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[Peter Kowalczyk]

Hi Folks,

Apologies if this has been asked / beaten to death before....

I'm working on a restaurant system design with a few zones and many speakers in each zone.  In addition to BG music, we plan to send live program material to these speakers from performers in an adjacent space.  Music is a part of the restaurant's brand identity, and the owner gives a sh!t, so audio quality is an important consideration.   

I'm wondering about whether to plan to operate the speakers (QSC Acoustic Design series, various models) in their 8-ohm mode, or in their 70V mode.

Obviously, 8-ohm would require more amp channels and more complex wiring.  However, I gather that audio quality can suffer greatly in 70V mode.

- Can you recommend a good resource for learning about and planning 70V systems?

- What 'threshold conditions' would cause you to plan for 70V distribution? 

- For a large number of distributed speakers in their 8-ohm mode, can series/parallel wiring be effectively used to reduce the number of amp channels required? (Assuming the amp's voltage is adequate for SPL required...)

- What else am I not considering?

Thanks all!

[John Roberts {JR}]

Quality should be comparable, and only situation where I might lean 8 Ohm vs 70V would be for dance/trance music because of heavy bass content that is stressful for magnetics that saturate from too much bass content.

There are too many resources to list, have you considered doing a search? (kidding of course not).

JR

[duane massey]

70v, use quality speakers and processing. If you need more bass, use 8ohm ceiling subs in each room.

[Peter Kowalczyk]

Thanks for mitigating my concerns.  High-impedance distribution will certainly be easier to implement.

[Hal Bissinger/COMSYSTEC]

70v, use quality speakers and processing. If you need more bass, use 8ohm ceiling subs in each room.

I second the installation of 8 ohm subs with their own processing because of the live music. Otherwise you could get away with 70v subs.

-Hal

[Josh Millward]

Yes, they are right, 70V systems do not have to suck. However, they are often less than "HiFi" because the cost is reduced too much. Often, the installed wire is too small and the transformers on the loudspeakers are also too small. After all, these are the most expensive parts of the system.

If you use good transformers with wide frequency response and do not try to run sub-sonics through them AND you use good sized wire like a 12 AWG size instead of 18 AWG AND you use decent quality loudspeakers, there is no reason your 70V system can't sound really good.

If you need some low frequency boom in the rooms, then run a low impedance subwoofer to fill in under your 70V distributed loudspeakers. A couple subs can make a world of difference for a sub-par 70V system.

[Ivan Beaver]

70V gets a bad rap, but sometimes it is deserved, due either to the gear or the install.

Basically 70V is just a higher impedance speaker, so you have less loss across the line and can hook up more in parallel.

Allow about 10% overhead is a good idea.

There are some good 70V products out there, along with some really cheap/bad ones.

Don't blame "70V", but rather how the concept is used.

[David Buckley]

Others are right, there is nothing wrong with 70V as a concept, its just the implementation of products is variable, tending towards bad.  The issue is the transformer in the speaker, and sometimes the transformer in the head end, though strictly, one does not need a transformer at the head end, just a big enough amplifier.

These transformers limit, and often seriously limit, both the power handling of the speaker, and the low frequency response.

If you are willing to spend more than the minimum dollar, and prepared to put the wiring effort in, then one can get a very workable solution without the compromises of 70V transformers by using series/parallel wiring arrangements.  Four 8R speakers in series/parallel is still 8R, as is nine speakers in series/parallel, as is sixteen speakers.  Just need an amplifier that can deliver the required wattage into 8R.

[Luke Geis]

I don't believe 70v is inherently bad, it is just misunderstood and often setup incorrectly due to logistical limitations. I.E. 70v is often setup in places where standard 8-16 ohm application may better be suited. To boot, zip wire is used and often too many speakers are ran or improperly set, making things become problematic. Insertion loss is one factor and I can bet that not many installers actually measure the impedance of the speaker leads to ensure that they are in fact within spec. Often the belief is that you can run as many 70v speakers as you wish provided the total wattage  that all the taps are set to don't exceed the amplifiers available wattage. This is untrue if there is enough insertion loss, or you simply have so many speakers that the actual impedance seen at the amplifiers terminals is too low.

The bandwidth limitations of 70v speakers is a very real thing, but again cost and application comes to mind. I would not use 70v in situation that require significant volume at high bandwidth ( such as dance halls ). Often the low impedance counterparts don't fair much better in similar situations with similar designed speakers. For all intents and purposes however, if fidelity and SPL is a need, then 70v is not ideal. If you need high speaker counts with less SPL and amplification, then 70v wins. The weak link with 70v systems is the transformers. Often the speakers within them are the same as the standard low impedance options. Many install speakers actually come so you can choose between 70v and low impedance in one unit. The EV Evid comes to mind as one such unit.

[Hal Bissinger/COMSYSTEC]

70 volt gets a bad rap because it can be and often is installed as the cheapest alternative using the cheapest material available. Spend some money on it and it will rival any 8 ohm system.

If you are willing to spend more than the minimum dollar, and prepared to put the wiring effort in, then one can get a very workable solution without the compromises of 70V transformers by using series/parallel wiring arrangements.  Four 8R speakers in series/parallel is still 8R, as is nine speakers in series/parallel, as is sixteen speakers.

While that is certainly possible I wouldn't want to be the one to install or service a series/parallel distributed speaker arrangement. 

-Hal

[John Roberts {JR}]

While that is certainly possible I wouldn't want to be the one to install or service a series/parallel distributed speaker arrangement. 

-Hal

amen.. think series Christmas tree lights.   

Service time/cost in fixed install is a major concern. Not having to guess what the installer did helps too. If you do a rube goldberg install, document the design tricks and leave copies where they can be found.

JR

[Ivan Beaver]

70 volt gets a bad rap because it can be and often is installed as the cheapest alternative using the cheapest material available. Spend some money on it and it will rival any 8 ohm system.

While that is certainly possible I wouldn't want to be the one to install or service a series/parallel distributed speaker arrangement. 

-Hal

I had to do that once.

A lot of the speakers were wired up out of polarity, different numbers in series etc.

It was a REAL pain, but the customer said it sounded "better than ever" when we were done.

I hope so

[MikeHarris]

i am not a fan of dome tweeters in a system that will be asked to do live...since your owner gives a shit you might move him up to Martin CDD   Ivan may also have some better solutions as well

[David Sturzenbecher]

Does anyone know what magic EV has in their "automatic saturation compensation" feature?  The really hammered on it at infocomm, that the tonality doesn't change the more you load the line down.

https://www.electrovoice.com/technology.php?id=24

[John Roberts {JR}]

Does anyone know what magic EV has in their "automatic saturation compensation" feature?  The really hammered on it at infocomm, that the tonality doesn't change the more you load the line down.

https://www.electrovoice.com/technology.php?id=24

/www.prosoundweb.com/channels/av/tech-focus-automatic-saturation-compensation-asc/

This description suggests a sliding high pass filter at each speaker. The suggestion that "tonality" doesn't change despite a sliding LF cutoff sounds like marketing hyperbole (that's what they do), while arguably we can live with less "loud" very low bass for installed systems. 

Excessive LF content saturating magnetics is a real issue and I addressed it with a patented circuit while designing for that market at Peavey, last century.

US05509080 Roberts

04/16/1996 Bass clipping circuit. This circuit combines a simple clamp diode with a Baxandall tone control circuit to provide frequency selective (bass only) clipping. The benefit is allowing relatively large amounts of bass boost at low level but simultaneous clamping of the bass at high amplitude. Further the clamping of bass frequencies only, allows the high frequencies to mask the clamping. Limiting high amplitude bass frequencies prevents saturation of transformers commonly used in constant voltage distribution systems. This invention was used in several Architectural Acoustics mixer/amp products. Patent assigned to Peavey Electronics.

My approach was extremely cheap (only pennies when added to an existing tone control) and worked quite well. The bass clipper could be calibrated inside mixer/amps to protect that specific amp/transformer. Sonically the bass clipping only occurred at louder levels where the bass boost was not still needed (Fletcher-Munson). Clipping just the bass side of a tone control, effectively masked that clipping with unclipped HF content. I don't claim my system sounds identical (just sounds very good), while it lets the customers have their cake and eat it too (employ full bass boost), without cooking the amp/magnetics when LF levels get hot.

Of course all my children are beautiful (I like my ideas). 

JR

[Ivan Beaver]

/www.prosoundweb.com/channels/av/tech-focus-automatic-saturation-compensation-asc/

This description suggests a sliding high pass filter at each speaker. The suggestion that "tonality" doesn't change despite a sliding LF cutoff sounds like marketing hyperbole (that's what they do), while arguably we can live with less "loud" very low bass for installed systems. 

Excessive LF content saturating magnetics is a real issue and I addressed it with a patented circuit last century while designing for that market at Peavey, last century.

My approach was extremely cheap (only pennies when added to an existing tone control) and worked quite well. The bass clipper could be calibrated inside mixer/amps to protect that specific amp/transformer. Sonically the bass clipping only occurred at louder levels where the bass boost was not still needed (Fletcher-Munson). Clipping just the bass side of a tone control, effectively masked that clipping with unclipped HF content. I don't claim my system sounds identical (just sounds very good), while it lets the customers have their cake and eat it too (employ full bass boost), without cooking the amp/magnetics when LF levels get hot.

Of course all my children are beautiful (I like my ideas). 

JR

Sometimes the simply things make for a better overall "experience".

The key is realizing what is most important to most people.

[John Roberts {JR}]

Sometimes the simply things make for a better overall "experience".

The key is realizing what is most important to most people.

Simple and cheap are two of my favorite things.

JR

[Ivan Beaver]

Simple and cheap are two of my favorite things.

JR

As I like to say, The wheel is pretty simple, still works after all these years.  Hard to improve upon.

[John Roberts {JR}]

As I like to say, The wheel is pretty simple, still works after all these years.  Hard to improve upon.

Not to veer but i noticed just yesterday that flies have not evolved enough to evade fly swatters (cheap and simple still wins) .

JR

[Luke Geis]

Great JR..... Now in 1,000,000 years, flies will be 6' tall and run around with electric fly swatters whacking us as they do so laughing that they not only evolved to avoid swatters, but that they learned to use them.