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[Jim McKeveny]

This is a curious offering from QSC, a firm I respect for wise value-engineering. Except for diminished rear output, published specs on the cardioid sub show it appear a poorer performer to its similarly priced stablemate KW181. It is also physically larger and heavier, (and probably with heavier current draw, DSP latency, ?).

No, I haven't heard it, but higher-order bandpass boxes (this one is a 6th order) typically exhibit more group delay than conventionally vented tunings. This is perceived as less "impact" by some listeners.

Add in placement-sensitivity, and I don't see this as a genuine problem-solver in portable application world.

Any thoughts either way on this?

[Keith Broughton]

This is a curious offering from QSC, a firm I respect for wise value-engineering. Except for diminished rear output, published specs on the cardioid sub show it appear a poorer performer to its similarly priced stablemate KW181. It is also physically larger and heavier, (and probably with heavier current draw, DSP latency, ?).

No, I haven't heard it, but higher-order bandpass boxes (this one is a 6th order) typically exhibit more group delay than conventionally vented tunings. This is perceived as less "impact" by some listeners.

Add in placement-sensitivity, and I don't see this as a genuine problem-solver in portable application world.

Any thoughts either way on this?

Looking at the specs, weight and response are not all that different....really. They did miss power requirements for the 18...
The benefit is if you need the rear rejection at 70hz.
Also, the shape is different so might fit an install location better.
I actually have a church install where this cab would solve the problem of mounting a sub in the lip of the existing  stage.

[Tim McCulloch]

Looking at the specs, weight and response are not all that different....really. They did miss power requirements for the 18...
The benefit is if you need the rear rejection at 70hz.
Also, the shape is different so might fit an install location better.
I actually have a church install where this cab would solve the problem of mounting a sub in the lip of the existing  stage.

And that placement would have 100% negated the cardioid function.

[Keith Broughton]

And that placement would have 100% negated the cardioid function.

Yes it would. I was actually looking at the non card sub 

[Ivan Beaver]

And that placement would have 100% negated the cardioid function.
[/quote
Totally.

One thing that many "forget" is that the cardiod/end fire only works well when it is AWAY from boundaries.

As soon as you introduce a boundary, EVERYTHING changes.  And usually not in a good way.

I did a show that had an unusual setup for the permanent stage, speaker locations etc.

It had a curved wall behind the stage that made the stage get real narrow where the speakers would be.  No thought was put into the design from an actual production standpoint.

We setup with the subs in cardioid to help to keep the energy from "rolling back" on the drummer.

After we got setup, I started playing with the system/alignment etc.

What I found was that when in cardioid mode, the energy was MUCH GREATER back around the drummer than when I just turned off the cardioid sub.

I tried aligning them in endfire, but not really any difference for the drummer.

Since this had to be a ground stack system, and on a slope etc, there was no practical way to simply move the cardiod sub forward, so I just muted the input to the amp channel.  Kept the amp channel on to put a load on the speaker.

The lesson is DO NOT ASSUME things will work the way you want.  MEASURE and LISTEN to be sure.

It also helps to understand the basic theory of how things work, so that you have a "fighting chance" to figure out a solution.

I was glad that a single sub per side was able to carry the reggae show outside and didn't need the output from the second sub.

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