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Author Topic: SB my xy on experience  (Read 61213 times)

Evan Kirkendall

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Re: SB my xy on experience - long and sappy, I know..
« Reply #140 on: March 17, 2009, 01:28:03 AM »

David G.Strebe wrote on Tue, 17 March 2009 01:11



This is not a "throw and go" rig.  It takes a good bit of finesse.




David G.Strebe wrote on Tue, 17 March 2009 01:11


The truth is, this rig is NOT super easy to configure and make sound great right out of the gate.  It is a bit fussy.



Then why buy it? I want a box that I can set up, plug in the factory DSP settings and sound nice right out of the box.

I want a rig that I know will sound consistently good, and not have to rely on home brew settings that vary from rig to rig.

d&b and Meyer have perfected this concept. L'Acoustics is finally there, and JBL is coming up from behind. Sound Bridge? No way...


My .02



Evan
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Pascal Pincosy

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Re: SB my xy on experience - long and sappy, I know..
« Reply #141 on: March 17, 2009, 02:55:01 AM »

Evan Kirkendall wrote on Mon, 16 March 2009 22:28

Then why buy it? I want a box that I can set up, plug in the factory DSP settings and sound nice right out of the box.

I want a rig that I know will sound consistently good, and not have to rely on home brew settings that vary from rig to rig.

d&b and Meyer have perfected this concept. L'Acoustics is finally there, and JBL is coming up from behind. Sound Bridge? No way...

Simple reason Evan: because it costs less than an equivalent Meyer rig.

It's not easy to build a line array and every step of the process, from the initial design, testing, developing an array calculator, designing and building the rigging, to developing quality DSP settings for the entire array take lots and lots of money and smarts (which also usually cost money). All that money spent will influence the final price of the cabinets.

Outside of the 'A' level boxes out there, which seem to have their acts together regarding consistent DSP settings, I regularly hear people referring to line arrays that 'take some work' to sound good. This usually means that the DSP settings aren't dialed in to 100% of the potential capacity.

It seems like small sound companies and regional providers are faced with two options: A) buy the best you can and hope you are able to pay for it, or B) buy something with potential and polish it as best you can.

Now obviously as a BE you are always going to prefer to deal with option A. But as a system provider I might be able to make a go of it in my market by purchasing option B, where going with option A would be cost-prohibitive.

All that being said I'd expect that the Soundbridge stuff will continue to improve as their DSP settings are revised. Look how long it took JBL to get it right...
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David Strebe

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Re: SB my xy on experience - long and sappy, I know..
« Reply #142 on: March 17, 2009, 03:23:07 AM »

I agree that it is appealing to use factory settings and just plug and rock.  SBAL is a very small company and I wish they had better software/driver support so we didn't have to go thru all of the tweaking and rigamarole, but they're getting there.  

Honestly, the whole company is Chris, the factory guys, and Chris's secretary.  That's really about it.. It's kind of frustrating because they have a lot of potential, but things are kind of sloppy and fly by the seat of the pants.  They could be so much more if they actually hired a skilled demo/ marketing crew to just come up with some factory settings and properlly setup rigs out in the field etc.. instead of leaving the end user to kind of figure it out..

There are definitely a lot of good options out there now other than SBAL.  I'll be the first to admit.

And come on.... who hasn't mixed on a muddy Vertec rig, wishing you could somehow get it to go higher than 8K?

Their VRX mini array is clean.

L'Acoustics is good.

Usually anything with a ribbon HF is good.

And I agree with you that EV X array has been consistently good every time.  House of Blues Chicago.  Killer EV rig.

I'm not saying SBAL is the end all be all.  I just think they get a bad rap out in the field, that's all.  If your experience with XYON sucked, it sucked.  I can appreciate that.  I'm not going to lose sleep over it... our rig is paying for itself, and that's about all we can hope for with this economy... I know sound co's that can't say that!

Happy touring with ATL!!  You're going to love Japan!

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David Strebe
Capitol Media Systems

David Strebe

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Re: SB my xy on experience - long and sappy, I know..
« Reply #143 on: March 17, 2009, 03:33:34 AM »

Here's the reaaaaally scary thing... I've actually heard TVI line arrays sound halfway decent.  They're as Chinese as an egg roll.  So it can really go either way with a "real" line array.  It gives what you put into it.

I will say that the best array rig that I have ever mixed on was a tour show in Barcelona Spain.  Big club.  5 large format boxes per side.  No matter how much I pushed it, it sounded clean, flat, and completely devoid of all harshness, even with loud guitar punk rock.  I asked the house engineer what it was and he said it was a small company out of Portugal, and the boxes were loaded with 2x15"s and 3x large ribbon drivers.  Subs were under the stage, and were great too.

I never did get the name of the company, but it was ridiculous clean, punchy and loud sound.  

It was the only show on the tour that didn't leave my ears ringing, but was every bit as loud as the other shows.  

That is what I'm going for with the XYON rig.  I know it'll never quite be there with compression drivers, but it's close.  

High SPLs with ultimate smoothness in the upper mids.
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David Strebe
Capitol Media Systems

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