Subwoofer options???

topic posted Thu, December 29, 2005 - 9:12 AM by  matthew
Right now I have a 6,200 watt PA that I use for basement raves, reggae night at a local club, and large house parties. My subs are getting a little long in the tooth, and have been run with a little too much clipping, and they're starting to complain. So, it's upgrade time. I have two cabs with two 18" openings each that have Madison Executioners in them. The boxes are solidly built, and ported, so I just want to swap out the drivers. I have QSC RMX 1450s bridged to mono, one for each box, and they're pushed as far as they can go driving these speakers, so when I upgrade, I'm gonna swap up to RMX 2450s bridged to mono. That means about 1400 watts continuous at 4ohms per cab. My question: what drivers have you used successfully and would recommend for my application? People really want me to use RCFs or Eminence, but I've never heard these drivers. Any other ideas? Thanks!
posted by:
matthew
California
  • Re: Subwoofer options???

    Fri, December 30, 2005 - 12:10 PM
    We need to know how big the boxes are.

    One thing you might try, is to upgrade your amp first and see if that stops the speakers from 'complaining'.
    An overdriven amp makes a square wave that sounds an awful lot like a blown speaker.

    Another important option. One that is better than putting new speakers in, is to just recone your existing speakers. Send them to orange county speakers. Get them reconed.
    It is better than trying to fit a new pair of speakers into a questionable box. By questionable I mean. Boxes are sized specifically for certain speakers and it does not always pay to just upgrade to a more expensive speaker.

    The best option is to recone your existing spk's and buy another set of sub's. If your old speakers did a good job than you should buy another set of those exact same speakers.
    You cannot fight physics with money.
    Sometimes more is better.
    If you want to keep from wearing out drivers I would suggest getting the amps out of Mono (I run mine in mono mostly) and driving 4 boxes in stereo (2 per)

    There are two good reasons for this.
    Sub frequencies rely on quick transient attack. Most dance music has a steady deep bass. And then it hits some really low notes. Which draws AC power and txes an overdriven amp. Basically, everytime you see the amp lights go into red, you can be sure that toxic square waves are being unleashed into the sonic atmosphere. This is pollution of the speaker/amp killing kind. And it also causes aural cancer, the kind that can kill a reputation or just harsh a good party.

    So if you need more bass, the best solution is either better AC, and or more speakers and amps.

    It doesnt work in the dance music universe , to just crank up the amps. It hurts.
    • Re: Subwoofer options???

      Sun, January 1, 2006 - 8:55 AM
      Well said about square waves. I also agree that you would benifit more from upgrading your amps as opposed to your cabs. Consider moving up to the PLX range if your set on QSC. My PLX's run a little hotter temp wise but sound much cleaner. I have noticed that the PLX's handle the suntained low end power needed for dance/hip hop/reggae music better. Also as a benifit for loading in and out they are about half the weight of the RMX's!
      • BT
        BT
        offline 78

        Re: Subwoofer options???

        Wed, January 4, 2006 - 9:54 AM
        IMHO your best bet would be to sell the Madison boxes complete, keep your existing RMX amplifiers and look at a higher quality subwoofer.

        Reason? Switching amps from the RMX line to PLX line is going to be barely noticeable. The RMX line is a good line, and not the weakest link in your system, the subs (boxes and drivers) are. Replacing just the drivers may win you higher power handling, but at the sacrifice of having boxes that may not be correctly tuned for the drivers and be less efficient - meaning more draw from the wall and less overall output. You can try to match specs, but a quality raw driver is going to run around $300-600 each – and when you take into account the difference in selling your existing boxes you may very well end up spending more to upgrade your old boxes then to buy new ones. Also going with a more common subwoofer will give you the ability to rent additional matching subs when needed. Check around with SR companies and PA rental shops and see what they use. Common subs I’ve seen are: JBL SR/X Dual 18”, EAW SB850’s, EAW LA400, , Peavy QW218, Yorkville T9’s, Yorkville LS808, Cerwin Vega T36, EV MTL, ect. See what is available and rent them for a show, just about any of the above subs will do the job.

        If you have 40+ amps of wall power to dedicate to subs - the new compact, high power subs such as the JBL SRX 728 and Peavey Q-wave 218 offer a lot of output for their size & weight. Hornloaded subs offer the other side of the coin. Lots of output at low wattage, but very large bulky boxes.
        • Re: Subwoofer options???

          Thu, January 5, 2006 - 11:45 PM
          i went striaght out and tested the peavey Q series subs.
          They have a LOT of sound above about 40hz.
          I did blow them up in shop soI would recommend not bridging a 3402 and running it full bore ;-)

          The amp never clipped, except twice. It just shut down. Wimp!

          I gotta be nicer to equipt. that I havent bought yet.

          If I can get these at 10% over they would be about 930.00$
          • BT
            BT
            offline 78

            Re: Subwoofer options???

            Fri, January 6, 2006 - 7:48 AM
            What crossover setting where you using? With ported sub boxes it is important not to feed high power signal below the loading point frequency of the box. I typicaly run 35-45hz lowpass with a 80-90hz crossoverpoint. If you are interested in strong 30-40hz output in high output subs, things get spendy quickly - $2-4k a box. Here are some good ones:

            servodrive.com/SPL-bdeap32.html
            www.danleysoundlabs.com/thvortex.html
            bassmaxx.com/home.html
            mccauleysound.com/product_overview.cfm
            eaw.com/products/BH760.html

            Or DIY projects like this (For about $800 a box):

            www.prosoundweb.com/lsp/
            web1.prosoundweb.com/lsp/labhorn1a.jpeg
            web1.prosoundweb.com/lsp/labhorn2b.jpg

            In the 5 years I have been using the 3402's, I have only had one shutdown - and It was due to the thermal issues of running/abusing four of them (two bridged into McCauley dual 18's) in a poorly ventilated rack for hours on end.
            • Re: Subwoofer options???

              Fri, January 6, 2006 - 5:37 PM
              Knowledge, knowledge, everywhere. This is why I joined Tribe. Thanks for all the input and the wonderful tangents as well. I took a compilation of advice, and did some processor tweaking, amp reconfiguring, and lo and behold things sound way way better. I was running a rmx 2450 stereo into two jbl mp225s for my mains, and two rmx 1450s running mono one each into my sub cabinets. Now, I have bridged the 1450s and run one each into my jbl mains, and I bridged the 2450 mono into one of my subs. I am now an amp short, but the sonic inprovement and gained energetic efficiency have done wonders. Even without the one sub cabinet, the amps are producing so much more power as such lower gain levels than I don't come close to clipping on the mains, and the distortion from the room itself becomes annoying long before I get into the red with the single sub amp. Everyone is noticably cooler as well. A little experimentation with the eq and compressor on my driverack, and things are a thousand times nicer.

              Oh, and as far as the 30-40 hz output boxes, I've been eyeing Servodrives and Bassmaxxes for some time now, but those are distant future type purchases. In the meantime, your collective knowledge has made a world of difference, and I humbly thank you all.

Recent topics in "Live Sound and Event Production"