12 inch Pa speakers : Wood or plastic

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mr Blues
  • Start date Start date
M

Mr Blues

New member
What do you prefer the wooden boxes with the fuzz carpet felt or the tough plastic mouled ones.

I have a freind who feels that the wooden ones bring out the open warm sound where as the plastic ones you can get that hollow slight feedback.

has anyone else found this to be true or do you feel its an old wife's tale?

Dave
 
sorry just realized I accidently posted this twice, can the moderator please take one of them of. Thanks

dave
 
i wouldn't go for the plastic... also stay away from real thin/cheap board as well... the problem is the flexing of the case... any energy disapated by the vibrating case is just so much that isn't going out front... and if ya really want to take the next step stay away from stamped basket drivers insist on cast baskets... the IM distortion figures improve markedly IMO...
 
Thanks for your advice Jeff and dementedchord.

I busk in London streets and I play in small wine bars and resturants.

When I busk I do carry quite a lot of eqipment on a heavy duty sack trolly.

I have a Phonic powerpod 620 powered mixer plus I still have my old yamaha 12 inch S1IVN its 300 watt rms and 60hz to 16Khz freq range.

The wood is solid plus it covered and that black carpet stuff . The sound is warm and clear.

Two days ago I saw a mackie C300z going for £150 the only thing is its made of that tough plastic which I thought was a real bagin, I originally brought the 10 inch C200 but then swapped it for an extra £25 to the C300z and I hav been using that when I play. for The sound is lovely the mids and highs are nice and smooth but with my Yamaha , there is something about the wood that adds to the the total warmth of the ovrall sound.

Its good having both.

Like you said Jeff maybe I need to invet in a more powerful powered mixer .

Dave
 
Mackies, plastic active PA speakers are mighty sweet. Loud as hell and clear. Things are rugged too. Not to knock wood, Peavey SP's are great too. But to say plastic is not as good, I dont buy it. Sorry
ZOOM_SRM450.gif
 
Well, having at least a dozen of the Mackie and JBL plastic molded speakers around and another 36 or so wood built speakers, I would definately say that the wood ones in principle are going to be a better speaker. The most important element however is not the material for the box, but the driver choice and design and implementation of the whole speaker system. Loud and clear are not at all how I would describe the Mackie plastic mold speakers. I have been using them for years in smaller portable setups, so I have a ton of experience with them. Unless you go with the smaller 10" powered Mackie, the low end will be very hollow sounding. It gets boomy and mucky very easily, and never sounds tight. The highs on them are "OK", but certainly nothing to write home about. The funny thing is that years ago Mackie went through an expansion pahse on one of those was buying RCF. RCF at the time had a plastic molded cabinet that sounded pretty decent. Mackie after buying RCF released their own plastic molded cabinets and compared to the RCF ones, they absolutley suck. I never understood that.

As for durability, plastic molded cabs are more durable in the short term. The problem though is that often times they will eventaully crack. Wood however usually just chips or dents and is reparable pretty easily. With plastic molded ones they crack and unless you are lucky enough to retain the peice that chunked out, repatring them is not easy and the sound of the whole cabinet definately changes, and not for the better.

Once again though, in my opinion the choice between wood or plastic mold should be based on sound quality first.
 
I've seen a lot of RCF cabs in the clubs, lately. I'd never heard of 'em. I guess they got the company fired up again??

I did note that they have a much better throw in the HF...and don't seem to roll off the bottom as severely as the Mackies...doing a seat o' the pants assessment of 15" in pairs of each.....same venue...same type of band...similar SPL's.
 
jeffmaher said:
I've seen a lot of RCF cabs in the clubs, lately. I'd never heard of 'em. I guess they got the company fired up again??
Click to expand...

They make lots of drivers that other speaker companies use. You've probably heard RCF stuff a lot without realizing it.:)
 
Xsatatic are you saying that the 10" powered Mackie sre better then lets say the 12" passive's or any of the passives.

Although I like the mids and huigh's on my 12" passive the speaker is very heavy, thankfyully I have a good sack trolly with air pumped wheels.

Thanks
 
What I like better about the 10" active speakers is that they seem to clear up a lot of the problems that the 450's have. In my opinion, the Mackie 450 is a pretty bad sounding speaker. The problem with the 10" ones is that you lose a few things. You lose a little low frequency response, and a little output power. Personally, I would rather have less low frequencies that sound better than more that only create mush and other issues. I can not compare it to the passive ones cause I have very limited experience with the passives. The only reason we have any of the Mackie speakers at all is that for a while we were Mackie dealers amongst other things (we started as RCF dealers, but when RCF sold to Mackie we picked up that line not knowing how bad the change was going to affect things).

From what I understand about RCF, is that they were a driver company that made drivers for lots of different speaker companies including EAW, even before Mackie bought EAW. They also made a few speaker cabinets, but the only ones that really seemed very useful was the ART series of powered speakers. Since the Mackie buyout, I beleive that RCF has once again become it's own entity. From what I can tell once Makckie bought RCF, the original owner and designer went on to either found or greatly improve upon the D&B Audiotechnik line. The D&B stuff sounds incredible and personally for a small line array, is the only one that even comes close to the Meyer, and Vdosc ranges. Now I believe RCF is marketing once again under the RCF name and my limited experience with their new stuff has been pretty good. It easily sounds much better than the Mackies, although it may not be quite as inexpensive. Their newer wood built monitors also sound pretty good. Keep in mind when thinking about D&B that their seems to be a couple differnt D&B companies. I do not know if they are related, but I do not think they are. The D&B that makes the "opera" series plastic powered speakers sounds nothing near what the D&B Audiotechnik stuff does, but then there is a big cost difference as well.
 
What impressed me when i did buy the Mackie C200's was how light weight they were i did change to the C300z's because of the moe power but did'nt realize the big difference in weight and I mean a massive difference.


I may invest in a srm350 as I hear very good reports about it.

I have a Mackie DFX 6 compact mixer , do you reckon this will be ideal as a front end mixer.

The good thing about buying an active is that I'll have less to carry when I play.

dave
 
since you're using this specificly for busking i couldn't blame ya for going for the plastic if it's appreciably lighter...
 
Mackie did also build some of what they consider to be "high end" speakers with their Fusion line years ago. The Fusion speakers were very overpriced in my opinion, but did sound much better than their other offerings. They also had a line called "Mackie Industrial" for a while. They had made some low priced wood speaker cabinets that we had for a little while that also sounded pretty good. Nothing like the other Mackie stuff. We bought a bunch at one point to just fill up inventory and to be used on smaller rentals because they were blowing them out to dealers for very cheap in quantity. When we bought them we did not expect much of them at all. We bought 12 single 18 subs, 8 15"x2" tops and 8 12"x 1 1/4" tops. When we actually ran them we were very surprised by how good they actually sounded and how usable they were.

I also have 12 subs and 20 tops that are loaded with RCF 10" mids and RCF 2" horns. The clarity and output on those cabs is amazing. I run that system in three way mode with RCF loaded dual 15" manifold style subs and the tops with either 1 or 2 10" RCF drivers per cab (depending on which tops I use) and a 2" long throw horn (RCF loaded). The cabs are getting pretty old now, but they output WAY more than you would expect from those driver sizes, and have a very tight and clean sound to them. They easily will smoke the usual affordable suspects like the JBL SRX and the cheaper EAW's.

Now we have been making the switch over to Turbosound. I have a bunch of Turbo rigs now. Personally, I feel like Turbosound is offering the best bang for your bucj speaker out there with their TXD line, but none of them are powered.
 
Hmmm. All the Mackies Ive heard sounded pretty good. But there were some subs in the system also and the lows were not going through the Mackies. Im relatively new to the whole PA scene also. When I was looking for a PA, I was leaning towards Peavey SP2's or the Mackie's. But I bought Crate speakers (Passive) 2 PSM15's and 2 PSMS subs and I like them alot. They sound pretty good too. I got them dirt cheap. A local store was going out of business and I was there at the right time. $150 for each. Couldnt pass that up. Sure I had to buy a couple amps, but hey they were a deal too. But Im not a professional and only use mine for home studio use.
 
hmm... i for one, have rather enjoyed the mackie speaks. i played and gigged (mostly smaller college-town clubs and the like) with a band who owned two of the 450's and one (yes one) of the smaller of the subs. i have to say, we consistently rocked out those bars. almost never had real problems with feedbacking or distortion at appropriate levels, and the sub definitely put us a cut above the "typical" 15-and-a-horn setups that a lot of bands were using in the same spaces.

and, with powered wedges, it was hella nice to not have to lug a rack of power amps!

FWIW.

a
 
I think the real problem is that a lof of people who like things like the Mackies have not heard or used qulaity speakers before. There is a huge difference. Also, I actually find it easier to haul an amp rack around and only have to find power in one place, and have beeter amplification available. Also, when the amp in a powered speaker goes you are out both amp and speaker until the repair is done. The pots on powered speakers are also notorious for developing issues.
 
xstatic said:
I think the real problem is that a lof of people who like things like the Mackies have not heard or used qulaity speakers before. There is a huge difference. Also, I actually find it easier to haul an amp rack around and only have to find power in one place, and have beeter amplification available. Also, when the amp in a powered speaker goes you are out both amp and speaker until the repair is done. The pots on powered speakers are also notorious for developing issues.
Click to expand...

Have you any experience with Carvin speakers ? If so, they any good ?
 
I have changed my mind regarding the Mackie's I went to the Pa shop and they suggested the RCF 310-A series , the build is very simmilar to the Mackie SRM 350 but its 350 watt LF and 50 watt HF. Plus slightly more slim line then the mackie's.

Xstatic you mentioned the Art series would you say they were good to?

I did'nt have a chance to hear them yet but I put down a 10% deposit down.

Is anyone else here famillier with the RCF's too?
 
I think the real problem is that a lof of people who like things like the Mackies have not heard or used qulaity (sic) speakers before.
Click to expand...

not the case here. i grew up with high quality speakers (my pop has a set of polk sda which were highly regarded back then). he hammered the principle into my head (i have stories that can wait for another time) and eventually sold me on the idea of top-quality music reproduction. i now often have a hard time listening to poorly recorded music, even if the content is good.

but portable live sound just isnt the same thing. portability, adequate volume, then sound quality. it absolutely has to happen in that order. and on that note, the mackies perform reasonably well, especially with the sub.

besides, who would ever choose a plastic cabinet for permanent installation.

i will agree about turbosound stuff, though. it kicks.
a
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top