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[Richard Penrose]

I had the opportunity to a/b the Yamaha DBR12's, FBT X-Lite12a, Alto TS112a and EV ZLX12p's. I was able to have all of these hooked up to an Allen & Heath QU16 via the various outputs. I had all four pairs of speakers turned to 12 o'clock and had the gains + fader levels matched identically on the QU16. I tried a mixture of DJ music, live vocals and keys.
First thing I noticed was the FBT's had a higher output to all the other speakers! The FBT's also had a really nice full range sound with deep bass and crisp detailed top end. The Yamaha DBR12's sounded very dull by comparison but had an equally impressive deep bass extension. The Alto's sounded pretty good considering their price but sounded a little boxy. I simply did not like the sound of the EV's. Whilst they weren't "bad" bad sounding speakers, something didn't sound quite right with these to my ears.
Overall I was most impressed with the FBT's and ended up keeping those. They also look really smart which is good for the corporate gigs I do.

[David Hayes]

My band has been using the crap out of a couple pairs of TS112As for stage monitors.  No issues and we are not particularly gentle on them.  I would never use them as mains but they work well for monitors.  I haven't heard the DBXs, but I wouldn't put them anywhere near the same league as DXRs.  They are $200 boxes after all.

[Craig Leerman]

I've have not heard the DBR boxes but I did a Road Test on the TS115As a while back and was so impressed with the performance at that price level that I have added some to my rental inventory. They get used for speeches, music playback, DJ gigs (with and without Alto 18" subs) and monitors.  Last weekend I rented out a small PA for a kids concert with a TS115A as the floor wedge. The performers loved it.

We have had zero problems with our boxes and have been thinking of adding a pair of the TS110s to the inventory as well. Great bang for the buck.

[Richard Penrose]

Yes the Alto's are really great value for money. I still have a pair of TS110a's which I use for a rehearsal vocal pa. I also use them as monitors when I take the FBT's out and they work great!
I didn't have a problem using the Alto TS112a's for FOH on small acoustic gigs and regularly had compliments on the sound! Saying that, the vocalist's were very experienced session singers who uses Sennehiser 9xx series mic's and have top notch mic technique to boot. The instruments were also high end so this made the Alto's job a LOT easier. The FBT's are a step up from the Alto's though.

I used the FBT X-Lite 12a's on a gig at the weekend for a small vocal group + piano and bass. The vocalists used a variety of mics (Sennheiser E935, EV n/d767a, Shure Beta 58 and a Sennheiser E838) and both the keys and bass went purely through the FBT's with no back line. I used an Allen & Heath QU-PAC mixer to drive the speakers and I absolutely love it!
The vocals sounded extremely clear and detailed and I was very surprised at how full and deep the bass sounded. The piano had a lovely full and rich sound with good presence and clarity. The venue was an old church building and I didn't need to drive the speakers very hard and had masses of headroom left.
Overall I was extremely impressed with how good the FBT's sounded and had lots of compliments on how good the FOH sound was. They are a nice small lightweight alternative to my DXR15's which I love but don't always want/need to use big heavy speakers. It's definitely a good feeling carrying something as light as the the FBT's to a gig!
The DXR15's blew the the Yamaha DBR12's out the room!

[Al Poulin]

I had the opportunity to a/b the Yamaha DBR12's, FBT X-Lite12a, Alto TS112a and EV ZLX12p's. I was able to have all of these hooked up to an Allen & Heath QU16 via the various outputs. I had all four pairs of speakers turned to 12 o'clock and had the gains + fader levels matched identically on the QU16. I tried a mixture of DJ music, live vocals and keys.
First thing I noticed was the FBT's had a higher output to all the other speakers!

First thing you actually noticed was the the FBT had higher gain sensitivity than the other speakers when in the 12 o'clock position. This has no relation to the maximum output the speaker is capable of, but rather means that the speaker will require less signal from the mixer to reach a given SPL level. And of course, when a speaker sounds louder than others you are comparing it too, it will usually sound better to you. To do a proper sound / output comparison, you need to properly level match all speakers (not easy to do) and if you're going to compare output, you need to bring each speaker its limit point - and measure their output at that point and see how they sound when pushed into limiting... I see too many Youtube videos with people just plugging in an MP3 player in two speakers, and then deciding that the one that gets louder with that signal is the louder speaker overall - not taking into account gain sensitivity, different sound settings / modes, applied pre-eq etc.. that will vary from one speaker to another.

Al   

[Richard Penrose]

Hi Al,

I did do a level match as closely as I could get it. Should have mentioned that but presumed people would expect that to happen when comparing speakers. I also tested pushing all the speakers into limiting and I found the Alto's went into limit first followed by the EV ZLX's then the Yamaha's with the FBT's limiting last.

[Al Poulin]

Hi Al,

I did do a level match as closely as I could get it. Should have mentioned that but presumed people would expect that to happen when comparing speakers. I also tested pushing all the speakers into limiting and I found the Alto's went into limit first followed by the EV ZLX's then the Yamaha's with the FBT's limiting last.

It's good that you pushed the speakers up to limit to get a feel for what they are capable of. Most speakers only sound their best with a little EQ applied however, as the amount of pre-eq applied through processing by the manufacturers really varies from one brand to another. Your results are pretty much what I would expect. FBTs are known to have a bright and bassy sound out of the box. They have a very good reputation overall, altough many models are not the most visually appealing...  :-)

Al 

[Richard Penrose]

Yes that's true . Some of the FBT ranges look pretty tacky but the X-Lites actually look very slick. They are quite similar to the EV ZLX in appearance.

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