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[Aaron Baxter]

I'm looking at getting a pair of iQ 12 or 15s, not sure which yet, to use with our x32 in our smaller sized HoW.  Has anyone  had experience with these and are they worth it (quality/value for features/sound quality) or should I continue using standard powered amps like electrovoice. 

We're running mackie thump 15s that are acting, odd, with high frequency dropoff etc even though the eq is off.

[Scott Holtzman]

I'm looking at getting a pair of iQ 12 or 15s, not sure which yet, to use with our x32 in our smaller sized HoW.  Has anyone  had experience with these and are they worth it (quality/value for features/sound quality) or should I continue using standard powered amps like electrovoice. 

We're running mackie thump 15s that are acting, odd, with high frequency dropoff etc even though the eq is off.

Well the Mackie Thump series do odd things all together I would not judge powered speakers by then.


There are many powered speakers, EV makes them now, I am not sure if EV makes amps anymore, as do many vendors like JBL, QSC, Yamaha and Turbosound among many others.  You can spend from $199.00  to over $10,000 on a single powered box.  Can we establish 2 things so we can help you select them?  What sound is being reinforced, music, spoken word, high impact praise?  Do you have a budget?


What is the size of the room and average attendance?

[Doug Fowler]

Dynacord does amps for EV.

EV built some good amps in their day.  P3000 was a workhorse, heavy iron but a real champ. 

Well the Mackie Thump series do odd things all together I would not judge powered speakers by then.


There are many powered speakers, EV makes them now, I am not sure if EV makes amps anymore, as do many vendors like JBL, QSC, Yamaha and Turbosound among many others.  You can spend from $199.00  to over $10,000 on a single powered box.  Can we establish 2 things so we can help you select them?  What sound is being reinforced, music, spoken word, high impact praise?  Do you have a budget?


What is the size of the room and average attendance?

[Aaron Baxter]

Well the Mackie Thump series do odd things all together I would not judge powered speakers by then.


There are many powered speakers, EV makes them now, I am not sure if EV makes amps anymore, as do many vendors like JBL, QSC, Yamaha and Turbosound among many others.  You can spend from $199.00  to over $10,000 on a single powered box.  Can we establish 2 things so we can help you select them?  What sound is being reinforced, music, spoken word, high impact praise?  Do you have a budget?


What is the size of the room and average attendance?

It will be preaching, hyms and impact worship so no real help there.  It's designed to seat about 230 people, but we travel as well which makes my job oh so fun.  I need to be able to turn them down enough for our everyday use but crank them for a large 1-2000 person sanctuary.  The thump 15s are barely on, like 3 hashes up.  I was considering 12s in the iQ series.

I was considering the iQ series because they "talk" ultranet to the x32 so I figured EQ would be easier.  Not 100% sure what that buys me entirely, but it must have some advantages.

I'd like to stay around or below 800 each but might go a little higher for the right advantages.  Our singers are real powerhouses and one guy is real bassy.  Drums wont be in the main mix, nor will bass guitar unless we are in a large sanctuary.

I need new monitors as well, but that's a different beast as I may go IEM.

[David Sturzenbecher]

Dynacord does amps for EV.

EV built some good amps in their day.  P3000 was a workhorse, heavy iron but a real champ.

I can’t speak for the P3000 specifically but Dynacord OEM’ed EV amps for at least a decade or two prior to them officially merging under Bosch.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Mal Brown]

I need to be able to turn them down enough for our everyday use but crank them for a large 1-2000 person sanctuary. 

I was considering the iQ series because they "talk" ultranet to the x32 so I figured EQ would be easier.  Not 100% sure what that buys me entirely, but it must have some advantages.

I'd like to stay around or below 800 each but might go a little higher for the right advantages.

$800 a box to cover 1 to 2k people...  not happening with any degree of coverage or clarity.   No experience with the Turbosound boxes but I tend to shy away from anything MusicTribe...  Personally I would say that Yamaha seems to be the segment leader in the Prosumer market.  Spend up for DZR 112.  Buy once, cry once.   For the travelling road show, establish a relationship with a good rental house...

[Brian Jojade]

It will be preaching, hyms and impact worship so no real help there.  It's designed to seat about 230 people, but we travel as well which makes my job oh so fun.  I need to be able to turn them down enough for our everyday use but crank them for a large 1-2000 person sanctuary.  The thump 15s are barely on, like 3 hashes up.  I was considering 12s in the iQ series.

I was considering the iQ series because they "talk" ultranet to the x32 so I figured EQ would be easier.  Not 100% sure what that buys me entirely, but it must have some advantages.

1. Any speaker can be 'turned down enough' all the way to zero.  But, if you're looking to cover 2K people, a pair of speakers on stick isn't going to cut it.  That gets you into big boy toy territory.  Shows that size should be hired out to someone with the right rig.  It allows you to put in an appropriate system for your home site and leave it there.

2. Mackie thumps make the best sound when you throw them off the truck and they hit the ground. Thump. The position of the knob on the back of the speaker is NOT an indicator of how hard the speaker is working.  You can send a hot signal to it and get to full power even only with 3 clicks up.  Still, the thump isn't much of a speaker especially when getting into large venues.

3.Ultranet is MusicTribe's proprietary network to send digital audio signals between their devices over simple cat 5 cable.  However, for stuff on the road, it's got a few shortcomings.  First and foremost is that the connections are just RJ45 connectors, NOT Ethercon.  RJ45s are stupid fragile and have no place on a tour rig outside of a rack.  Second, the daisy chain nature of the network means a break anywhere in the network results in everything downstream going down.  All devices in the chain must be POWERED ON and connected for it to pass signal through.  If you're going to use this, I'd strongly advise that you route your signal from mixer directly to the FOH speaker before routing through any other devices even if cabling is more difficult that way.  Alternatively, you can get the Ultranet distribution system and fan out your connections from there. Of course, this adds one more point of potential failure.

Better yet, just use old school analog and call it a day.

[Weogo Reed]

Hi Aaron,

    You're in the people business, right?
Get specific advice from somebody really good.
Check out the various church forums.
Having a good person mixing from the start will get you going in the right direction.

    I've done a bunch of shows on Turbo IQ-12 mains and IQ-10 monitors.
They are solid, good sounding boxes.  Not light, but not overly heavy.

    As Mal said, anything musictribe is likely to have issues being serviced.
I would suggest other brands that have good reliability track records and
are more likely to have functioning service departments.

    As Brian noted, Ultranet is proprietary and fragile.
Works great until it doesn't.

    Rather than your current budget number, a better way to look at this would be to
define your needs and come up with the money to buy that.

    Since this is a traveling rig, get cases for everything.
Figure out an electrical and audio patch plan that allows for easy, fast setup and strike.
Wheels are your friends.
Have backups for anything show stopping critical.

Thanks and good health,  Weogo

[Steve Eudaly]

Brian really nailed it.

Get some Yamahas or whatever reliable, proven product (plenty of first hand reviews here at PSW) that fits your budget and basic needs. They'll likely last you for years to come and *if* one goes down, you'll actually be able to resolve the issue in a timely manner. Analog drive lines are your friend in this situation for many reasons. Ultranet is just a marketing "plus."

We've got a fleet of X series consoles that have served us well with little issues, but a nearly new Wing that hasn't been usable for a year due to an unobtanium screen replacement. This is the service that you can expect from the Tribe moving forward. All about sales, not about support. Disposable products. It sucks because they make some decent tools for the job but it's clearly become a gamble whether or not they'll last or even perform as advertised. And if you need support, good luck.

As far as handling your gigs where you need to cover bigger audiences, you need to set realistic expectations with your group and help them realize that with bigger crowds comes a bigger production budget that will allow you to rent what you need to do the job.

[Aaron Baxter]

Brian really nailed it.

Get some Yamahas or whatever reliable, proven product (plenty of first hand reviews here at PSW) that fits your budget and basic needs. They'll likely last you for years to come and *if* one goes down, you'll actually be able to resolve the issue in a timely manner. Analog drive lines are your friend in this situation for many reasons. Ultranet is just a marketing "plus."

We've got a fleet of X series consoles that have served us well with little issues, but a nearly new Wing that hasn't been usable for a year due to an unobtanium screen replacement. This is the service that you can expect from the Tribe moving forward. All about sales, not about support. Disposable products. It sucks because they make some decent tools for the job but it's clearly become a gamble whether or not they'll last or even perform as advertised. And if you need support, good luck.

As far as handling your gigs where you need to cover bigger audiences, you need to set realistic expectations with your group and help them realize that with bigger crowds comes a bigger production budget that will allow you to rent what you need to do the job.

I figured I'd need to rent gear for the larger audiences.  Most range from 50 to about 500 at most. Average is 100-200.  Most 1K+ places have good sound equipment I can tune in anyway with the existing sound techs help if needed at all.

I always thought Mackie made decent gear, but these made me lose confidence in them.  I'll have to look into Yamaha and EV.  I also didn't know turbosound was tribe gear.  Love my X32 for what it is and is basically a rebranded Midas M32 but that's about the only thing I'd trust from them.

[ProSoundWeb Community]