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[Scott Gentry]

Newbie "ish looking for help. Been running a small system for occasional group of friends that come over and jam. System has Allen and Heath mix wizard 4, was running from mixer to powered mains, 2-Yamaha DXR12's, and 2- JBL PRX718XLF's. Wasn't a bad setup, but decided to upgrade the mains to a set of SRX835's, with later plans for two SRX828's. plugged in the 835's from the mixer and was expecting to be impressed, I wasn't. I've heard good things from most reviews on that model, but to me the speakers are very "undynamic" straight out of the box. I haven't used the audio architect or SRX connect to try and alter the stock settings, but to me they sound choked down. I have to run the mixer outputs up at least 10 db higher on the master faders to get the same level of output I was getting with the dxr's. I added a driverack venue 360 in attempts to inprove things, and I did notice an improvement in eq, but the output is now even lower. Perhaps I'm just ignorant, but I expected the SRX835 to be a significant improvement from the DXR and I'm not hearing it so far. I'm going to assume this is from my lack of expertise, and not the product, but my perceptions to this point are that the jbl wizardry seems to be a bit intrusive. I guess my question is... anything that I should try?

[Brian_Henry]

Hi,

The first thing you need to do is to change your screen name to your real name as indicated by the rules when you signed up. Please see:

http://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/topic,234.0.html

Many will not offer any assistance until you have complied out of respect for the rules and the professionals that donate their time here. Once fixed, I'm sure you will receive expert replies to your question.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Scott Holtzman]

Newbie "ish looking for help. Been running a small system for occasional group of friends that come over and jam. System has Allen and Heath mix wizard 4, was running from mixer to powered mains, 2-Yamaha DXR12's, and 2- JBL PRX718XLF's. Wasn't a bad setup, but decided to upgrade the mains to a set of SRX835's, with later plans for two SRX828's. plugged in the 835's from the mixer and was expecting to be impressed, I wasn't. I've heard good things from most reviews on that model, but to me the speakers are very "undynamic" straight out of the box. I haven't used the audio architect or SRX connect to try and alter the stock settings, but to me they sound choked down. I have to run the mixer outputs up at least 10 db higher on the master faders to get the same level of output I was getting with the dxr's. I added a driverack venue 360 in attempts to inprove things, and I did notice an improvement in eq, but the output is now even lower. Perhaps I'm just ignorant, but I expected the SRX835 to be a significant improvement from the DXR and I'm not hearing it so far. I'm going to assume this is from my lack of expertise, and not the product, but my perceptions to this point are that the jbl wizardry seems to be a bit intrusive. I guess my question is... anything that I should try?

Please change your display name to your real name, this was noted on the sign in page.  Take the drive rack back, the speakers have v5 processing built in so it is unneeded.  Once you update your name we can help.

[Scott Gentry]

Please change your display name to your real name, this was noted on the sign in page.  Take the drive rack back, the speakers have v5 processing built in so it is unneeded.  Once you update your name we can help.

Name changed, my apologies. I don't think the driverack will be easily returned, place I bought it from is more of a distributor, and price accordingly, but don't really do "I changed my mind " returns, only defects. That being said I'm sure it has some advantages for me, although redundant from what I understand in audio architect, some of the wizard setups can be a plus for me, I think. Ive contacted both JBL and DBX and didn't get great answers, just referenced me to the help guide for both.i also purchased the rta mic to help get things at least started in hopefully the right direction.

[Scott Holtzman]

Name changed, my apologies. I don't think the driverack will be easily returned, place I bought it from is more of a distributor, and price accordingly, but don't really do "I changed my mind " returns, only defects. That being said I'm sure it has some advantages for me, although redundant from what I understand in audio architect, some of the wizard setups can be a plus for me, I think. Ive contacted both JBL and DBX and didn't get great answers, just referenced me to the help guide for both.i also purchased the rta mic to help get things at least started in hopefully the right direction.

Thanks for updating your info.  The Drive Rack has no advantage for you it is vastly inferior to the onboard processing and will only exacerbate your gain staging issues. 

You need to run the software, get the gains set correctly and take a look at the processing built into the speaker.

My guess is you are way underdriving the speaker and have tried to make it up on the back end with gain bringing the whole noise floor up with it and killing your dynamic range. 

[Scott Gentry]

Thanks for updating your info.  The Drive Rack has no advantage for you it is vastly inferior to the onboard processing and will only exacerbate your gain staging issues. 

You need to run the software, get the gains set correctly and take a look at the processing built into the speaker.

My guess is you are way underdriving the speaker and have tried to make it up on the back end with gain bringing the whole noise floor up with it and killing your dynamic range.

Ok, makes sense to me. Jbl felt the driverack would help to optimize things so I made the purchase. Today dbx suggested removing all dsp from the mains and reconfiguring everything through the driverack. It's a Venue 360 and I do like some of the configuration options, but must admit the leveling issue has gotten worse, not better, although that's just a first pass with it if you will.
Typically I would run the gain on mixer input channels to just where it starts to clip, and then back off slightly. I do keep a watchful eye on the board and feel confident Im not clipping there. In the past I'd just set the powered speakers to unity, and use the master faders to adjust output. I also have a dedicated mono fader which is a sum of the left and right outputs to feed the subs. I've never pushed the mixer above zero db on the master faders and had plenty of output. Recently, since running a bass directly to the mixer, with a sans amp, I did start to find the limitations to the previous setup, hence the new purchase. When I unplugged the dxr's and plugged in the SRX's, there was an immediate drop in mains output.
I've read a previous thread on this forum about adjusting the makeup gain in the SRX connect app, but I didn't fully comprehend everything in that step. I can say that the SRX input sensitivity is set to line, which I feel is correct. There is a consumer setting, which adds I think 12db, and then mic, which I'm sure wouldn't be used.
In summary, I think my mixer is set right, so where in the SRX settings should I be checking / adjusting?

[Stelios Mac]

First of all I'll agree with everyone else and recommend you go without the Driverack and let the speakers handle all DSP functionality. Unless you really need it for reasons other than gain adjustment...
The manual for the SRX boxes lists the maximum input level as:
20dBu for Line
8 dBu for Consumer
-4dBu for Mic.
Also the manual for your mix wiz states it'll output +4dBu when the VUs are reading 0.
Based on that, what I would do is set the speakers to Consumer mode and keep in mind I'm very close to my ceiling when hitting +3 on the board.
Also, don't hesitate to use one of the available apps to monitor how your system is performing while mixing. It'll help you understand where your problem lies and correct your gain staging.

[Dave Pluke]

Jbl felt the driverack would help to optimize things so I made the purchase.

Whoever "Jbl" might be in this instance, I guess they could sell ice to an Eskimo...

Today dbx suggested removing all dsp from the mains and reconfiguring everything through the driverack.

TOTALLY wrong advice, IMHO.  Don't get me wrong - I have, and like the VENU360, but it is redundant in this situation.  The internal DSP on the 835's is all you need and is what you should be focusing on.  Get those dialed in properly and the only thing you'd need is a simple crossover to your (current) subs.  Once you get the SRX828's, even that will be unnecessary.

Dave

[Thomas Le]

Any distributor should allow returns, contact them again to try to return the VENU360. That's bad business on their part.

[TJ (Tom) Cornish]

Newbie "ish looking for help. Been running a small system for occasional group of friends that come over and jam. System has Allen and Heath mix wizard 4, was running from mixer to powered mains, 2-Yamaha DXR12's, and 2- JBL PRX718XLF's. Wasn't a bad setup, but decided to upgrade the mains to a set of SRX835's, with later plans for two SRX828's. plugged in the 835's from the mixer and was expecting to be impressed, I wasn't. I've heard good things from most reviews on that model, but to me the speakers are very "undynamic" straight out of the box. I haven't used the audio architect or SRX connect to try and alter the stock settings, but to me they sound choked down. I have to run the mixer outputs up at least 10 db higher on the master faders to get the same level of output I was getting with the dxr's. I added a driverack venue 360 in attempts to inprove things, and I did notice an improvement in eq, but the output is now even lower. Perhaps I'm just ignorant, but I expected the SRX835 to be a significant improvement from the DXR and I'm not hearing it so far. I'm going to assume this is from my lack of expertise, and not the product, but my perceptions to this point are that the jbl wizardry seems to be a bit intrusive. I guess my question is... anything that I should try?

Hi Scott - welcome to the forum.

We need to divide this discussion into two pieces - your level issues with the SRX boxes, and whether the Venue360 is beneficial.  We also need to separate the concept of input sensitivity from speaker capability.

Starting with the last first - for whatever reason, JBL made the (IMO) dubious decision to design the SRX boxes with a 26dB gain, rather than 32dB that is more common for devices of this type.  What this means is you need to drive the SRX boxes with a louder signal to get equivalent output compared to a speaker like the Yamaha DXR12.  This has nothing to do with the acoustical output ability of the speakers; it simply means you need to turn the send level to the SRX boxes up compared to other products.

There are several ways to turn up the level on the SRX boxes - you can move to "consumer" mode as Stelios suggested which adds about 10dB of gain, or you can simply turn both the input channel gain up and the master volume up.  I forget which, but one of them goes to +6.0dB, which should make up most of the level discrepancy.  Or you can do it by adding gain in your Driverack.

The final question is whether the Venu360 adds anything for you.  I will dissent from the other posters and say yes it does.  It isn't required for your SRX boxes as they have internal DSP, however your current subs do not have user-adjustable processing in them, so using the Driverack gives you processing for your subs and a convenient single place to adjust your mains as well.

Note that in the case of your subs and especially your SRX boxes, they already have some internal processing, and the SRX boxes have very substantial processing. In the case of your SRX boxes, only some of the processing is accessible to you; the rest of it is a black box that provides driver protection and very advanced tuning to make the box sound good with no other effort.  You can zero out any DSP changes you've made in the SRX boxes, but you can't "remove" all of the processing that the manufacturer put there, and you certainly wouldn't want to if you could.

As to how to fix your issues - you need to dig in to gain structure.  I can assure you the SRX boxes have SIGNIFICANTLY more output capability than the Yamaha DXR series; you need to figure out where your lack of gain is.  Start with adjusting the SRX boxes to +6.0dB input gain.  From there if you want more, you can go to the output channels of the Driverack and add gain there.

The second stage of this is to do some alignment between your subs and mains - something that the Driverack will help you with.  You can read up on how to do a basic nulling alignment by ear, or you can have someone help you use a measurement system to get this setup.

If you post your location, there may be someone nearby who would be willing to stop over and help you get all of this running.

[ProSoundWeb Community]