12 inch Pa speakers : Wood or plastic

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I would definately prefer the RCF ART series over the Mackies. They do not seem to get quite as loud, but have a better overall sound.

As far as live PA equipment goes, protability is certainly a key factor. However, once you get to sound quality and adequate volume, then powered speakers typically fail pretty heavily here. In fact, once you factor in durability, repairability, ease of use etc... then powered speakers start to look pretty darned bad. As far as portability goes, the only difference between powered and non powered is the single amp rack you need. With powered speakers you also have to get two cables at every speaker. Generally speaking, it is much easier to find power for the amp rack and just run a few actual speaker cables. With a traditional passive setup like this you are also being extremely modular which makes expansion, upgrades and repairs much more efficient.

As for Carvin speakers, they are not so hot etiher.
 
Hi Xstatic

thank for your tips.

I am not looking for overloud but something that would give good clear quality.

I will be only getting one speaker for now , it will cost me just over £300.

Do you think it will work well using either my Tapco mix 100 which only has two left and right line outputs , I can probebly buy those leads that have jack one and and XLR the other end to go into the RCF

Or my mackie DFX6 which has two XLR outputs.

Obviously i will only be using one of them.

The set up i have at the moment is a Phonic powerpod 620 powered mixer which has only jack outputs and my Yammaha s1Ivn 12" passive speaker .

the Phonic has two amplifiers inside 100 watts each and when I press the bridged mono button its 200 watts.

What i like about the RCF is its incredibly lightweight so when i am doing small venues and busking it will be much easier not having to lug my phonic powered mixer around.

What is it that you like about the sound Xsatic?

Dave
 
Are the RCF's fairly new speakers ?as I can't find much reviews about them on the net.

Plus lastly Xstatc do you think they will handle small venues well as you said they are not as loud as the mackie's?

Plus I spoke to the guy in the shop and he has had loads of experiance in sound engineering and he feels that these 10" ones are better then the 12" ones in terms of carrying vocals well.

Dave
 
Every situation is certainly different. I know if it were me, whatever venue the Mackie's would be enough power for, I would still prefer the RCF's. The RCF's have a much more pleasing high end to them, and do not get even remotely as hollow and mucky sounding as the Mackie 450's. The difference in power between the RCF's and Mackies isn't really enough to warrant using the Mackies instead. Add to that that the louder you let the Mackie's get the more they start to exaggerate their shortcomings whereas the RCF's seem to stay much more uniform. I know for certain that there are RCF powered speakers that have been out there for at least 8 years or so. There was a good 5 year or so gap though where they were marketed as "Mackie Industrial" which form what I can tell are exactly the same, but rebranded with the name "Mackie Industrial".

One of the reasons you see much more Mackie powered speakers out there than the RCF's is that Mackie has a MUCH larger marketing presence. Mackie Industrial was a line that was formed after Mackie bought RCF and was marketed in a whole diffferent way. As a result you don't see them in the mega chains like Guitar Center, Musicians Friend, Sam Ash etc... Mackie Industrial was geared towards contractors.

I don't know much about alot of the newer Mackie speakers since I avoid them as much as possible. What I do know is that we had a bunch of 450's, a bunch of the 10" powered ones (I think they were the 300's) and some of the passive plastic molded Mackie speakers. The passive ones sounded much worse, even with better power amps. The only reason I can think that it worked that way is that Mackie may have gotten lucky with how the weight and density of the amp module affected the sound of the plastic molded speaker.

Of the Tapco and the Mackie DFX mixers, I think it is probably a tossup there, but my gut tells me that the DFX may be a bit better since Tapco is currently a Mackie line, but considered to be low end Mackie. I have no accurate evidence or experience with these two products though to say which would be better to use. Basically, every time I have to use a Mackie or Tapco product there are so mnay other variables that are screwing things up they I can't feel good about saying anything about just the mixer. Personally, I would not puch much faith in the yamaha speaker or the Phonic mixer either.

It is important to remember though that I also run a pro audio company and work for a couple of others. This means that on a pretty constant basis I am working with high end equipment from EV line arrays to Dynacord Cobra arrays to EAW boxes and arrays to JBL vertec arrays and my own custom built RCF loaded boxes and Turbosound Floodlight rigs. Add to that yamaha M7 and PM5D's, Allen Heath ML5000's, Midas verona's, sienna's, venices, 250's and the occasional (and well loved) Heritages to Soundcraft series 5's. Put XTA, Lake, BSS and Klark Teknik processing in there and power it with Crest Power Pro, Crown Itech and Lab Gruppen amps and you get a pretty sweet rig. My decisions about what sounds good is certainly heavily influenced by getting to constantly use equipment of that caliber. Basically, I am fairly biased about the cheap stuff, and for a reason;)
 
Of the Tapco and the Mackie DFX mixers, I think it is probably a tossup there, but my gut tells me that the DFX may be a bit better since Tapco is currently a Mackie line, but considered to be low end Mackie. I have no accurate evidence or experience with these two products though to say which would be better to use. Basically, every time I have to use a Mackie or Tapco product there are so mnay other variables that are screwing things up they I can't feel good about saying anything about just the mixer. Personally, I would not puch much faith in the yamaha speaker or the Phonic mixer either.

It is important to remember though that I also run a pro audio company and work for a couple of others. This means that on a pretty constant basis I am working with high end equipment from EV line arrays to Dynacord Cobra arrays to EAW boxes and arrays to JBL vertec arrays and my own custom built RCF loaded boxes and Turbosound Floodlight rigs. Add to that yamaha M7 and PM5D's, Allen Heath ML5000's, Midas verona's, sienna's, venices, 250's and the occasional (and well loved) Heritages to Soundcraft series 5's. Put XTA, Lake, BSS and Klark Teknik processing in there and power it with Crest Power Pro, Crown Itech and Lab Gruppen amps and you get a pretty sweet rig. My decisions about what sounds good is certainly heavily influenced by getting to constantly use equipment of that caliber. Basically, I am fairly biased about the cheap stuff, and for a reason
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pretty much sums it up, especially the last part:
My decisions about what sounds good is certainly heavily influenced by getting to constantly use equipment of that caliber. Basically, I am fairly biased about the cheap stuff, and for a reason
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i guess that to me, top quality pro gear would be beyond the scope of a forum named "home recording". i do realize that true recording professionals might have a studio in their home. but truly, how many people here do you think can afford a top quality PA system? a few, no doubt, but probably a small percentage. my nicest power amp is a (cough) mackie FR-M800. suffice to say that justin timberlake will not be hiring me for live sound. i like the amp, and it has always performed flawlessly, and as i expected.

it seems as though you are a little slighted against all-things-mackie, and there isnt anything particularly wrong with that. we all have some brand loyalty, and some brands where we would have a better chance of angels flying out of our ass than buying or even using. behringer is a good example. personally, i find mackie products to generally be pretty good for the money, and something i would buy with the expectation of extended service and reasonable quality and durability. they have a 5 year warranty, and mackie are pretty good to deal with. incidentally, those speakers you hate so much are supposedly "tuned by eaw", a mfr you seem to dig, and with good reason.

i mean, if all i drove were ferraris for awhile, i probably wouldnt be very interested in a mustang. not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with the 'stang, but it isnt nearly of the same caliber as a ferrari modena. it is reasonable to point out the price differences between the two, as it is pertinent to this discussion/comparison.

also, please note that i intend no disrespect. i do find this to be an interesting discussion, though.

a
 
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Hi Xsatic

I really appriciate your advice as a man who has had plenty of experiance.

Its interesting you should mention the change in Mackie as the guy in the PA shop said exactly the same thing you said. ( This guy at the shop is also a sound engineer and they have stopped stocking mackie ever since they switched)

I supppose i have learnt the hard way I was at another PA shop and brought the mackie 300z passive. , it was only going for £150 thinking I got a real bargin but to be honest i am not impressed with the sound. Infact you have confirmed to me my worries about the mackie passives very hollow sounding in my opinion.

I am now on my way to pick up the RCF Art 10"'s , i have just chatted again to the manager of the PA shop and he is defintly rates them , and the staff are genreally good as I have wanted to buy stuff from them and they have been honest with me about the product for what I need .
 
Tobalicious, I understand exactly where you are coming from. I felt I needed to mention some of the things just so people can understand how I have become so opinionated and more about what my experience level is. I do understand that this is Home Recording though. At the same time however, just as I may be biased, my biases are based in a foundation of use and experience. Just because I use high end equipment on a regular basis does not invalidate my opinions on lower end stuff. In fact, you could take it the opposite. You could assume instead that when I reccomend RCF over Mackie that maybe that is because I AM familiar with high ends sysyems and how they sound. Basically, how a PA should sound. As a result of that expereince I am able to distinguish some of the differences between these different speakers. In this thread I purposely did not reccomend any high end equipment nor did I really bash any other equipment. Generally, I stated why I did and did not like certain equipment and tried to explain what the differences were in my experiences.

As for the whole EAW thing, actually, I am not a huge EAW fan. EAW is durable and loud. It is also very heavy way overpriced and just does not sound that great, and that is talking of the high end EAW stuff. Their low end stuff isn't all that either. EAW like many other companies out there are still trading partly on their name and success early on with certain products. Nowadays I am most impressed with companies like L Acoustics, Nexo, Turbosound, D&B, Meyer etc... and not the big names like JBL (although the new VRX rig kicks ass for what it is), EAW, and EV.

In the end, I am not really anti Mackie just as I am not anti Behringer. I believe in calling a spade a spade. Mackie and Behringer are what they are. Mackie does their best to put out a quality product at an affordable price for the average consumer. It seems as if Mackie has finally gotten smart and stopped trying to compete in the high end market. EVERY time they have tried to do this they have failed pretty heavily. Just look at the Mackie 8 buss series, Fusion Speakers, Mackie FR series amps, and even to some extent their studio monitors. Until about 5 or so years ago however Mackie did not have a whole lot of competition in the lower priced market and for quite some time, Mackie was a worthwhile product. It still is, but now there are many other options for the user. At the very least the competition forced Mackie to address some of the major issues with their VLZ mixers.

In the end, like I said, I do nderstand that this is Home Recording.com and most of you guys (if any) can not afford to go out and spend $400,000 on a PA system. That is why I stuck to commenting as much as possible on my specific experiences with the gear in question, and also offered a couple of alternative reccomendations in a similar price bracket:)
 
You can achieve really great sound without large expense.

Used, quality gear is everywhere, at bargain prices.

And it's a lot less 'brand'....and more correct application, assembly, and match of units.

The errors I see are:

Bands without enough PA to do the job. #1!!

Passive units, underpowered #2


The fix? More square inches of moving diaphragm and cone. The easier they work, the better they sound. If you have enough RCF or Mackie cabs...you'll even approach the spec bass response! [mebbe]

Power with 1.5 to 3 times the rated continuous of the speakers....500w cont cab? Up to 1500w continuousin the amp. Fuses don't work. Just be reasonable. If it sounds like the cabs are stressing...you need more cabs. The overhead also ensures the health of your HF diaphragms.....they fry when they get fed a clipped signal...which, if you're also powering up the bass in your little cabs to overcome low-end rolloff...is easy to do.

If your playing places that require sound to be broadcast beyond 30', get cabinets made for the application. 'Long throw$' The wide-dispersion little cabs are 'nearfield'.

Subs. a gotta have. Unless you're using reflex cabs, crossed-over..dedicated...with that 19'/sq of interior space required to allow 40 waves to form and broadcast.

Everybody wants portability. Fine. There's a price. Your competing with home stereo surround and DVD's of Pink Floyd. You think it's smart to sound like crap when your trying to pull a crowd? A set of self-powered Macks or RCF are coffeehouse worthy. Beyond that.............

Give me a NADY system that's big enough for the job. It'll sound better than the best stuff strained beyond its limits.
 
Hey guys

I fianally brought my RCF Art 310-A and tried it out today , I had a small gig tonight and Xsatic you are dead right .

These speakers are incredible, i used my mackie DFX 6 mixer plus i brought a Samson DI box. When i did the first part of my gig I did'nt hook up my lexicon MX200 I just used the mackie inbuilt reverbs which are quite basic but the sound quality was so much better then I thought .
But once I hooked up the lexicon it was even more special, plus I did'nt have to turn it right up I can play it quite at a reasonable level and it still sounded sweet.
The sound was full and clean and not at all tinney like my phonic powered mixer and the mackie C003z's or the Yamaha S1IVN.

They are unbelievably lightweight and I am still blown away by the big sound coming from such a small size in comparision.

Thanks again for your advice Xsatic there is wisdom in many councilors.

dave
 
jeffmaher said:
Give me a NADY system that's big enough for the job. It'll sound better than the best stuff strained beyond its limits.
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There is a big part of me that agrees with this, but at the same time disagrees. There is certianly something to be said for using enough PA for the situation so that you are not stresisng all the different sections of your PA and can apply proper gian structure. However, the Nady example also throws me off a bit. Mostly it throws me off because the Nady stuff just isn't capable of sounding like a Meyer. Another thing is that with the cheaper stuff it also takes a lot of cabinets to equal the perceived output of one well designed ( which more often than not equates to more expensive) stuff. If it were me, I would rather go in undersized a system that actually sounds good and still run it within its boundaries. It may not be enough, but at least where it does cover actually sounds good. That doesn't mean that the right engineer can't do a decent job with cheap equipment, but it will reuqire a lot more work and stress, and will never soudn as good as using well designed and implemented systems. There is a reason why the professionals spend more, they expect more. Many times we have to buy things of certain brands to help appease clients, but often times we get to make the choices. The companies I work for provide systems for larger more demanding bands and have to provide the right stuff. The company that I actually run has more clients that don't know any better on the equipment end. They think its incredible if I bring out a 32 channel Allen Heath GL3000. I don't mind that desk, in certain environments, but I always miss having the Midas consoles out with the BSS front end and Turbosound speakers. If the chepaer stuff actually worked that well I would buy much more of it because many of my personal clients don't know any better and as long as I am there than they don't care about anything else.

I know it may sound stuffy, but I just have a hard time having to use use subpar equipment. Mostly because I know how much better it could be and probably should be. In my own mind, I think there is only one thing worse then a small cheap PA, and thats a large cheap PA:D I also understand however that sometimes money is a limiting factor and those choices have to be made at some point and I can respect that.
 
Agreed. Nady was a bit extreme. :^)

I am old enough...and been gigging long enough..to remember the days before little midrangie cabs, and subs that pretend to produce fundamental waves.

There was no choice: you had Altec/ Lansing 7A's...or the EV equivalents...that could cover a small outdoor concert. The vocals were in your face and brilliant You could feel actual 40Hz surf pummelling yer body. Every little band in every skanky bar ...regardless of the quality of players...sounded , in comparison to today's standards, fantastic.

I use smaller cabs and subs...cuz I huff it myself...but if I had a partner or a band...or if I could afford roadies...I'd be carting around 7A's. I really miss that sound. And , oh yeah...those big 13 ply birch boxes colored the sound. It was wonderful to hear. You could get 'em for a couple hundred buck a pair in the 70's. You could pick 'em up off the curb when a lot of old theaters started throwing them out. $8,000 a pair now. But there's scads of 'em around, dormant for 30 years, waiting for re-coning.

A lot of the new guys diss that vintage stuff. "Crap" HA!
Ignorance reigns.
Distortion rules.
Midrange is master.

My advantage.
 
Those RFC's are nice. I'm also a big fan of the QSC line but they are wood and heavy but they sound great.

As far as enough PA goes that is what everyone does wrong. I do almost all live sound but am working on a few recording projects for kicks right now and ran across all this. People don't belive me when I tell them my "350 watt" yorkvilles are being pushed by an amp that puts out 800 watts. It's just is too counter intuitive for most.

I do live sound at some of the most expensive events in a major city and another thing people don't realize is distortion bothers people way more than volume alone. Volume is always a concern of mine. We did an event last month at the Milwaukee Art Museum. The guy in charge gave use a big lecture about volume levels because there was this huge glass sculpture about 150' from the stage. We were told keep it around 85db maybe 90db and this is for a 18pc band, full horns, strings, the works. He also suggested also not micing the horns or drums or anything.

So instead of asking did he mean A weighted or C weighted we just did what we normally do and mixed the kick maybe a little lower. We were easily 100+ decibels as I know the system and band and we were running just as loud as always. We did check with him during the night to make sure everything was ok. At the end of the night he was asking for cards. Why because we had way more PA than we could use and it was clean sounding, not to mention the band rocks. Someone or most people before us probably had a underpowered system and it was hurting people ears with all the distortion from pushing it too hard.

One other thing I have learned is live is not much different than studio, the basics are all the same. Good a good signal from your source, use good gain structure, eq a little to taste to bring out what needs it. Where it starts to differ is in how some things are applied. Live you are mixing for one specific system in one specific room. You also have to blend with stage wash. Studio you need it to sound good across a variety of speakers/rooms.
 
I just started ramping ramping up' for some good sounding portables and this thread has been very helpful. So now I've learned a few new things (-thank you xstatic, jeffmaher, everyone.
I didn't even know RCF' as an alternative. I was looking at an EAW JF80z http://www.eaw.com/products/JF80z.html -which is passive, in the $600 range. (Any experience there?
I found it interesting that the 10" mackies use a thing called 'Dynamic Bass Boost circuit, while the 15's use a sliding high-pass.

Check out the prices on these three 12" RCF's -might be a peak into the quality vs price window-
ART 312a $765
ART 322a $975
ART 522a $1400

As for the 'wood vs plastic thing- I still think 'load-in/out, stacking and packing... Try the molded rollie-pollie's on a hand truck sometime.
I'm still wrestling with that one right there. :D
 
Personally I feel that the EAW JF series is not that hot. It only seems to sound "OK" and you are paying a little extra for the EAW name. What they are though is durable;)
 
A note for clarity's sake:

Where, in my previous posts I used the term "reflex' I meant 'folded horn'

Reflex...small, tuned, ported, and filtered...are the ones I don't like.

Senior moments.
 
Mixsit.

About the rollie pollie problem . in my case my prayers were answered.

When i first brought my 12" mackie passive C003z the speaker had that rollie bend you mentioned plus I carry my equipment with a sack trolley .

( the speaker was unbelievably heavy in weight as i had to carry it by hand for about 800 yards) on the way to the place I was gigging where I had my trolley I noticed this office through out these kitchen chairs but minus the legs . So it was just the soft seat by it self and it was perfect for putting on th base of my trolley and letting the mackie hold firm on top of it.

The foam covered matarial sunk that bend in perfect place.

i am now using that for my 10" RCF active speaker.

dave
 
This is so cool. So now I know what a sack trolley is -a hand truck here :D ..and busking. We do a bit of similar -indoors or in the park, with my acoustic band. :)
 
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