Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Jeff Lelko]

Hi All,

My search to add a few more Yorkville UCS1s to my inventory has led me to the possibility of picking up a used selection of U15Ps and UCS1Ps.  My question has to do with the amp that lives in these two boxes - what kind of lifespan can be expected from them and are they made by a reputable supplier (QSC, etc.), made in-house, or none of the above?  I know that buying used can often mean replacing components, and I'd rather know ahead of time if the amps on these will need to be swapped out (if replacements are even still available). 

Just to address the obvious, I'm aware that the UCS1 and UCS1P are not identical boxes.  I'm also not interested in taking the discussion beyond these two speakers.  Yes, I know they're old, but right now I'm focused on maintaining what I have until the time is right to invest in a different product line.  Thanks! 

[Douglas R. Allen]

Hi All,

My search to add a few more Yorkville UCS1s to my inventory has led me to the possibility of picking up a used selection of U15Ps and UCS1Ps.  My question has to do with the amp that lives in these two boxes - what kind of lifespan can be expected from them and are they made by a reputable supplier (QSC, etc.), made in-house, or none of the above?  I know that buying used can often mean replacing components, and I'd rather know ahead of time if the amps on these will need to be swapped out (if replacements are even still available). 

Just to address the obvious, I'm aware that the UCS1 and UCS1P are not identical boxes.  I'm also not interested in taking the discussion beyond these two speakers.  Yes, I know they're old, but right now I'm focused on maintaining what I have until the time is right to invest in a different product line.  Thanks!

Jeff;

  I have the very similar EF500p tops and Ls801pb subs.  These amp sections are made by Yorkville in house. My tops are 12-13 years old with never a problem. Subs are newer, maybe 5 years old I purchased used.  I had a set of Ls800p's that were even older than my tops but sold them years ago to a local DJ and they are still going strong with no issues. 
 There is a lot of Yorkville stuff around my area.  I keep my stuff stored in a heated room to a heated van but I see bands/DJ's store them in a trailer at 20 below and turned on after a short ( or no )  warm up time and used, year after year.
I've honestly never heard of an amp failure in my area. Yorkville/ Long & McQuade have been building products as long as I can remember. Around 1965 or so anyway and seem to make solid products.

Douglas R. Allen

[Jeremy Young]

Hi Jeff, when I got into this industry I was working at a Pro Audio shop that also handled instrument/amp/mixer repairs for a lot of the local music stores, Long & McQuade included.  Since they are a sister company to Yorkville, a lot of their rental fleet (see: dry hires to people who can barely screw in a lightbulb, or musicians with small budgets and very little care) was made up of Yorkville product so a lot of it made its way through our shop needing a little TLC.  If I see another NX55P in my lifetime it will be too soon.

My take away was that the cabinet building was solid but the amplifiers were quite heavy (compared to modern class-d designs) and fairly complex (from what our electronics engineers told me).  Lots of ribbon cables inside which always made me a little nervous (from bad experiences with Mackie ribbon cable issues, which may or may not mean anything at all).

I was new to electronics so I just handled replacement of jacks/pots etc - which was the largest percentage of what we were dealing with from people mis-handling them, never had any issues with cabinet construction and very few driver failures in the scheme of things.  Still a very limited sample size so YMMV. 

They have schematics on their website for all of their electronics (a blessing for our techs compared to prying that information from other brands so we could troubleshoot at the component level) and were always able to get us whatever parts were required, but they are definitely made in-house at Yorkville. 


If I were in your shoes debating investing in more quantity of a "legacy" product, I would give a call or e-mail to Yorkville directly and find out from them what their support is going to look like going forward. If you don't get a response, I'd take that as a sign of things to come.

[Jeff Lelko]

Thanks Douglass and Jeremy, this is exactly the type of information I was looking for. 

To give a bit of context, I'm still casually planning to grow my sound system over the next few years as discussed in this thread from September 2017.  I ended up buying a new mixer first a few months ago (and did go with a dLive), and still plan to move forward with a speaker purchase within the next year or two.  While my tops still work well enough for the jobs I play (QSC HPRs), my subs are running very hard to keep up...hence my plan to buy a few more as a stopgap measure to hold me over until the new system.  That's really why I'm only looking at more UCS1s and not a more modern option since the cost to invest in the right number of boxes wouldn't make sense with a larger purchase planned within a relatively short period of time.  For the right price I see this as a good idea, but also why I ask the question about the amps and overall longevity as I don't want a stopgap measure to turn into a black hole of money spending to maintain!  Thanks again!

[Jeremy Young]

Hi Jeff, sounds like a reasonable, responsible plan!  If you've got the inventory and just need a little more headroom, more of the same makes complete sense, especially if you're planning an inventory overhaul in the near future.  I said the amps are heavy, but when living in a sub that has tilt-back casters it's not really a big deal.
 Especially considering you're already lifting HPR's on top.  Congrats on the dLive!

[Richard Turner]

http://yorkville.com/downloads/servman/sm_ucs1p.pdf?v=1365089965

Its a bit scary that they are rating 1500 watt output from 2 pairs of MJ21195/6 transistors but it is a LF only amp

as for service after production Yorkville is one of the best in the business. If you ship it back to Pickering Ontario it will be worked on by someone who likely was involved in making it no matter how old it is. If parts aren't obsolete worldwide they will be able to repair. Bench rate is fair (ballpark $85/hr CDN) could be more now. no freight on parts as they are in house and no paying for someone to learn something they haven't seen before. Plus they will actually do a real world test of the gear. I sent an AP3000 amp to them in 2015. I thought it was toast as these amps grenade pretty bad when they go down. Local tech estimated $600 to repair and no ETA for completion. Total invoice including freight both ways (through Long Mcquade store) was under 250 taxes in. And that amp tech noted it had been held back 2 days. He left it in a back room in operation to make sure nothing else was gong to fail as it was pushing 20 years old. The kicker. turn around was 11 days including 4 days freight and a weekend.

[Douglas R. Allen]

Thanks Douglass and Jeremy, this is exactly the type of information I was looking for. 

To give a bit of context, I'm still casually planning to grow my sound system over the next few years as discussed in this thread from September 2017.  I ended up buying a new mixer first a few months ago (and did go with a dLive), and still plan to move forward with a speaker purchase within the next year or two.  While my tops still work well enough for the jobs I play (QSC HPRs), my subs are running very hard to keep up...hence my plan to buy a few more as a stopgap measure to hold me over until the new system.  That's really why I'm only looking at more UCS1s and not a more modern option since the cost to invest in the right number of boxes wouldn't make sense with a larger purchase planned within a relatively short period of time.  For the right price I see this as a good idea, but also why I ask the question about the amps and overall longevity as I don't want a stopgap measure to turn into a black hole of money spending to maintain!  Thanks again!

Jeff; 

    Sounds to me like you have a good plan as well to fill in the gap until you move on or up as it may be.
If they are at the right price and you can demo them to see if they are in correct working order you should be fine. Mine have been tough as nails.
Should you be looking for new tops in the future I went from my EF500p's to Db Technologies IG4T's. A step up for me. Contact Mike Pyle who is on here from time to time for pricing on these or the other lines he carries. A good person to deal with ;-).     With the added Yorkville inventory you may find you have plenty of time to go in a different direction so take your time and let us know how it worked out.

Kindest Regards;
Douglas R. Allen

[Weogo Reed]

Hi Jeff,

In 2008 I installed a pair of U15Ps in a venue that is heated but doesn't have air conditioning.
They are used about 5 hours a week, 30 hours a week over the summer, and some special events.

Service has been once a year checking the rigging,
vacuuming and then blowing out the speakers, and
exercising all the controls and connections.

They sound good, pretty much like they did ten years ago.
Zero issues with the amps or anything else.

For a portable system I would be considering other boxes.

Good health,  Weogo

[Jeff Lelko]

Thanks again guys, more great information!  Yes, less weight would certainly be nice but for the time being it's what I have.  I've been lifting the HPRs and rolling the UCS1s for 10 years now so I think another 1 or 2 more years won't kill me...hopefully! 

Should you be looking for new tops in the future I went from my EF500p's to Db Technologies IG4T's. A step up for me. Contact Mike Pyle who is on here from time to time for pricing on these or the other lines he carries. A good person to deal with ;-).     With the added Yorkville inventory you may find you have plenty of time to go in a different direction so take your time and let us know how it worked out.

You definitely hit the nail on the head here.  I'm hoping that the added inventory will add a bit of breathing room so that I can take my time when choosing whether or not to really take the next step up - which is a big one.  Right now Danley, Fulcrum, and RCF are at the top of my list of contenders, but you're not the first to suggest I look into Db Technologies either.  As luck would have it I made my initial Yorkville purchase from Mike!  I've already reached out to him to see if he was aware of any "new old stock" of Unity products laying around anywhere or even gently used, but no luck.  I have a few leads via other sites, hence wanted to ask the questions here before buying since I trust the advice I'm given on PSW the most and know there are still a few other Yorkville users floating around on here.  I haven't committed to anything yet, so if anyone following along has some Unity boxes they're looking to move send over a PM!  Thanks again!       

[ProSoundWeb Community]