ProSoundWeb Community

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Pages: 1 2 [3]  All   Go Down

Author Topic: EAW KF 730 OR JBL VERTEC 4887  (Read 16258 times)

Justin Bartlett

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 177
Re: EAW KF 730 OR JBL VERTEC 4887
« Reply #20 on: April 22, 2014, 04:21:14 AM »

I consistently get comments from tour engineers that my Vertec 4888 system s one of the few that sounds good from the start without a lot of EQ added.  Vertecs powered by Lab Gruppen amps and BSS366 DSP.  Is this a better combination than others ?  Probably not but it does use the version four presets ( the last presets before Harmon discovered the engineering merits of horizontal marketing ) in the DSP and most importantly the amps are set to the recommended gains.  You can get excellent results from any brand of amp IF you read the directions. I also like the converters in the 366 and find that running the AES output of any Yamaha console from a 5D to a CL5 to an M7 into the AES in to rely on those converters makes a noticeable difference but not nearly as noticeable as setting amp gains correctly.  My general rule is if you have all your power amps at max gain you are very likely doing something wrong.

I mix on VerTec (and VRX) rigs fairly frequently as a BE touring mostly small/medium venues, and I find them to be somewhat hit-and-miss, with sound quality usually having a direct relationship with the professionalism and talent of the system provider.  Probably 3/4 of the rigs are pretty harsh and take some work to get "decent" - and about 1/4 of them sound fantastic.  I'm not sure how much of the difference is the gear - amps, processors, etc - but I suspect most of it is just dependent on whether the providers follow JBL's instructions.  I guess that's probably no surprise - JBL isn't a "black box" so there's more variability than with d&b/Nexo/Meyer etc.

With EAW, my experience is that rigs processed with DriveRacks or MX8750s or other generic processing sound mediocre at best, and rigs processed with the UX8800 sound fantastic nearly every time.

One of the best-sounding rigs I've ever mixed on was a KF730 rig outdoors, and I have heard 4887 boxes sound great as well.  But I've also mixed on a horrible-sounding, completely-wrongly-implemented 4888 rig and a mediocre-sounding, generic-processed KF730 rig.

If I was advancing a show with the OP, I would be more excited to hear that he was providing a UX8800-processed KF730 rig than I would be about a 4887 rig, but wouldn't come close to refusing either one.
Logged

ProSoundWeb Community

Re: EAW KF 730 OR JBL VERTEC 4887
« Reply #20 on: April 22, 2014, 04:21:14 AM »


Pages: 1 2 [3]  All   Go Up
 



Site Hosted By Ashdown Technologies, Inc.

Page created in 0.035 seconds with 23 queries.