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[Richard Turner]

Seeing as we already did best and worst amplifiers

Whats the worst dog of a loudspeaker you ever owned

I think I'll go with the mackie SA1232.

I bought them on a kind of, have to be out of here tonight kind of situation without much research. They were heavy, not very loud for the size of them and gave no warning before hitting thermal shut down. did not truck pack well. I did find a use for them playing mostly DJ/canned music on a couple longish rentals before dumping them for surprisingly more than I paid for them. So not a total loss but would not repeat. THey did sound ok at moderate volume eg 4 on 1000 sqft dance floor but were no fun for moving around and mobile use

[Steve Eudaly]

Funny, we have a pair of 1232s and they have been fantastic money makers. I'll agree on the awkwardness of their shape and size, but they really do work well when used inside their intended use--for us that's low budget club and street festival gigs.

But as the saying goes, "your mileage may vary."

We did also own a set of the Mackie SWA1801 subs and those were nothing but trouble.

[Geoff Doane]

I didn't actually own them, but used them at my day job: the original (grey) JBL 15" Eons.

No clarity OR low end from these things.  AND they were a terrible thing to pack in a truck.

OTOH, we had half a dozen of the 10" models, and they could actually be used as half decent monitors or fill speakers, although they didn't pack very well either.  They got replaced when they were all about 10 years old, but I kept a couple of the 10" ones to use for "high risk" gigs, like outside in bad weather or strapped to the roof of a vehicle for a parade.  They even survived being used by a DJ on several occasions.

Thinking back, perhaps the worst ones that I owned were some ohm bru monitors from another PA company in town.  They had a single JBL K110 speaker (no tweeter), and I bought them because they were cheap and I needed some more monitors, quick!  Fortunately it wasn't too expensive a lesson.  They've been gone a long time.  I'd almost forgotten about them.

GTD

[Luke Geis]

Well I might be lucky I guess? The first set of speakers I owned were from the JBL JRX line. While being far from the best, they are far from the worst speaker I have ever had to work with....... That being said, I have been paid to work with some very horrible speakers in my day. The worst is so low on the totem pole I can't even remember the name.

My second speaker purchase was the JBL PRX line. I was an early adopter in the 500 series, and to be honest I am still very impressed by them. They are far from perfect, but very much better than many options available even today in terms of output, durability and quality of sound. Mine got me through 10+ years of service and made more than their fair share of money for me. 

I now own the JBL SRX 800 series stuff and am again very much happy with my purchase. I am not truly a JBL fanatic, but they just seem to make equipment that for the price is ahead of the competitors for most things. I just recently took purchase of a couple RCF NX12SMA's from Mike Pyle and am anxiously awaiting there arrival!!!! I seem to have a thing for dedicated monitors. My first monitors were the JRX's, Then I went to EAW LA212's, then to Renkus Heinz CFX 121M's and now to the RCF NX series stuff. I thought about getting more of the JBL SRX line stuff for monitor use, but they are just too big, heavy and not as well suited for monitor duties. I have been super lucky and I guess super spoiled to often have real gear to work with throughout my career!!!! I can think of much worse gear to deal with for my own money......

[Debbie Dunkley]

I didn't actually own them, but used them at my day job: the original (grey) JBL 15" Eons.

No clarity OR low end from these things.  AND they were a terrible thing to pack in a truck.

OTOH, we had half a dozen of the 10" models, and they could actually be used as half decent monitors or fill speakers, although they didn't pack very well either.  They got replaced when they were all about 10 years old, but I kept a couple of the 10" ones to use for "high risk" gigs, like outside in bad weather or strapped to the roof of a vehicle for a parade.  They even survived being used by a DJ on several occasions.

Thinking back, perhaps the worst ones that I owned were some ohm bru monitors from another PA company in town.  They had a single JBL K110 speaker (no tweeter), and I bought them because they were cheap and I needed some more monitors, quick!  Fortunately it wasn't too expensive a lesson.  They've been gone a long time.  I'd almost forgotten about them.

GTD

I agree - the 15's were horrible -  the black second generation wasn't much better. They were so harsh and honky. I had 2 of the little 10's though and they were Ok - quite handy as monitors.

[Rob Spence]

I had some Mackie subs and they were too heavy for their output but the worse speakers were a pair of Nady 12” monitors. Their gain before feedback must have been negative. Useless.


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[Chris Grimshaw]

An old Peavey 10" with piezo tweeter. Someone had replaced the Peavey bass unit with an Eminence Delta-10, and then abused it. The cone had a fold line 1" in from the surround, where someone had tried to put kick drum through it, and found out what happens when there's no highpass filter there.
It was sort-of-usable if you wanted a bit of sound somewhere, but got flappy if you asked it to do anything with low end.


Apart from that, I once picked up a job lot of Ecler speakers (AWAK range), the 8" and 12" ones. Ex-nightclub install, and someone had been using them for house parties - you can imagine the condition they were in. Most of them worked, and the 12"s are pretty nice with original Beyma SM112 drivers in there, but the 8"s are rough as anything. Weak magnet on the bass driver gives an under-damped cone to start with, and then they put it in a ported box (gives an even worse one-note-boomy sort of bass). The tweeters were those little plastic button-like things, and gave a frequency response that would make mountains look like gentle ondulations.
I kept a pair of the 8"s to use in the shop while I'm packing gear, and the 12"s see use occasionally when I need to run a second stage and the good PA is in use.

Chris

[Bob Leonard]

Many, many years ago I bought a pair of EV dual 15" Eliminators for very small events. Biggest pieces of junk on the face of the earth. Another would be EV 15" drivers that had multi tap impedance capability. This was back in the 60's. Guess how that turned out.

[Keith Broughton]

Many years back, I had Yamaha S2115H monitors.
Built like crap and sounded the same.

[Ivan Beaver]

It depends (as usual) on what you call a "dog".

Is it the worst sounding?  or the worst thing you spent money on?

If the later, without a doubt, it would be Intersonics/Servodrive SDL5 subs.

When they were working, they were amazing.  The problem was that most of the shows they never worked long enough to get to the headliner.

Many times I spent $1000 (back in the 80s, that was a lot of money), to get them repaired.  The belts would tear up.

I found out later, that during the time I had them (only about 2 years or so), the manufacturer of the belts had changed to a different material than what Tom Danley had specified (to save themselves some costs) and that was what was causing the failure.

I always assumed it was my fault (I never asked about warranty repair), and went through several amplifiers until I found one that worked best.

It was a very expensive experience for me, but hey, I learned a bit in the process-so that side was good.

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