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[John Halliburton]

I managed to be the first user of a pair of these from TC Furlong here in the Chicago area.  The gig was last Saturday in the Winter Garden Room on the 9th floor of the Harold Washington Library-a large "Plus" shape atrium space full of marble floors, open steel ceiling framing lots of glass in lovely arc shapes focusing sound back down all over the place.  The walls have details that break up the flat surface areas, but not enough, and up towards the ceiling it gets very flat and reflective. 
No rack FX needed. ;>)

The stage was 16'x12'x 24", with a 12' high lightweight fabric scrim hanging at the back.  Setup was back into one of the ends of the "plus" sign footprint of the floor.  I don't want to give the wrong impression of the room, it's closer to square really.

The SM96's were mounted on a pair of Ultimate stands off the front corners of the stage, about 7' high to the bottoms of the cabinets.  I had a pair of JTR Growler subs on together on the floor in front of the stage.  They also were a nice monitor stand for the center stage wedge-one of four of the BMS coaxial units.

Coverage worked out very well for this set up.  The center of the room was open for dancing, and seating around the area.

In spite of the reverb and slap, the SM96's sound quality was undeniable.  The band was Billy Branch and the Sons of the Blues, a three time Grammy nominated group, and they had a guest sax player and a guest female vocalist. 

One thing I noted is how things don't disappear in the mix-a vocalist or instrument sometimes drops level or changes timbre and you lose them on some systems-it doesn't happen on these.  The female vocalist, while having a great voice, had a bit too much "mic technique", so I would have to adjust her levels to taste and the mix, but she could always be heard AND understood.  The sax player moved in and out a lot depending on what he was doing, and it worked beautifully in the house mix-you could always hear him easily in the mix, soft or soloing.

Bleed from FOH around to the stage is very minimal-with a horn mouth of 20"x30", the SM96's have great pattern control, especially for such a relatively small cabinet.  At 73lbs., it should be easy enough for most folks to get up on a basic quality stand like the Ultimates.

As one of the guys at Furlong pointed out, having a lift or tall stand of some kind(say the Penn Elcom SAS-4M-36) that would allow downward aiming of the boxes from higher up would be more desireable in this room, minimizing more sound energy from slapping against the upper walls.  I'm afraid I don't see any CLF files on the 96 at the Danley web site yet.

At 98db sens./2.83v/full space, and 1600watt program amp rating(I was using a PLX3602 in stereo, so roughly half of what I could have used), the SM96 can get pretty loud-I know I was not even close at this gig.  I'm looking forward to getting them into the 650 seat theater space I do a lot of work at, and putting the JTR Orbit Shifers under them.

Attached is a very lousy cell phone picture, and you can hopefully make out the SM96 in the upper left on the stand.  I was about 15' away looking at the stage.

Best regards,

John

[John Halliburton]

I did take a photo of one of the SM96's sitting on my workbench, with a cordless drill for scale.

Best regards,

John

[Weogo Reed]

Hi John,

Just now found this review, thanks!

I would find the SM60F and SM96 boxes useful for several gigs I do...

Good health,  Weogo

I did take a photo of one of the SM96's sitting on my workbench, with a cordless drill for scale.

Best regards,

John

[John Halliburton]

Hi John,

Just now found this review, thanks!

I would find the SM60F and SM96 boxes useful for several gigs I do...

Good health,  Weogo

Weogo,

Just found your response. I agree, I'm looking forward to using these more, and hopefully buying a pair this year.

Best regards,

John

[Rick Powell]

Weogo,

Just found your response. I agree, I'm looking forward to using these more, and hopefully buying a pair this year.

Best regards,

John

I tried the SH50 (beautiful sounding box but I fear having to hoist 135 lb. in a one man op) and considered the SM60 or 96 (sounded great in your app, but would it cut the mustard with a full on rock band at a small outdoor show?).  I am waiting for the SM80 12" coax to come out, which will supposedly fill the "dB" void between the SM 60/96 series and the SH50/60/46 series.  It might actually be as loud or louder than the SH50 from what I am told, but by sacrificing sub-100Hz performance - I always use subs anyway, so no big deal.

[John Halliburton]

I tried the SH50 (beautiful sounding box but I fear having to hoist 135 lb. in a one man op) and considered the SM60 or 96 (sounded great in your app, but would it cut the mustard with a full on rock band at a small outdoor show?).  I am waiting for the SM80 12" coax to come out, which will supposedly fill the "dB" void between the SM 60/96 series and the SH50/60/46 series.  It might actually be as loud or louder than the SH50 from what I am told, but by sacrificing sub-100Hz performance - I always use subs anyway, so no big deal.

I think you could do rock shows up to a point, and with subs.  The SM96 is pretty loud, puts more articulate full range sound in the pattern-certainly better than the typical two way trap up on sticks.

As always, it depends.

Attached is a shot of a show handled by Pinnacle Audio up in central Wisconsin.  Matt, the owner, has a pair of SM60's, which you can hopefully just make out up on stands on either side of the stage.  He's used this setup for about two years, with some TH115(IIRC) subs.  I'll shoot him a message, and ask him to comment.

Best regards,

John

[Rick Powell]

Attached is a shot of a show handled by Pinnacle Audio up in central Wisconsin.  Matt, the owner, has a pair of SM60's, which you can hopefully just make out up on stands on either side of the stage.  He's used this setup for about two years, with some TH115(IIRC) subs.  I'll shoot him a message, and ask him to comment.

I also run TH115's one a side.  Powered by Crown xti 6000 on subs and xti 4000 on mains.  Right now I am using JTR triple 8's which do well in small spaces, which I am envisioning going to floor monitor duty.  With similar components as the T8 (two 8"s and a small-dia coax), I am wondering how much of a diffence I would hear with the SM60 or 96 boxes.  I do like the arrayability factor if I ever doubled up.  Being 85 miles west of Chicago, i am close enough to be within driving distance of a Pinnacle Audio provided show - or one of yours for that matter.  Most of what I do is with my own band, and we play a variety of venues, and stylistically ranging from acoustic ballads to alt rock to classic rock; but I do hire out my system from time to time.

[John Halliburton]

I also run TH115's one a side.  Powered by Crown xti 6000 on subs and xti 4000 on mains.  Right now I am using JTR triple 8's which do well in small spaces, which I am envisioning going to floor monitor duty.  With similar components as the T8 (two 8"s and a small-dia coax), I am wondering how much of a diffence I would hear with the SM60 or 96 boxes.  I do like the arrayability factor if I ever doubled up.  Being 85 miles west of Chicago, i am close enough to be within driving distance of a Pinnacle Audio provided show - or one of yours for that matter.  Most of what I do is with my own band, and we play a variety of venues, and stylistically ranging from acoustic ballads to alt rock to classic rock; but I do hire out my system from time to time.

I'm looking at renting the SM96's from Furlong for a show on the 27th, for the 640 seat theater space at one of my regular venues.  It isn't rock though, it'll be the Makem/Spain Brothers, promoting the family tradition of song set down by their famous father and his buddies the Clancy Brothers. 

They will be pretty loud though, but no electric guitars or drum kits. ;>)

Give me a shout if you think you'll head in for the show.

Best regards,

John

[Ivan Beaver]

I also run TH115's one a side.  Powered by Crown xti 6000 on subs and xti 4000 on mains.  Right now I am using JTR triple 8's which do well in small spaces, which I am envisioning going to floor monitor duty.  With similar components as the T8 (two 8"s and a small-dia coax), I am wondering how much of a diffence I would hear with the SM60 or 96 boxes.  I do like the arrayability factor if I ever doubled up.  Being 85 miles west of Chicago, i am close enough to be within driving distance of a Pinnacle Audio provided show - or one of yours for that matter.  Most of what I do is with my own band, and we play a variety of venues, and stylistically ranging from acoustic ballads to alt rock to classic rock; but I do hire out my system from time to time.

I don't know what actual components are in the JTR's-but you can't just go on component size.  There could be a differnce there-quality-power capacity-sensitivity etc

One of the big differences is the fact that all of the drivers on the SM96 (like other Danley products) are mounted on a single horn.  This does several things.  One is pattern control (it goes where you want it-and helps to keep the energy off of hte walls/ceiling-so the sound is clearer/less reflections, it also has "gain"(which means you get more out of the componet than if it was just mounted flat on a baffle). 

Another is that the signal alignment is much better -all the sound gets to you at the same time-yes little differences matter-often more than large offsets.

I have no real experience with the JTR's-so cannot comment on them-particularly sound output SPL.

[Mike Christy]

Just a quick point of reference for the JTR T-8s - just did did an open barn type biker bar -> B-I-K-E-R <- bar and was asked to turn it D-O-W-N down. The T8s do Ok for themselves.

Wish they weren't 90s though.