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Author Topic: Spa/Retail Install - Distortion as I add speakers?  (Read 4637 times)

Craig Hauber

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  • Mondak Sound Design - Plentywood MT/Grenora ND
Re: Spa/Retail Install - Distortion as I add speakers?
« Reply #10 on: March 14, 2021, 05:15:55 PM »

Define 'budget'.  Nothing is going to be in the uber-nowhere-near-reality price point of a Pyle item.  You get what you pay for is totally true.  If having background music doesn't help business more than a handful of dollars a year - something's wrong.  :) 

Here's low cost but not junk-
QSC SPA series
Powersoft Mezzo
Stewart
LEA
RDL
Lab.Gruppen Lucia

Make sure you add up the wattage of all the speakers, and add around 20% extra.  If you have 12x 15w speakers - plan on a 225w per channel amplifier.  Make sure it's rated at 70V, not 2/4/8 ohm or 100V.  You will also want some sort of mixer/DSP/processing in the amp or upstream; use a good high pass filter around 100Hz to keep the transformers from distorting. 

Lab Gruppen Lucia 240/1-70 if you have 13 or fewer speakers tapped at 15w, or 19 or fewer speakers tapped at 10w.  Has built-in basic DSP.  This is what I'd look at first for low cost but not awful quality.  Slightly under $400. 

Personally I'd look at something with a bit more power and DSP.  That way when you rip out the Speco speakers for something listenable - you won't have to spend money yet again on an amplifier.

Here's a little "budget" gem I've had the chance to install a few of and it hasn't been disappointing.  Flogged the living daylights out of it in my shop just to see how it would fail and it never did.

https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=14886

I only have used the 120w version and the oldest one is 4yrs so can't speak for the long-term lifespan.  For little country churches and montana small-town bar "casinos" replacing their 40year old Bogens it fits their nonexistant budgets nicely (and people don't hate me when we encounter each other afterwards)

If you have the budget I would rather steer people towards the Atlas and Bogen type products first but if you keep coming back to the Pyle because you simply don't have the funds then the Monoprice one will fill the need better than Pyle or Pyramid.  Anything above this level you need to go to the equipment like Caleb listed.

One other thing I haven't seen mentioned is reducing the bass level -especially with cheap amps and undersized cheap matching transformers on the speakers.  Take out everything below 100Hz and it might clear up unexpected distortions.  turn off any "bass boost" in consumer playback devices or see if there's an equalizer like in spotify or itunes and roll off the bass a bit.  Try turning down the front panel bass control on the amp and see if the audio starts to clear up.  I've studied the build quality on Pyle stuff and the output transformers are way undersized for their "rated output"  Likewise the cheap speaker matching transformers start to resemble a short at frequencies below 50 when driven hard.

Overall I have found if you divide the Pyle's advertised power output by 10 and design accordingly it will work for as long as the PSU electrolytics take to fail.
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Craig Hauber
Mondak Sound Design
-Live PA
-Installs
-Theatre

Brian Jojade

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Re: Spa/Retail Install - Distortion as I add speakers?
« Reply #11 on: March 16, 2021, 04:17:39 PM »

Here's a little "budget" gem I've had the chance to install a few of and it hasn't been disappointing.  Flogged the living daylights out of it in my shop just to see how it would fail and it never did.

https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=14886


Monoprice has some pretty decent products at rock bottom prices.  And this product is 'no brand' so you can stick your own on it so the customer knows who to call when they need service!
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Brian Jojade

ProSoundWeb Community

Re: Spa/Retail Install - Distortion as I add speakers?
« Reply #11 on: March 16, 2021, 04:17:39 PM »


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