Karaoke Forums

Kojak,

For info on the JBL Eon 1500: http://www.jblpro.com/pages/mi/eon1500.htm

For price info see: http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=jbl ... &scoring=p

Of course JBL Pro only sells powered speakers...

Morten

Kojak,

just got the 16 channel Carvin mixer. Sounds very nice. Now my sound(/karaoke) system is pretty good. The only thing left is a new amplifier. So far I am still using my 150 W in 8 ohm hifi mono blocks (with XLR input). Because the speakers are so efficient I can run the amps well below maximum.

Morten

Morten,
I'm going to count out the C844 and the SM162 mixers because I want a mixer/amp with efx. The Mackie mixer that I now use is a 12 chanel version of the SM162. It doesn't have efx and it does have a level set.
Right now it's a close decision between the PA1200C-832 package and the C1644P-832 package.
I only NEED 8 channels but the PA800 and the PA1200's don't have that level set indicator, (Carvin calls it a 10 segment VU meter).

The C1644P has more channels than what I ever expect to use but to me its biggest downfall is the weight. 53lbs is more than what I want to handle. The extra power would be nice but it's not that important, however the fact that the 1644 has 4 amps, as opposed to the PA 1200s 3 amps, makes it quite actractive.

Kojak

Since the frequency responce curves for the 832 loudspeakers and the 742 monitor speakers are almost identical I'm thinking that I could run them together in parallel and use the extra amp power from either system to run a lower voiced cabinet, (or 2 in parallel), for bass.
I wouldn't normally consider this but the C1644P and the PA1200 both have 2 graphic EQs.
The C1644's extra power is a strong point when thinking about expanding for unpowered bass.

The RL210T 4ohm cabinet looks nice but it weighs 57lbs. and I doubt that it's stand mountable.
The 112AG extention cabinet is stand mountable and weighs only 31lbs.
The VE212 extention cabinet has two 12" woofers but no tweeters. At 40lbs this looks quite attractive.

Kojak,


I still don't quite understand your reasoning. The weight difference between 832 (47 lbs) and 832A (53 lbs) is only ~6 lbs. In return for 6 lbs lighter speakers you are making the mixer much heavier. I would still go for the 832A and then an un-powered mixer. I really like my C1644, but if you only want to use it for karaoke the C844 should be enough and it is even smaller and lighter.

If you do go with a powered mixer, the 1644P looks really cool. I would expect the same good sound as my 1644, with the added benefit of the DCM 1204 built in. Pretty cool combination. You didn't like the JBL's?

BTW are guitar extension cabinets good for bass?

Morten

Morten,
In answer to your question about my reasoning in picking an unpowered speaker that is 6lbs lighter than a powered speaker and getting a powered mixer that is heavier than an unpowered mixer, you must remember that I don't have to pick the mixer up higher than my waist.
If ALL that you can pick up is 47lbs then the six lb differance between a powered and unpowered speaker is the straw that breaks the camels back.
After visiting the Carvin store in Hollywood and picking up a 832 speaker, I bought the PA1200-832 package with covers and cables, from a friend second hand for $750. He was going to sell it to me for $700, but when I asked him if he was sure, he told me that he really wanted to get $750 so that's what I paid him. He has another pair of 832s and a pair of 1584s.
I can pick up the 832s high enough to put it on the stand but I can't hold it up long enough to align the hole on the bottom with the center pole on the stand without help. To put the 832 up on a stand unassisted I must first put it on its side and then put the center pole of the stand into the hole on the speakers bottom, and then pick up the speaker and stand and right them together.
I went into The Guitar Center and looked at some powered JBL Eons.
When I told the salesman what I was looking for and why, HE decided that I needed to look at the 12" powered EONS and wasn't in a big hurry to show me the other EONS. The CD player that he used had no tone controls so I couldn't tell how much bass I could get from them.
I doubt that it could of been much.
They sounded very clean but when I stepped to the side there was a noticable drop in off axis responce. They could quite easily claim 90 degrees, (inclusive), but after that the drop is very noticable.
I didn't see any Yorkvilles.
I'm very happy with the PA1200-832 but I can't exactly say the same thing for the speaker stands. One end of the stand's center pole is smaller than the other end to allow speakers with a smaller hole on bottom to be mounted. This is the end that was protruding from the stand base. When I reversed the pole from one of the speaker stands, I found that the plastic end cap was broken. I havn't called Carvin yet, but if I can't order another end cap I'll either have to live with it, (and a lower resale value), or ship the whole stand to So. Cal. and live with the cost of shipping. The only reason that I bought the stands on my trip was the fact that they were on sale.
I'll post again to let you know how Carvin handles this.

Kojak

Kojak,

ok, I understand your reasoning. So, how do you like the sound from your PA1200-832? Does it reproduce your bass well?

Carvin should be able to ship you the broken part. Carvin is known to have excellent customer service. A few days after I bought the mixer they had a free gear offer. The were kind enough to offer that to me also even though I had already bought my equipment. I now have a credit of $100. I think I will use that credit on the purchase of a DCM1500 amplifier. I like the idea of having a built in limiter in the amplifier, I would also like to get the 2x300W in 8 ohm. Another example, when I bought the mixer I also ordered a bag for it. They forgot to ship it to me and when I called to tell them, I also asked him to include a 25' XLR cable in the shipment, which he included free of charge.

Morten

Morten,
I just got off of the phone with Carvin. I called the factory and they told me to call the store. I called the store and they told me to call the factory.
I'll try again tomorrow.

I love the sound from the PA 1200-832. I reproduces bass quite well.
Perfect for my needs.

In your post before last you mentioned using extention cabinets for bass. I inquired about that in the Carvin store, and I asked about it when I called the proaudio tech at the factory number.

I still don't know the answer.

One guy said that I couldn't said that I couldn't connect the 4 ohm RL210T cabinets because that would bring me down to 2 ohms. No matter how many times I insisted that connecting them in series instead of in parallel would bring me up to 8 ohms I couldn't make him understand whart I was saying. After about 5-10min he finally got the idea and said that he thought that this was where the conversation was going. This same genius told me that I would need to use a crossover to eliminate the higher frequencys and that I couldn't just use the graphic EQ to cut the high end, (as if I wanted to). I think that this guy never heard of biamping. I inquired about the VE212 cabinet. The factory pro tech told me that this cabinet wouldn't work well for voice because it didn't have a tweeter, (as if it was the only speaker that I would be using). I inquired about the 112AG extension cabinet for the AG100D acoustic guitar, bass, and PA amp. and was told that guitar amps don't work well for voice. The AG100D boasts the fact that it can be used as a PA, and I wasn't asking about it, I was asking about the extension cabinet.

The pro audio tech at the factory did admit that extension cabinets could be probably be used for sound reinforcement, but he didn't know how well.
I think that if you were to connect these cabinets up, and listen to them in the real world, you would be surprized as to how well they would work. I base this opinion on the frequency responces of the component speakers.

It really irks me to hear glib "talk-talk" from some so called "expert" who thinks that an electron is when you go out and vote.

Kojak

Kojak,

think about it. Would you want a $70k/year engineer answering phone calls if you were a business. Based on that thesis I never assume highly qualified technical help neither at stores nor on the phone. It would be cool though to be able to talk to the people who actually design the stuff.

On a different note. Yesterday I killed both my 15" woofers. $160 out of the window.

Morten

Kojak,

Another update the speakers are fine. I checked them more thoroughly and they are good. Unfortunately, Carvin had already shipped the replacement woofers. Oh well I'll just have to ship them back. What fooled me is that the mixer has developed a scratchy main output. Aparently something in the mixer doesn't work properly. At least the mixer is under warranty.

Morten

Morten,

It looks like we both have some shipping charges in our future.

Let me know how your party goes.

Kojak

Kojak,

at least some shipping charges are way preferable to new woofers!

My party was last last Saturday and it went very well. I think everyone was impressed with the system and the sound. Several couples left the party considering getting karaoke equipment for themselves. Though I am not sure they are going to take the full step as I did.

About 40 people attended (still with room to spare). Our house has a very open first floor, where the foyer, living room and family room acts as almost one big room. I put the stage at the front of the living room and you could watch and hear the performances from the foyer, the upstairs staircase, and the family room. At the same time you could have a reasonable conversation in the dining room or kitchen.

~35 songs were sung, not everyone filled out the slips and that slowed down the rotation a bit. In general the sound was great: clean, detailed and loud. I mixed all singers and their level corresponded well to the music. Noone mixed me -- mistake. I set the level roughly before leaving the mixer, and then adjusted the volume by moving away from the mic. Not a good idea. In general I sounded too thin (too far from the mic). I also picked too hard songs (very high) especially early in the evening when my voice wasn't warm and my blood alcohol level still to high. My number two song was "Lady in Red", a song I can barely do when sober and warm. Needless to say I sounded poor on that one. Nevertheless the evening was a great success and a lot of fun. The singing stopped around 1 am.

I would have liked a little more power, at the end of the evening I was running almost full power. So I am getting a DCM 1500 (2x300 W in 8 ohm with built in limiters).

Morten

Morten

Oh,

and this weekend I was running the Philadelphia Marathon (26.2 miles). Boy are my legs tired...

Morten

Morten,
That DCM 1500 sounds like an ideal amp for your 1584s.
300 watts per speaker sounds good to me.
You could even run a couple of monitors.
If you had the 742s you could run in parallel to the 1584s and not use a seperate EQ adj. since the 742's frequency responce is so close to the 1584's, or you could run them in mono off of one side of the amp and run the 1584s off of the other side and use your second EQ for the 742s.
This may weaken your bass responce a little, but, don't you have a set of mono blocks?

Have you discovered the beauty of mono yet?
The idea of letting go of stereo separation is rather hard, but once you do you will find real beauty in it.
Instead of each speaker working on its own, when both speakers strike a bass note together the sympathetic resonance can be dramatic.
With the small home stereos of yesteryear, mono was rather flat and disapointing, but not with the PA1200-832.
Anytime you can hear one speaker well, but not the other, stereo is the last thing that you want. The way that you discribed your home you should at least give mono an open minded try and see what you think.
I would like to hear your opinion on how this sounds with your system at your home.
Stereo may be fine when you're just listening to music and not doing anything else, but I doubt that I'll ever use it again on a gig or when I'm running around the house doing this and that.

Kojak

Kojak,

did you ever listen to the 1584's at you friends place? Do you still not like 3-way speakers for live music? I think the 8" midrange helps out vocals.

Regarding monitors, I would like to get a 742. I think I will wait until one is cheaply for sale on E-bay. I would probably run the monitor using one of my 150W monoblocks.

I tried to run mono today, and as expected it also sounded good. As you point out there is really no benefit of stereo unless you are placed exactly in the middle of the two speakers. Unless I run out of amplifiers I am considering collapsing the stereo somewhat, but still keeping a little bit of separation for listeners positioned correctly. Of course if I find a cheap electronic crossover on E-bay I could mono bi-amp my speakers and really get a lot of power.

Morten

Morten,
No I didn't get to check out my friend,s 1584s. Though we've known each other for a while, we're not close buddies. Aside from buying equipment from him and meeting up after his show for breakfast with the rest of the gang, I'm just one of his regular singers.

As far as 3-way speakers for live music is concerned, I never said that I don't like them for live music. What I said is that I don't think that they're the best for live voice.
I think that due to the extended low end frequency responce and reduced high end frequency responce placed on the woofer they may be a little "boomy" for voice alone. You can adjust this "boomyness" out with the low parametric EQ adj., but then you're left with sibilance, (essing), or a harshness to be adjusted out on the high end.
I could be wrong, but the bottom line is that I'm of the opinion that
3-ways aren't well voiced for live voice alone.
I believe that this is why we don't see 3-way nearfield vocal monitors and we do see 2-way vocal monitors. Studio reference monitors is another story. The only one that I see in the Carvin cataloge is a 2-way, but since I'm not in to recording...

Just to change the subject for a minute...
Didn't W.C. Fields have something about Philadelphia engraved on his tombstone?

Kojak

Kojak,

I could be wrong... but I think the 1584's sound very good also for vocals. If anything I would add a subwoofer and cut the woofer around 80 Hz. Having each driver provide a smaller frequency range should only be advantageous (making the job simpler for the driver). If the same driver reproduces too wide a frequency range you might get Dobbler effects (i.e. the high frequencies are shifted depending on whether the driver is moving forward or backward, like a passing ambulance).

The reason you only see two-way monitors is because no more are needed. The monitors are not supposed to sound like the final mix. On the contrary on the singers monitors you will predominantly mix the singers and the instruments they depend on etc.

At least this is my take on two-way versus three-way. Does your friend use the 1584's for his show, now that you have purchased his 832's?

BTW. How are you setting the master eq, and your channel eq's on the PA1200?

Morten

Kojak,

just got my DCM1500. Nice little package. I like the visual clip lights and the built-in limiters. It is only 3 dB more powerful than the monoblocks, but I feel more confident turning it up (I adjusted the input attenuators so that the mixer and the amplifier clip at the same level). Extremely quiet!

also, today bought Foundation 2 on Ebay for $329 (brand new). Now my music selection is pretty good (~1100 songs).

Morten

Kojak,

boy, can my system be loud now. I have adjusted the input attenuators on the DCM 1500 such that the clipping lights starts blinking when the red peak lights blink on the mixer (using pink noise).

Today, I played "Hey Mr. DJ" by Madonna at high volumes to see how loud it was. Around 0 dB on the mixer VU meter I measured around 97 dBa on average 5 meters away from the speakers using my Radio Shack SPL meter. It was really loud and I still had ~10 dB to go on the mixer. If I would have turned it further up I would have picked up my hearing protectors from the garage. Even at the high volume the bass was still very tight and well controlled.

So I am very satiesfied with the performance of my C1644, 1584's and DCM 1500. Carvin rocks!

Morten

Morten,
It sounds to me like you've gotten "one-heal-of-a" system.
Most "pros" should be so lucky.
I love my Carvin stuff!
Even though my system isn't as big as yours, I've the portability that I so desperatly need, AND big, quality sound!
As far as how I set my EQ, I just set everything on the channel strip to the mid way point, then adjusted the graphic EQ to what pleased me the most. This has a tendency to change with the type of music and with the artist. Neil Diamond gets the highest 3 bands raised to bring out the quality fo his vioce, while Aerosmith gets them lowered to reduce some of thier harshness. Raising or lowering the highest band is sort of a mute point. It does very little since I'm not running a dedicated tweeter array.
Disco seems to sound better with the mids boosted, and rock seems to need a LITTLE more bass.
After a bunch of trial and error, I've found the overall adjustment that I like at home. Now it has become a matter of using the paramectric EQ to adjust from one track to the next. Just like I do when adjusting from one singer to the next at a gig. Of course I am going to have to go through the whole process all over again for each new gig, but at least I have a starting point.
Note:
I don't run at levels that make feedback a problem for me, so I don't use the EQ to "ring out" feedback.
When I adj. the EQ, I drop every band to the max "cut" position, bring up the volume and then add boost to each band while dropping the vol. to compensate.

Kojak

Kojak,

So you adjust the channel strip eq's for every singer and every song. Do you adjust the music by ear or do you say this is rock and then give it the standard rock treatment?

Have you used your new system on the road yet? I just got the Foundation two. I am now up to 1162 songs.

For anyone following the thread this is now my system:

2xCarvin 1584's (3-way with 15" woofers, 8" midrange, titanium compression horn)
Speaker stands
Carvin DCM 1500 (2x300 Wrms @ 8 ohm) power amplifier
Carvin C1644 mixer (16 channels, 4 buss, 6 aux) w. built in octave band eq and 2 stereo effects
2xShure SM58 and mic stands
RSQ tripple tray player
13" Panasonic Tv for lyrics
XLR cables
12 gauge speaker cables with Speakon connectors
Sounc choice Foundation 1+2, Brick 1, div: totals 1162 songs

Still missing:

Carvin 742 2-way monitor speaker (15" woofer, horn)
Carvin compressor/gate (to be used on the two microphones)
Sound Choice Brick 2

BTW did you notice we are almost at 100!!!

Morten