the band I play with uses a JBL SR system. The QW's I bought are being used for a music ministry and I've been adjusting this system for the last week or so in the evenings using different crossover points. As I noted, I had the opportunity to directly compare them with some JBL SR 4719s over the past weekend and was very pleased. Looking at some comments in this thread I think some folks are comparing apples to oranges. The QWs are a different beast than the SP series. I guess this must be a regional type thing. I was very interested in hearing their subs before my last purchase but going thru their largest distributor, I was unable to locate a single end user in Texas to hear the subs. Nor was I able to find any objective information from the sub shootouts that really stood out. I'd still like to hear them after all the nice stuff I've read here, but I've already made my purchase, so it's more of an info gathering quest for me. You think the Wolfgang is a good guitar,you should play an Odyssey,made from about 90-92. They are stunning guitars and sold for about $650 new back then($1098 list) They are a lot better guitar,IMO,but of course,trendiness sells. And some player that the kiddies wanted to emulate didn't play or endorse them. Hmm... I've been collecting guitars for about forty years and have an extensive collection. I'm not familiar with these. Yeah, the Wolfgang is a good guitar for it's intended purpose. Pretty much a one trick pony though and certainly not my favorite Peavey guitar. I actually think that the T60 was a truly great guitar that was roundly dissed simply because of the brand name. I also really like their Steve Cropper Tele model. Way off topic here but my favorite American made electric is the G&L Comanche or Legacy. I use a Comanche as a gigging guitar all the time thru a Vibolux. Pedal steel... I am an Emmons man. You want to talk about accoustics, you would need to go to the forum I started three years ago. It gets about 30-40K visitors each day now and is dedicated to America's guitar.... the Martin. Ok... back to our regularly scheduled show. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SteveE9C6 Posted June 15, 2004 Members Share Posted June 15, 2004 Same thing with speaker power. If you know what you are doing AND have enough PA to do the job properly then you will probably be ok at 2x the RMS power rating I agree with this, which echos what the folks at Peavey advised me when I was matching power amps to the QW 218. The QW218 is rated at 1600 watts continuous/3200 watts program. If you blindly follow the 2xRMS or Program watt method, you would be looking for darned large amp for each sub. That is why I used a more conservative approach and bought a RMX 2450 for each sub. This provides 1.5 times the continuous power or roughly 67% of the program power rating. If the system is being driven hard, the clip indicators will just flicker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dboomer Posted June 15, 2004 Members Share Posted June 15, 2004 This practice that you should have double the RMS power needs to be understood a little deeper. It's not that you actually apply double the rms power, it's that you keep the amp from clipping. If you look at a pure sine wave with X amount of amplitude and a square wave (which would be that sine wave clipped hard) with the same X amplitude, the square wave has twice as much power but no more voltage. It's that power that tends to burn out speakers thermally. Remembering this, things get really out of hand quickly if you end up clipping that double rms amp!! There's absolutely NO PROBLEM using a small amp provided you don't get into clipping. Low power itself will not burn out a speaker!!! In the real world ...you MUST remember that if you are plugging 3 or 4 big amps into a single 20 amp service you are not gonna fill up the power supplys in those amps properly and they are gonna clip much sooner that you think they will. This Watts thing is NOT the holy grail of PA systems!!! It is mearly a single factor in a SYSTEM PROBLEM. You guys would be much better served in the real world buying low current draw amps (CE4000s, class H, Class D) amps with a little lower power and using more speakers (assuming they'll fit in the van) than some of the monster output ones. One more thing while I'm ranting ... Don't believe (or REALLY understand what you are reading) the manufacturer's specs for power handling. Your car will probably do 120 mph but nobody drives a car at 120, in the real world you drive much slower. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tlbonehead Posted June 15, 2004 Members Share Posted June 15, 2004 Originally posted by SteveE9C6 [b I guess this must be a regional type thing. I was very interested in hearing their subs before my last purchase but going thru their largest distributor, I was unable to locate a single end user in Texas to hear the subs. Nor was I able to find any objective information from the sub shootouts that really stood out. I'd still like to hear them after all the nice stuff I've read here, but I've already made my purchase, so it's more of an info gathering quest for me. Hmm... I've been collecting guitars for about forty years and have an extensive collection. I'm not familiar with these. Yeah, the Wolfgang is a good guitar for it's intended purpose. Pretty much a one trick pony though and certainly not my favorite Peavey guitar. I actually think that the T60 was a truly great guitar that was roundly dissed simply because of the brand name. I also really like their Steve Cropper Tele model. Way off topic here but my favorite American made electric is the G&L Comanche or Legacy. I use a Comanche as a gigging guitar all the time thru a Vibolux. Pedal steel... I am an Emmons man. You want to talk about accoustics, you would need to go to the forum I started three years ago. It gets about 30-40K visitors each day now and is dedicated to America's guitar.... the Martin. Ok... back to our regularly scheduled show. As for your subs,maybe the reason you can't find anyone with them is because they are pretty new,as are the Low Rider speakers. (I assume that is what is in them) As for guitars,I'm not really a Martin person. They just never seem "right for me" when I play one. They obviously deserve their spot as one of the greats,of course. But for me,I just feel good playing other acoustics like some Gibson models and also have played a number of USA Washburns that I can't say enough great things about. Now I'll try and find you a pic of an Odyssey. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members flanc Posted June 15, 2004 Members Share Posted June 15, 2004 SteveE9C6, I absolutely agree that there is a large differance between the QWAVE Peavey stuff and their other SP lines. Not that the other lines are bad....just more mid-grade. Dboomer, I agree with everything you said except the subtle implication that manfacturers publish valid specs that are being misinterpreted. I believe many of the MI speaker manufactures let their marketing departments put exagerated specs on their gear because bigger wattage handling specs look impressive to the uninformed. When I blew the Black Widow driver in my old SP118x..I was part of the mis-informed public. I'd like to think with the help of this forum, I've become more educated. I still believe manufactures have a hand in misleading the public....I know others share my viewpoint. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members abzurd Posted June 15, 2004 Members Share Posted June 15, 2004 This is yet another reason why I am fond of Yorkville. They seem to be in minority in that they rate their cabinets conservatively, or at least honestly. You don't see ridiculous power handling claims because they are backing up the product with a 2 year NO FAULT warranty and don't want to encourage folks to pump thousands of watts into a speaker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members abzurd Posted June 15, 2004 Members Share Posted June 15, 2004 And another thing..... I guess if you go with the theory that most manufacturers are embelishing specs, as long as the output wattage specs of the amps are embelished the same proportion as the speaker specs then it all works out the same. For instance, your 500w speaker is really more like 350w, but it's not being overpowered by the 500w amp, because it's really 350w anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tlbonehead Posted June 15, 2004 Members Share Posted June 15, 2004 Originally posted by dboomer Your car will probably do 120 mph but nobody drives a car at 120, in the real world you drive much slower. You were doing great until you threw this part in. Speak for yourself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dboomer Posted June 15, 2004 Members Share Posted June 15, 2004 Trouble is that most people fall into two groups when reading speaker power specs. They either think that's how much power you need to make it work or it's how many watts it takes to burn it out. The first is not true at all the second may be true but it's only a small part. You gotta know crest factor @ power, frequency and duration ... VERY difficult numbers to come up with in real world R&R. Dinner by the pound is different at McDonalds than Spago's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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