Outdoor Rig Advice

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Thanks Steve. Looking around, it appears the Crown XTi series might get me out of the woods. The 4000 or 6000 both have built in crossovers so I wouldn't have to invest in a separate unit. Trying to limit my losses. If I could fix this dilemma for around $700 I'd be able to sleep tonight.
 
DJGoodSteve said:
Thanks Steve. Looking around, it appears the Crown XTi series might get me out of the woods. The 4000 or 6000 both have built in crossovers so I wouldn't have to invest in a separate unit. Trying to limit my losses. If I could fix this dilemma for around $700 I'd be able to sleep tonight.
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The Crossovers in the XTis are for the roll off point for the speakers you are going to connect to it. If you don't have the other speakers correctly rolled off then you can lose frequencies. Just get an Electronic crossover or a Driverack with EQ included and do things correctly. You have already made an error in choice, why go on to make more?
 
With 2 of them or 1 XTi and the Peavey, you should be able to get decent sound out. I agree with Canute that at some point you will be better off with an external unit (crossover or driverack) to be able to easily play with things, but you've spent a bit a money already.
 
Ok boys, I bought a Driverack PA+ and a Crown XTi 4002 for the TX1152s. I got incredibly lucky and sold a set of the ELX112ps for what I paid. Have to flip the IPR3000. No more advice please. I can't afford it. You guys with your "standards of excellence" and "desire to deliver quality". Geez.
 
DJGoodSteve said:
Ok boys, I bought a Driverack PA+ and a Crown XTi 4002 for the TX1152s. I got incredibly lucky and sold a set of the ELX112ps for what I paid. Have to flip the IPR3000. No more advice please. I can't afford it. You guys with your "standards of excellence" and "desire to deliver quality". Geez.
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What do you want for the IPR3000?
 
That would be a decent price as it seems to sell new for $599 from most places.
 
The story gets more interesting. The store where I ordered the "open box" unit shipped me two, but only charged me for one. So I now have two for the price of one! I gave them a call and let them know the mistake (gotta sleep y'know). They asked me to rebox the second unit, fill out some info and put it out for Fedex to pick up "sometime tomorrow". I said "great, for my trouble will you accept the other unit as a return?". "All sales final" he said. Guess that's my reward for doing to the right thing.
 
I'm setting up the Driverack PA+ and ran into this little nugget on the DBX forum:

Now here is where amp power available becomes a determining factor for where we cross the subs and tops...(2 way systems) If we are limited by the amount of power available for the tops ( this is typically 2-4 times the "program" rating of the speaker for live sound and NO more than program rating for DJ/Disco applications...this is because most pre recorded music is HEAVILY compressed...and if you put too much power to the speakers you will let the smoke out). If you don't have the power you would be advised to raise the crossover point between the subs and the tops because lower frequencies draw more power.

I thought it was rather interesting that these folks are suggesting that you stick with speaker program rating for DJ applications due to compressed music formats. I saw this same sentiment in another part of the DBX forum, where folks are worried the compressed music will overdrive the speakers if you're powering with an amp rated higher than program power. Are we trying to apply live sound rules of thumb to our DJ applications? Thoughts?

Thanks!
 
I run a full passive Tour X system off a DRPA which is a slightly older generation version of the PA+ the difference as I understand it is the PA+ is geared towards Active speakers vs Passive as the DRPA is geared towards the later.

I'm pretty sure they are referring chiefly to gain structure and what is being sent to the amps themselves... I run two amps one in Stereo which carries a max power rateing at 8ohms of approximately 1.5x my speakers rated continuous rateing of 500 watts.... they can however handle occational peaks of 1000 watts.... you typical amp is not going to produce, or peak out, continuously. This means you are not likely to burn out your speakers unless you are really pushing hard and into clipping on your amp all the time.

This is where gain structure is important.... from your mixer to the DRPA+ you should only be driving at about +6 above Unity (or 0) if you have meter's on your mixer watch your input to the channel to light +6 almost continuously with Pink Noise.... then adjust your master output so that the master meter does the same thing... then mark where these settings are and never exceed them in a live performance this is you optimized source to mixer output gain setting.

Your DRPA+ should have input gain settings that can be adjusted up or down in the same manor to avoid clipping on the input.... continueing on to your Amps you adjust the channel gain up just until you see the clip light flicker....note where that is so that you never exceed that mark.... then if the PA+ has this you will want to adjust the Limiter settings until the clip light stops flickering on the amps for each channel HF and LF.

{takes a breath}

Once you have it set so that the limiter prevents the amp from clipping.... go ahead and turn each channel gain down one knotch and mark that as a safe setting.....

Whew!!!!

Now no matter how hot your signal is from mixer to DRPA+ you will never push your amp to limit which means you will come just shy of it's peak performance while maintaining lots of head room....

Make sense?
 
Thanks Jokerswild! Yes, the process you just outlined is repeated throughout both the DBX manual and the user forum. I'm stepping through that now. Yes, I'm going to use the LiveX subs for now. Currently I'm just setting up the TX1152s without the subs for testing.

That said, could you make my night and let me know your settings for the TX1152s? They aren't preset so I need to set the custom levels. So far I've only made it to setting the crossover floor at 45mhz (for stereo without subs). I'm totally unsure as to what filter to use. Spent some time learning about Butterworths and LRs. Thought the BW24 sounded best. Wonder what you set as the crossover when using your subs as well. I'm using 45 at the low end for the current setup without subs. I assume I'll creep that low end up higher when I add the subs.

(breath)

I may also like to run my elx112ps full range as fills using the mid connections. Any advice for setting the mids full range while crossing over the highs and subs through the high and low connections?
 
DJGoodSteve said:
I'm setting up the Driverack PA+ and ran into this little nugget on the DBX forum:

Now here is where amp power available becomes a determining factor for where we cross the subs and tops...(2 way systems) If we are limited by the amount of power available for the tops ( this is typically 2-4 times the "program" rating of the speaker for live sound and NO more than program rating for DJ/Disco applications...this is because most pre recorded music is HEAVILY compressed...and if you put too much power to the speakers you will let the smoke out). If you don't have the power you would be advised to raise the crossover point between the subs and the tops because lower frequencies draw more power.

I thought it was rather interesting that these folks are suggesting that you stick with speaker program rating for DJ applications due to compressed music formats. I saw this same sentiment in another part of the DBX forum, where folks are worried the compressed music will overdrive the speakers if you're powering with an amp rated higher than program power. Are we trying to apply live sound rules of thumb to our DJ applications? Thoughts?

Thanks!
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Speaker power ratings are a tricky thing, as there is no one standard music piece. Live sound has much more dynamics typically and lives at the upper end of the "power needed spectrum" only momentarily. When you compress music, and then move the overall output higher to compensate, you will find that you are indeed supplying a greater average power to the speakers. Whether that is an issue depends on the overall SPL, the power handling characteristics of the speaker and the linearity of the amplifier. So yes, it CAN be an issue, but usually ONLY if you live at the upper range of everything.

If you're constantly lighting the limiter or peaking out, then be concerned.
 
Actually the PX is for powered speakers, there are some improvements on the PA+ over the PA but nothing extreme. The quality of what you play and the proper gain structure as Rob mentioned that makes or breaks things. I've been running Yamaha S15V's rated at 500 watts Program @ 8 Ohms with either QSC PLX2 3602's (775 watts @ 8 Ohms) or Yamaha P7000S amps (750 watts @ 8 Ohms) and have never had a problem as having adequate headroom will let the system cruise through the even not breaking a sweat.

The key is not throwing the faders all the way up for no reason and that's something some people forget. I've seen many cases where all the indicator lights are flashing and you look at the amp rack of said person you see heavy clipping. I run my big system (4 S115V's and 4 CV AB-36B's) with the indicator lights barely flashing and if I need more oomph I can increase volume until the clip lights barely flicker, but at that level you have way too much volume (db's) and I think it would be uncomfortable for older people at my party to have something so loud as well as the damage it can cause to hearing.

Just remember to setup your gain structure properly, engage the limiters at the adequate level and make sure the files you play are of good quality. Even with great speakers a low quality mp3 will ruin the sound.
 
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