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[Matthew Knischewsky]

Well hopefully ill be able to survive working with all this "wrong doing" that's going on around here. Some times i just wanna change things but I need my job lol

As others have suggested, there's nothing wrong with running VRX932 passive. For my applications the slight sonic improvement from bi-amping is outweighed by the loss of the function of the HF attenuation controls on each cabinet. Using the -3, 0 and (rarely) + 3 dB  settings are crucial to my workflow. Using 2x VRX932 per side you'll want the bottom box at -3 and the top at 0.

Also, don't be afraid of starting flat with these boxes in passive mode. The only thing that's really necessary to get started with VRX over SRX 728 (or 718) is a crossover and a bit of time to listen and find a balance between the mains and sub. There's a few small EQ adjustments that should be done in DSP but there's no reason why they can't be done with the console or graphic EQ if necessary. Using the DR260 may I suggest the following:
L/R 24 slopes
SRX728:
HPF 31Hz,
LPF 80 Hz,
VRX932:
HPF 100Hz.

I cannot tell you the number of times I have flattened out some truly wacky settings and just started from scratch. There's a lot of poo-pooing of the VRX going on in this forum and others - yes there are some inherent flaws, and yes they often get used inappropriately- but no other single loudspeaker has been as profitable for me since they've been released. If there was another speaker that worked well enough in as many different situations at the price point I would be using it.

Matt
 

[Eddie Ybarra]

I definitely wanna do a shoot out when I get a chance. To at least it just sounds “not right” I don’t know how else to describe it. With the 12s crossed over so high it just doesn’t sound natural. If anyone here has the time to try it for the fun of it maybe you can get what I’m saying. 

[Luke Geis]

Form over function is sadly common in our industry. The VRX and similar boxes are popular because the market-speak and some unscrupulous companies sell them as being something they are not. The form of the box is appealing and is modular, hence scalable. This adds some value to them. Being as how sound is so subjective, despite the VRX's shortcomings, it will always sound good enough to someone. Not that they are so horrible sounding it should be a crime, but relatively speaking they are not great sounding boxes. The QSC KLA is even worse in my opinion, but a recent show I did with them definitely showed me that there is at least something to having a full-size CC array. 

The active function of the VRX is useless in my finding and running them in passive mode yields all the performance you're going to reasonably get from them. The larger the array you can make them the better; they do not work well as single or a small two box setup. As I recall, when I was playing with them in active mode, I believe 1.4khz was where I found them to work well when using a 24db slope ( I didn't have 48db slopes available at the time ). After many shows and always trying to find a cure, myself and my coworker decided to try passive for a bit. Much to our dismay, we found that the performance was the same, but we spent less time messing with crap. We found more usefulness in amplitude shading the array. Since we had more amps now available, we could run each speaker on its own amp channel and it was much easier to manage and you could EQ the boxes differently too with the available DSP we had.

[Matthew Knischewsky]

The larger the array you can make them the better; they do not work well as single or a small two box setup.

Different experiences with these boxes are interesting and I wonder if it's due to different applications. I've found 2 boxes to sound best, while any number above 3 becomes increasingly detrimental.

You've hit the nail on the head with the scale-ability of the system.

[Luke Geis]

Don't get me wrong, the issues they have still exist, it's just that when going with a 5 box array of these things, you have a lot of tuning options that can make it work. You can shade ( lower the volume ) and EQ the lower boxes differently, you can EQ the top boxes differently and you can even just turn a box or two essentially off if needed. My finding is that you need at the very minimum, two boxes if you want them to sound and work decently at all. With more, you get a bit more oomph and you can EQ them to be more pleasing and have pretty good SPL at reasonable distances.

[Eddie Ybarra]

The most we use is 3 boxes a side, one set up has 3 xti6002 amps for one amp channel per box. None bi amp and it just sounds better but also its said that it makes everything more efficient could some one shed some light on that.

[Tim McCulloch]

Don't get me wrong, the issues they have still exist, it's just that when going with a 5 box array of these things, you have a lot of tuning options that can make it work. You can shade ( lower the volume ) and EQ the lower boxes differently, you can EQ the top boxes differently and you can even just turn a box or two essentially off if needed. My finding is that you need at the very minimum, two boxes if you want them to sound and work decently at all. With more, you get a bit more oomph and you can EQ them to be more pleasing and have pretty good SPL at reasonable distances.

I wish I had saved Ken's posts about taming the VRX.  IIRC he came up with 3 and 4 box deployments (more cones to balance the HF) and some additional processing (including "off") to the HF signal depending on array position.  Lots of DSP and amp channels for 'back in the day'.  I think it was characterized at "heroic" at the time.    

[Tim McCulloch]

The most we use is 3 boxes a side, one set up has 3 xti6002 amps for one amp channel per box. None bi amp and it just sounds better but also its said that it makes everything more efficient could some one shed some light on that.

That's a good combo.  The VRX in passive mode is far better than the "custom" biamp stuff you told us about.

You can "shade" an individual box by turning down the amp channel that drives the box.  Be careful as you're turning down the entire box and not just the part that sounds bad..   Sometimes it's beneficial to shade the lowest box in the array by -3dB; experiment with the bottom VRX's HF switch at -3dB, too.

[Eddie Ybarra]

Thanks everyone for the insight I definitely wanna try a couple of things

[ProSoundWeb Community]