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Author Topic: My beloved DSR112 not well  (Read 68666 times)

Tim McCulloch

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Re: My beloved DSR112 not well
« Reply #150 on: March 04, 2018, 06:32:30 PM »

I've been through five (5) consoles in the past 10 years, but have continued to use, and will still continue to use my SRX-7xx rig and older analog big iron amps. Like Ivan said, buy good tools and be done with it. I've lived my life adhering to that mentality. I have Craftsman, Porter cable, Milwaukee, and other quality tools dating back to the 50's, still as good and productive as the day they were purchased, including the sabre saw that was my fathers and bought in 1952.

Most people on this forum know about my rig, good for about 1500 people, dual system for vocals and backline, SRX725's, 718's, QSC amplifiers, DBX 4800 DSP, and now a Soundcraft Performer with stage box replacing my last board, the only part of the system upgraded in 10-12 years.

None of these components were budget components, but the system has paid for itself many, many times over. I don't mind pushing a heavy rack vs. pushing a light one, so maybe that's the real difference here.

I tend to agree that pushing a heavier rack of stuff that does the job well is better than pushing a less weighty rack full of compromises (or no rack at all).  We get to exercise our preferences regarding the cost/size/weight/performance ratios that make sense for our individual uses.

Pound for pound, Watt for Watt, amplifiers have gotten much lighter (whether they're better is another discussion, for sure), woodworking and cabinet designs have gotten a little lighter, and transducers have gotten lighter (neo), power consumption is lower, DSP is more advanced, etc.  It's a great time to be in audio.

Your rig is perfect for what you need it to do.  Some folks here might think it overkill or "audio obesity" but you've got a top notch system to support your high end performances and musicians, and it obviously pleases your band's clients.  Rawk on, Dude! 8)
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"If you're passing on your way, from Palm Springs to L.A., Give a wave to good ol' Dave, Say hello to progress and goodbye to the Moonlight Motor Inn." - Steve Spurgin, Moonlight Motor Inn

Tim McCulloch

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Re: My beloved DSR112 not well
« Reply #151 on: March 04, 2018, 07:31:31 PM »

Reply to general nature of this topic in re: service, reliability, support.

Ugg.  As owner of a pair of lowly DBR112 (they're crap, I was told here, hehehehe) with a 7 year warranty, it kind of pained me to see what Debby had to do to get Yamaha's attention let alone a resolution.  While the service facility was initially lying to her it was the inability to get a response of any kind from Yamaha that was frustrating to watch.  As a company manager our Yamaha products are digital mixers and support for them has been pretty good.  These days we mostly buy faders and don't need engineering support.

How do other companies do?  My experiences in no particular order or ranking:

Music Group/Tribe/Whateva - They replaced the bad fader on my X32 when it was 2 weeks out of warranty and I didn't have to ask or plead.  Had another problem with the internal computer which they handled as warranty, also.  The tech support when the computer failed wasn't Venue-level (see down page) because they wanted to see it at the Care shop (odd failure, I guess) so no instructions on how to open it up and poke around... but they emailed an RMA.  If they give you an RMA, ship today... I had to wait to ship it back to them and for some reason the RMA was "no longer in the system" because the product hadn't arrived within 10 days of issue.  Normally I'd growl about this but was able to take care of it with a phone call to Las Vegas that was eventually handled by a human, all in about 20 minutes. 

JBL "Professional" should be renamed "JBL - not for your home or car" as it seems to get everything from the crappy JRX to very-nice-indeed Venue Precision as a part of the family tree.  Talk about having ugly siblings...  Anyway I've found parts support hit and miss but I'm buying stuff for original VerTec models that are soon to be EOL so there's that.  For all SKUs - if they have it in stock in Northridge you're golden; if not you're SOL until they restock which could be weeks or months.  We haven't needed product engineering support in a long time so I've no idea what it's like these days but the take away is that I can usually get a human response to a phone call within a business day cycle.

Crown used to be phenomenal but lately it's tough to get a fast response unless you know the direct phone number to the person you need to talk to.  You'll get an answer back but it won't be today and probably not tomorrow.  I've no idea how they do with email.  The Elkhart factory is closing in stages this year; factory service appears to be done in Tijuana with shipping through a Harman depot in San Diego (Hi, Carmen!).  We're happy Crown owners - our I-Tech HDs have been good to us, all 52 of them.

By far the best support I use comes from AVID Venue (sorry, ProTools folks).  24/7 phone number that forwards your VM to a tech who will call you back in 15 minutes or so.  They can walk you through trouble shooting or field service ("remove the 23 screws that hold the fader tray in place...") of faders, internal connections, RAM & hard drive, PSU...  And IIRC they can take orders for parts.  Great support folks at AVID is part of why I'd like my next FOH console to be the *mythical* Venue S4L (reading, AVID?).

Crest Audio (New Jersey era) service and support were great.

Rane was great but recent reports from others say it's not like the Olde Dayz.

QSC has a great service & support reputation but we're not QSC users so all I know is what I read.

There ya go, about 10 years worth of official contacts with brand service and support and some anecdotals.  I don't know what kind of response I'd get if I called Yamaha with an escalating issue regarding the DBR112, compared to support for a PM or CL-series digital mixer.
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"If you're passing on your way, from Palm Springs to L.A., Give a wave to good ol' Dave, Say hello to progress and goodbye to the Moonlight Motor Inn." - Steve Spurgin, Moonlight Motor Inn

Steve Crump

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Re: My beloved DSR112 not well
« Reply #152 on: March 04, 2018, 08:36:28 PM »

I think the question for many of us (myself included) is whether or not things become less reliable when the amp lives with the speaker. Crown, Yamaha... I've never had a problem with their rack mounted power amps. But put a Crown in a JBL cab, or a Yamaha in a DSR, and things seem to be different.

I've been laughed at before for suggesting that the vibrations of a speaker cab could be detrimental to the health of the amp modules inside, but I still think there's something to it.

Don't get me wrong - I'd love to go active. But with the exception of my monitors, I'm staying passive for awhile longer.

I have some active, but mostly passive gear.
Almost everyone I know has either went totally active or on the way, (they have active tops and waiting to convert over from passive to active on subs etc.)
One of the guys I know who gigs full time has had failures, seems like at least once a year, and right now I am waiting on him to bring a second sub over so I can try to figure out why it keeps blowing fuses. I already have one of his subs to look at that is rattling and it seems to be something related to the amp assembly. But compared to all the people using active gear, the failure rates seem low, as a matter of fact, his subs are getting some age on them and you couldn’t talk him into passive.

I called one of the large speaker manufacturer not long ago trying to locate any left over inventory of a recently discontinued sub. I ended up routed to the service dept and spoke with a very well informed tech who gave me a 40 year history and what is being planned down the road. His opinion of active was kind of harsh, he didn’t pull punches, he said it was like putting your amp in a box with a jack hammer.
« Last Edit: March 04, 2018, 08:42:27 PM by Steve Crump »
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Scott Bolt

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Re: My beloved DSR112 not well
« Reply #153 on: March 06, 2018, 08:16:46 PM »

Update:

Picked up my speaker.  Tested it with the test recording, ran it up to the limit lights and .... WOOT!  It is fixed. 

Hope you get things ironed out fast Debbie.
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Debbie Dunkley

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Re: My beloved DSR112 not well
« Reply #154 on: March 06, 2018, 08:53:19 PM »

Update:

Picked up my speaker.  Tested it with the test recording, ran it up to the limit lights and .... WOOT!  It is fixed. 

Hope you get things ironed out fast Debbie.

Good news Scott. I got a call today that the amp is in but won't be able to drop it off till Friday probably. Good news for me so far too .....
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Stephen Kirby

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Re: My beloved DSR112 not well
« Reply #155 on: March 06, 2018, 09:05:21 PM »

His opinion of active was kind of harsh, he didn’t pull punches, he said it was like putting your amp in a box with a jack hammer.
I've considered this.  But then again I built the Head Up Displays and processors for the A10 Warthog (with the 30mm Gatling gun that literally arrests the plane's flight) and the Cobra attack helicopter (helicopters don't really fly, they vibrate so badly the ground rejects them  ;) ) so I know it can be done.  Currently I have passive subs and the only upgrade I'm considering would be TH118s which are also passive.  Having run sine sweeps on circuit boards with a differential strobe light I've seen just what kind of vibration they can tolerate.  And I'm not really worried about that aspect of my DSRs.
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Rick Powell

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Re: My beloved DSR112 not well
« Reply #156 on: March 06, 2018, 10:30:34 PM »

I've considered this.  But then again I built the Head Up Displays and processors for the A10 Warthog (with the 30mm Gatling gun that literally arrests the plane's flight) and the Cobra attack helicopter (helicopters don't really fly, they vibrate so badly the ground rejects them  ;) ) so I know it can be done.  Currently I have passive subs and the only upgrade I'm considering would be TH118s which are also passive.  Having run sine sweeps on circuit boards with a differential strobe light I've seen just what kind of vibration they can tolerate.  And I'm not really worried about that aspect of my DSRs.

I recall Ivan Beaver talking about a powered prototype of the Danley Jericho speaker with 6-18’s and other assorted midrange and horn speakers, and that the vibrations at full tilt pretty much tore up the amp modules, so the idea was scrapped.
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Steve Crump

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Re: My beloved DSR112 not well
« Reply #157 on: March 07, 2018, 06:23:27 AM »

I've considered this.  But then again I built the Head Up Displays and processors for the A10 Warthog (with the 30mm Gatling gun that literally arrests the plane's flight) and the Cobra attack helicopter (helicopters don't really fly, they vibrate so badly the ground rejects them  ;) ) so I know it can be done.  Currently I have passive subs and the only upgrade I'm considering would be TH118s which are also passive.  Having run sine sweeps on circuit boards with a differential strobe light I've seen just what kind of vibration they can tolerate.  And I'm not really worried about that aspect of my DSRs.


I really don’t doubt that Yamaha does feel secure in their design or it probably wouldn’t have such a good warranty. At the very least, Yamaha has calculated a certain failure rate into the cost of their speaker. I myself have a DBR and also some RCF active. I see first hand the reliability of active gear and I can’t argue against that, but comparing military grade hardware to an MI grade speaker doesn’t seem a fair comparison.
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Stephen Kirby

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Re: My beloved DSR112 not well
« Reply #158 on: March 07, 2018, 05:09:14 PM »


I really don’t doubt that Yamaha does feel secure in their design or it probably wouldn’t have such a good warranty. At the very least, Yamaha has calculated a certain failure rate into the cost of their speaker. I myself have a DBR and also some RCF active. I see first hand the reliability of active gear and I can’t argue against that, but comparing military grade hardware to an MI grade speaker doesn’t seem a fair comparison.
Much of the military reliability testing has filtered down to consumer products.  At least within the name brands.  We don't test a smart speaker for 40,000' altitude performance, but things get shook, thermal cycled and shocked pretty substantially.  Every factory I've been in in China has rel labs with tons of test equipment.  Every time the least little thing in changed, like the supplier for some minor component, the entire protocol is repeated.  Things we had to invent 30 years ago to do reliability tests are now low cost off the shelf.
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Aaron Maurer

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Re: My beloved DSR112 not well
« Reply #159 on: March 10, 2018, 11:51:30 AM »

Picked up my DSR112 yesterday from the repair shop. They replaced the circuit board. It’s powered up at this point with no noise. Will be taking the speaker out next week and will follow up if I have an issue.
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Re: My beloved DSR112 not well
« Reply #159 on: March 10, 2018, 11:51:30 AM »


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