norty303
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Posts posted by norty303
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I'll stick it up on our forum and see if anyone knows. We got a long list of knowledgable old-timers as regulars :)
See! Vitually instant response :)
And some commentary on them in use too!
Ita A Celestion DC 25 Horn Driver---these were Celestions equivalent of the better known RCF TW series drivers---date back to the late sixties or early seventies---these Celestion versions were not very popular as they did not go up very high and you still had to use tweeters above them--cheers--John...and it keeps coming....
You beat me to it John! They sound rather awful as well,really harsh"squark"..got a brown phenolic diaphramm if i remember. -
I would never ever have an amp with more power than the speakers.
I worked in an audio repair shop for a while and replaced more speakers than I care to mention because of people over driving them.
But to be fair, you don't know HOW they were over pwering them.
Amps bigger than speakers are fine, but need to be used within limits. A clipping amp will kill a speaker if its the same power of more, so its incorrect use that kils the speaker, not neccessarily the size.
As you say sensitivity is important, in fact i think its THE spec to be looking at. Thats why most pro audio systems are horn loaded, or clever narrow bandwidth ported designs, because it gets the most out the amp and driver.
As for turning the amp down, it s been said before and I don't have the time to repeat it or inclination, but your amp can deliver its full power regardless of knob position 9aprt from off obviously!)
If you're worried about mic drops and thumps then you should be using a limiter to catch these sorts of things, but in my experience most failures are due to sustained high power, either with distorted signal and/or clipping causing the voice coil to fry. Mechanical failures or the spider/cone are much rarer and tend to happen in cabs where the driver is under a lot of stress such as a high compression horn.
Other causes of failure are from drivers becoming unloaded in ported cabs due to exessive EQ below tuning frequency, or not using high pass filters to remove ultra lows. i think the reason why mobile jocks suffer blow ups as much as they do (and sweeping generalisation here....) is because they use simply a mixer into amp into speaker setup, so the cabs are not protected from very low frequencies, sudden gain increases or heavily clipping amps at all.
Look at a pro audio rack for a system and you'll see a range of kit, from limters, filters, etc which are not just flash, they are there to do a specific job, and as a result you get much higher performance and longevity.
The Behringer DCX2496 is such a great unit as it makes these sorts of features accessible to everyone, and i'm sure most people would notice much improvement using one on even the simplest rig
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my personal opinion would be to get the Enttec pro dongle for about £100
It's about the most popular dongle out there at the moment and thus one of the most supported. At ~£120 its not the cheapest, but its also not the most expensive.
I use it with Chamsys MagicQ which is also a free download, but of a completely different animal than Freestyler
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Then you should have details of which pins you need to use
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The photo on the C-mark website shows them having 2 speakons, for left and right and a set of binding posts.
If you have a central speakon then you may have a different version of it, the manual should detail how its wired
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They're the same amps aren't they? Same as the Audiohead AH2400
Do they put both outputs out of the channel 1 speakon? So channel 1 goes on 1+1- and channel 2 goes on 2+2- if need be?
edit:my mistake, the 2450 is the same as the TA1400
As far as i'm aware ( i had a TA1400) the channels don't route to the channel 1 output (unlike the EP2500 and QSC RMX/PLX ranges) So you'll either need to go from bare wires on the binding posts to a speakon, or use a banana plug, or make up a Y lead that connects the 1+ from each output into a single NL4
If it was me I'd just take one end off a 4 pole speakon cable and wire the relevant cores to the binding posts as needed, either 1+1- or 2+2- dependijng on if i was using the in built crossover or an active crossover
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Ok, before we go further, what amp do you have, i'm assuming Behringer EP series?
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No, it shouldn't do, but if you're planning on running bridged with the amp then it's not an option anyway.
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Ok, taken from top of page 4 of the manual. Full diagram of how the signal passes thru the cab when in the different modes.
In passive the 1+1- goes to the driver, via the crossover, and also to the outputs of 1+1-.
2+2- goes straight through.
In bi-amp 2+2- goes to driver, not via crossover (and also straight through) and 1+1- goes straight thru not via the crossover.
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/substance/berry_sub_wiring.jpg
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Whats the point in asking for advice and then not reading it?
The answers are above and in the manual.
You need to be careful connecting the bridged amp in passive mode as you stand a good chance of blowing the internal crossover. Passive crossovers become expensive to produce once their power handling goes much about 500w, not something you would expect of a cheap sub. Thats when you should use an active crossover and bypass the passive crossover in the sub.
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also the dmx controlled martins use many more channels than an average moving head light enabling more control
Really? So Martin manage to utilize more channels than an equivalent head from other manufacturers? For what exactly, to win the 'my lights got more channels than yours' contest? Fitting more functionality into less channels (something Martin do well, without limiting control) is often the more desirable outcome as i means less patching required, and more fixtures within a universe.
Martin Mac250 Entour 15/18 channels (Krypton 14/17)
Robe Colourspot 250AT 14/16/18/20 channels
Martin Mac 575 Krypton 19/25 channels
Robe 575AT Control channels: 19, 21, 27 or 29
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where could you get parts withing 3 days off the shelf with other manufacturers
Most other higher end manufacturers have a good support network, but it might not be so instantly obvious who they are, because of the lack of public profile. Don't forget, on tour you have to good support, but its not always Martin units you see is it.
the chinese parts tend to have long waiting times for partsI never mentioned the Chinese, Futurelight and Robe are Eastern European.
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I have to concur with BK Sound, RTFM.
It shows exactly how it is wired so you can determine whether you need to rewire anything. The diagram puts it into simple pictoral term which might be easier to understand than the editorial on pages 5 and 6.
If you wish to utilize the internal crossover then you HAVE to run it in passive mode, although you don't HAVE to use the outputs from the cab.
If you wish to run it in active mode then you need to ensure that your amps outputs connect to the 2+2- of the input speakon, otherwise it'll pass straight through.
So if you're using the bridge mode of your amp you'll need to have cable that connects 1+2+ to 2+2-. In bridge mode the channel one 1+ terminal becomes +ve and the channel one 2+ becomes -ve, so these should connect to the 2+ and 2- respectively.
BTW, you will need to be using 4 pole speakon connectors.
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Don't discount some of the gear from other manufacturers though, just because it isn't so high profile as Martin. If you're spending Martin money, there are quite a few options open to you, often better value for money with equally good support networks, just not so visible in the DJ store arena.
I think one of the bargains of the second hand market has to be the old Futurelight MH660. Basically became the Robe 250XT (which had a few minor problems it has to be said) but nonethe less a great featured head at a great price now.
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Apologies, please substitute Schuko for Euro in my previous post.....
http://www.thomann.de/gb/thomann_adaptor_eurouk.htm
Plastic pin, no earth. I'm finding a my kit from Germany is arriving with a mixture of Schuko and Euro plugs supplied.
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Absolutely not! Do not use a shaver plug, there is no earth connection and would be a potential danger to both you and anyone who came into contact with it.
Equally, the adaptors mentioned above have no way of earthing, as the schuko plug has no earth pin either. iirc the adaptors have a plastic earth pin on them anyway which purely serves to release the socket safety cover.
I find a screwdriver in the release and jamming the plugs in works just fine anyway.......
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Basically, the best cheap software DMX solution out there at the moment is Chamsys MagicQ (free download) running with an Enttec Pro dongle (~£120)
It's the same software that they use on their high end desks (although they're natively Linux) and is akin to the Avo Pearl in operation. It's not a fancy 'Windows' type interface, with drop down lists and things in pretty colours, but it is a very powerful desk thats very quick to use and setup once you spend a bit of time on it. It functions in the same way as many other pro desks like Hogs, Pearls, Jands, ETC, etc and is a marvel that they can give it away for free. If you decide you want to go further then you can buy a fader wing to give more hands on control, but they are quite a bit more money (my 2nd hand PC wing was nearly a grand, retail is about £1500, but thats still £2.5k less than a Pearl).
Quite simply, there is no other product for the money that comes even close to what they offer. Failing that, get Freestyler, it also works with the Enttec dongle. In fact, just buy the Enttec dongle anyway, there's a few different pieces of software that support it, its basically the lowest common denominator of dongles and leaves you the most options. Other dongles have you tied to the manufacturers software.
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Talk about overblowing a comment!
Yes jim, it does have an Ir filter, i checked the laser unit against the manufacturers specs when i bought them.
In the same way as the 100mW laser pens can burn through black paper etc, so my laser unit will burn through thin black material at very close range before the beam becomes too difuse. and likewise, whilst sitting on my office chair and powered up, the laser started to smoke the fabric. No it didn't punch a hole through it! But i never said that anyway. i was merely trying to demonstrate that even low power lasers can be dangerous if used incorrectly and that people shouldn't view them as 'just another light effect'
BTW Jim, did you sell your Mamba system? i nearly bid on that but use Alphalite now
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BassBoxPro6 does a pretty good job of modelling BP6 and BP4 cabs, so it shouldn't be any great difficulty for you to work one out. After all, its just 2 reflex boxes joined together at the baffle. Standard tuning rules apply. If you don't have BBP6 I might be able to point you in the direction of a copy, although there's a few floating round the place if you know where to look. I modelled my cabs in BBP6 and got a plot pretty similar to the measured output from Beyma so its not far off.
TBH though, if you want a well trusted BP6 design that plays flat to 30hz at high level (4 cabs gave 144db at 35hz at a sub shootout 2 years ago) then the X1 on speakerplans is your box. It's been resized into a few different variants so it sits better under a range of cabs, one will probably fit your needs. 1 thing tho, small it ain't and it uses a range of drivers, most of which are £200+
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The HSG95 document lays out how you should setup and operate a laser. It covers how you can ascertain whether the power level is permissible for each pattern to be used for crowd scanning.
Details here:
http://www.lasershowsafety.org/faq.htm
You are encountering the main issue with lasers these days, in that previously if you wanted one they were thousands of pounds and that you had to have some knowledge of them to enter the market. Now they are cheap and readily available but not any less dangerous.
Have a look at this site for a lot of info on how you should safely use a laser.
http://www.lasershowsafety.com/
The common rule of thumb that is used is that if you haven't got the equipment or skills to measure and calculate whether a beam is over the MPE (Maximum Permissible Exposure) then you shouldn't be crowd scanning.
On the flipside, many mobile jocks go out every weekend with reasonable sized lasers and scan where they like, and there are no reported injuries. However you might just want to check out that site and scare yourself a little bit before you do go out and use one - it might just make you a little bit more cautious which is a good thing.
As an example of how dangerous lasers can be, I've got some 100mW green lasers which by all accounts are quite low power (at the bottom end of class 3b) On a static beam i can still burn through gaffa tape and upholstry, so imagine the damage to someones eyes.
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I think you've got 2 choices really if you want to retain any sort of efficiency - which one will depend on how loud you need to go.
You can go the wide-bandwidth route with a reflex box tuned to about 35hz, and get something that will play up to 200hz or so if you're lucky and spend a good amount on a decent driver.
Or you can go the 2 way bass route with a dedicated low frequency box, either 4th or 6th order bandpass design with a short horn box to play above it. this way you get maximum efficiency in each bandwidth and the capability to go very loud and clean if neccessary.
If you go the 18" short horn route a lá FK1 F218 or turbo 218 then you sacrifice some low end for good efficiency in the 45 - 140hz bandwidth. As a good allround box i'd probably build single 18" short horns/bandpass horns for my next system rather than the 2 way bass setup i have currently.
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I also use a box with 6 tweeters in it to make sure I get a good range of sound spectrum too
How does having lots of the same type of speaker make the range of the sound spectrum any greater? Surely it just makes the frequency they play in louder?
Also, judging by the numbers involved you're probably referring to piezo tweeters, which are not reknowned for their audio quality, especially when used as most companies implement them (using natural properties of piezo to control frequency response) they can be good for adding 'fizz' but are inadequate when trying to reproduce the upper midrange as they are so frequently asked to do.
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The CA8 is a proprietery controller that works by it's own methods implemented into the light/s in question. the CA32 i believe works using the DMX protocol. A straight forward DMX desk will give you access to all the same functions.
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The jackhammer is a load of rubbish from a pro audio perspective. Whilst it might have massive power handling the sensitivity is waaaay down thus making that power handling figure a requirement.
The best drivers are those which make the most noise with the least input. Thats why Tony Andrews has 400w drivers in his bass bins.
What Power Output Am I Getting?
in Techie Talk
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But will never achieve it's full potential due to not having enough power to move the heavy body effectively.