Need PA speakers, crossovers??

[mixmkr]

Growing up with the old JBL 4560 cabinets, 2440 horns (or 2482) and good ole Crown DC 300a amps, I'm looking to own another "killer" PA system. However, not looking to shuck out $10k

I have the board, cables, etc... but mainly looking for the amps, crossovers and speakers.

Obviously, Musician's Friend and their ilk don't carry stuff I'm looking for and I don't want to buy $5k worth of NEW speakers anyway.


So..

Building the "ole" JBL 4560 cabinets could only cost about $50/cabinet plus the speakers. Find some horns and lens and a couple new/used QSC or Crown amp...
Is this just plain obsolete? Seems the line arrays are what's been happening in permanent installs.

Anyrate, I used to have 4 bass bins, 4 horns and a pile of Crowns, and it screamed.
Looking for the same and wondered what direction I should be thinking for use in 2010.

I want something that will still "punch" outdoors... and my old system could do it. The junk in the catalogs is for small church installs it seems

 

[recordman]

Yeah definitely stay away from the low end speakers sold at musicians friend and the like. You're getting junk inside of a particle board box nailed together. I repaired a pair of yamaha pa speakers one time and there were gaps in the butt joints of the particle board cabinet big enough for my finger nail!!

Line arrays fidelity wise are in no way better than a point source speaker, in fact they are usually worse due to the complexity of the system. The positive side to line arrays comes down to the power needed for outdoors and stadiums. Lets say you have a bunch of standard PA speakers and need to do a large venue, you *should not* stack them together side by side or on top of each other. Well physically you can but it will sound terrible due to comb filtering and lobe distortion. This is asking for a nightmare (see attached photo).

Essentially in a nut shell, the rule is for two point sources to couple together constructively they must be no further than 1/4 of a wavelength apart. So at 7000hz the wavelength is about 2 inches. If you want to use two high frequency horns together, the mouths of said horns must be no further than a half of an inch apart to couple together at 7000hz and below. At 15,000hz the wavelength is even shorter so basically the horns need to be touching. If you break this rule you will encounter devastating comb filtering and lobe distortion. These are the rules we are governed by in physics.

This is the whole point behind line arrays; so you can use multiple drivers (specifically high freq.) to gain more power. There is also the advantage of directivity but really only in the high end as the woofer section of most of the line arrays function as a point source. There is A LOT of marketing hype surrounding line arrays that they are the holy grail or somehow magical and everyone is always claiming to have the newest biggest innovation but what I just explained is really the nuts and bolts.

If you need to push a lot of power and use multiple cabinets go with a line array but you might be surprised what you can do with a pair of 2" exit horns with a quality compression driver.

 

[mixmkr]

If you need to push a lot of power and use multiple cabinets go with a line array but you might be surprised what you can do with a pair of 2" exit horns with a quality compression driver.

I even remember a single 4560 cab (which only goes down to 45Htz?) and a the 2482 driver with a decent lens, bi-amp as definately awesome... in the day at least. I just remember stacking the 4560, probably more for "looks" than anything

Doing some research, the 4560 seem to still be "ok"... at least to some, but finding building plans is deeming hard to find.

Maybe some cheapies on Ebay will show up.... in driving distance too!

 

[dintymoore]

In the 70's I remember touring around Eastern Canada and there was no room in van for us because we had four (yes 4) Altec A7's which were bad enough but also we had the big sectorial "Voice of the Theater" horns that went with them and they were in 3/4" plywood enclosures too... the same horns they used as fins as on the Delorean in "Back to the Future".

The system kicked some serious butt though!

To me, in the last 30 years there's for sure been improvements in high end concert systems but most of the gigging type pa speakers are actually worse.

I still have a pair of mid 80's JBL 4828B's (15', radial horn PLUS 8" mid) which are the only speakers my electric piano patches ever sounded right through.

I really dislike the current trend of using plastic cabinets like EON's and all the copies. I can always hear the plastic.