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[Anton Tumas]

 Hey everyone,

I run a decent sized Danley Sound Labs rig in Los Angeles, doing sound for my own shows, as well as a few local "in the know" promoters. I've been using a QSC HPR181i single 18" powered box to go along with my monitors (Atomic CLR but about to be upgraded to Danley SM80). However, the QSC gets run into the limiter at virtually every show (not enough output). At the last show I decided to use two extra Danley TH118 subs to cover 25-105Hz and then passing off to the monitors, and holy cow, what a game changer! I cannot go back to the QSC now, like ever (see photo of the setup).

My question is, I need to buy two more subs to be used in the booth. I'm looking at the TH118 obviously, as I already have 6 of them, but am I better off going in a different direction? I'd like to phase-align the sub to the tops (it wasn't at the last gig) but everyone seems to think that delaying the DJ monitors (by about 7ms) to be in phase with the subs is a terrible idea and will piss off the DJs that have to beatmatch. Am I better off getting a front-loaded sub for this duty? What design has the lowest group delay. Tried the search but couldn't find much info on this specific topic.

What are some of your favorite booth monitors setups with subs? This is all house and techno, mostly outdoors but some indoor events as well.

[Keith Broughton]

When I setup booth monitors for DJs I tend to use a sub (or2) stacked directly behind the DJ rather than spreading them out.
A single TH118 should be enough for but it never ceases to surprise my just how  loud DJs "need" to run their "booth" monitors.

[Ivan Beaver]

When you consider how many other subs it would take to "keep up" with the output of the TH118s-you can quickly run out of physical space to put them

What you have to "weigh" is the overall difference in getting a good sub to top alignment vs the delay difference in the tops.

Now before the normal "live guys" start to chime in about how little difference there really is, I did have one guy at a festival ask me if I had any delay on the DJ monitor-because he was hearing something that was "off".

I had a couple of ms of delay (to delay the SM80 to the TH118) and when it was removed he was happy.

He had no idea it was there before-but did hear it.

I would "present the argument" that having more low end to really crush the DJ is more important than the "better alignment" between the subs and tops.

So don't delay the SM80s and crush them with low end.

I bet nobody would notice the difference.

Remember that when you have the sub to top level that unbalanced-the ACOUSTIC crossover will be quite a bit higher.  So the "problem area" is raised to a freq that is out of the "important range" for DJ applications.

It would not surprise me if the Acoustic crossover would be in the range of 250 ish Hz in this case.

For those unaware of this type of "imbalance"-the subs will typically be 20-24dB hotter than the mains when run at extreme levels.

That is what I have MEASURED after getting it setup the way people like it to be.

Since EVERYTHING in sound is a compromise-you need to figure out what is overall the best setup.

I WOULD NOT consider mixing other subs into the setup.  This will only make things worse.

With subs (in almost every case) it is far better to simply add more of the same than to try to get different models to work together.

[Jim McKeveny]

...I did have one guy at a festival ask me if I had any delay on the DJ monitor-because he was hearing something that was "off".

I had a couple of ms of delay (to delay the SM80 to the TH118) and when it was removed he was happy.

He had no idea it was there before-but did hear it.

Or did he? Had you answered "No" we could have a test. Or if you did a "phantom" removal of said delay. Lots of brain possibilities at play here.

Give these guys a "thumper" platform beneath their feet, or (if all content is SSD) run the entire sub line from behind them.

If they want visceral, give them visceral..

[Scott Carneval]

A couple things that immediately stand out to me from the picture above...

1. You're concerned with phase-aligning the tops to the subs, but what about the fact that you've got the 'monitor' subs split about 10' apart. That's going to create all sorts of nulls behind the DJ booth.

2. You have the SM80 tops split out to the sides, but the main TH118's clustered in the center. There's no way to align the subs to the tops in this configuration. You can get them aligned in one spot, but they will be out of alignment in every other position throughout the space.

3. With a cluster of 4 x TH118 directly in front of the DJ 'booth', the 'main' subs are probably hitting the DJ just as hard as the 'monitor' subs, so which subs do you align the monitors to?

4. The 'monitor' TH118's positioned slightly behind and rotated 180º from the 'main' subs are without a doubt causing some cancellation issues.

My point is not to criticize your setup in the picture. I just think you're way overthinking things here.  Sound is very much a compromise and most times you just have to live with 'good enough'.

If the DJ is happy with the monitors the way you've set them up, then your job is done.

[Bob Leonard]

Really? More subs for monitors?

[Ivan Beaver]

Or did he? Had you answered "No" we could have a test. Or if you did a "phantom" removal of said delay. Lots of brain possibilities at play here.

Give these guys a "thumper" platform beneath their feet, or (if all content is SSD) run the entire sub line from behind them.

If they want visceral, give them visceral..

It was the way he asked the question to me.  I was pretty sure he actually heard it-at least in the way it was described to me.

I remember taking a class years ago at Biamp and we were playing around with cobranet hops.

I remember putting on headphones and listening to myself through 1 hop.  A little over 3ms.

It "bothered" me a bit.

I have run into a couple (meaning TWO) DJs who had a really good ear and could describe exactly what they were hearing and why.

Regarding subs-it is not just the tactile feeling.   They get that from the main subs.

But what they want is that "baseball bat in the kidney" effect.  You know-like a lot of drummers

What makes a good typical DJ monitor would make a lot of rock bands very happy as a main PA.

[Anton Tumas]

A couple things that immediately stand out to me from the picture above...

1. You're concerned with phase-aligning the tops to the subs, but what about the fact that you've got the 'monitor' subs split about 10' apart. That's going to create all sorts of nulls behind the DJ booth.

The bass in the booth was the best I've heard ever, and I've played in many clubs, festivals, etc. Surely the center cluster of 4 right in front of them helped that as well.

2. You have the SM80 tops split out to the sides, but the main TH118's clustered in the center. There's no way to align the subs to the tops in this configuration. You can get them aligned in one spot, but they will be out of alignment in every other position throughout the space.

This is not my usual setup. I center clustered them so I can use the remaining two subs in the booth for the DJ to feel directly. Either way the sound was great unless you were very close to the tops and off to the side in front of the dance floor.

My point is not to criticize your setup in the picture. I just think you're way overthinking things here.  Sound is very much a compromise and most times you just have to live with 'good enough'.

If the DJ is happy with the monitors the way you've set them up, then your job is done.

I am a DJ as well as the sound guy for my events, and I was VERY happy with this setup. So happy that now I'll be buying two more TH118s for this purpose. I was just trying to gather more info from others to see if there are other improvement areas. I also will delay the tops and play around with it, to see if I can notice the delay myself, so time will tell.

[Scott Carneval]

The bass in the booth was the best I've heard ever, and I've played in many clubs, festivals, etc. Surely the center cluster of 4 right in front of them helped that as well.

This is not my usual setup. I center clustered them so I can use the remaining two subs in the booth for the DJ to feel directly. Either way the sound was great unless you were very close to the tops and off to the side in front of the dance floor.

I am a DJ as well as the sound guy for my events, and I was VERY happy with this setup. So happy that now I'll be buying two more TH118s for this purpose. I was just trying to gather more info from others to see if there are other improvement areas. I also will delay the tops and play around with it, to see if I can notice the delay myself, so time will tell.

This is sort of my point.  Even with all of the things you did 'wrong' it still sounded ok.  So don't get caught up on the fact that the subs HAVE to be aligned to the tops because quite often it just isn't possible, or not practical.

In this case, minimizing the delay in the monitors is probably more important than having the tops perfectly aligned to the subs. Try it again with some delay and let us know the results.

[Len Zenith Jr]

Or did he? Had you answered "No" we could have a test. Or if you did a "phantom" removal of said delay. Lots of brain possibilities at play here.

I'm absolutely sure he did hear it and it has nothing to do with beatmatching with a small delay. I do a lot of DJ shows so here is what is going on:

DJ's use their can's (earphones) to cue up one track in one ear and their monitors to monitor the live track with the other ear. The can's have no delay and the monitors always have a delay (sound travels about 1 foot / ms) so even with no electronic delay on the monitors there will always be about 4-5 ms delay just from the travel time from the monitor to the performer. Our brain uses relative time delay between ears to locate the position of the sound for frequencies between 100 hz - 3.5 khz (above 3.5 khz we use relative volume level between ears to locate the position of the sound). What throws the DJ off is the apparent shift in the location of the sound (imaging) whenever one of his ears goes to the can. When he goes to his can and back quickly the imaging swings wildly to the can side. This causes vertigo so extreme that I have had DJ's not only lose their  balance and fall over but have had DJ's throw up on stage. Where this starts to become problematic is around anything over 10 ms (sound travel time included) between the cans and the monitors in the midrange (100 hz - 3.5 khz). DJ's who have experienced this problem in the past usually now include a clause in their rider about monitors being direct to the mixer without external processing.

[ProSoundWeb Community]