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[Joshua Pitman]

Hi,

This is my first post here, so I'll quickly introduce myself. I am head of sound at our church in Perth, Western Australia and we are looking at several quotes to overhaul our dying sound system. It is both really old and recently had a cup of water spilled over the sound desk at a night service (which was quite hilarious except for that the desk is now dead - as you can guess, food and drink has now been double banned in the operators area).

The question I have and would appreciate people's feedback on is, would you buy Yamaha C112VA or EV Sx300E speakers for the setup knowing that the EV speakers will nearly be twice as expensive? (We are looking at either 2 or 3 speakers for our church setup.)

I am heading down to our church tonight to listen to both of them side by side, but would appreciate people's feedback or experience.

At the moment it looks like these will be with Yamaha P5000 amps and the system will be installed with two Mackie SWA1501 subs. All controlled by a Yamaha LS-9 32 digital desk.

Cheers,

Josh.

[Tom Young]

You should provide detailed specifications for both loudspeakers in order for us to help answer your question. Why should we have to go find these spec's ? How can anyone answer the question without comparing these ?

You also need to give us some idea of the shaping and dimensions of the space.

Bottom line: in order for us to help you, help us out a little.

Thanks.

[Aaron McQueen]

Joshua Pitman wrote on Tue, 24 July 2007 06:15

The question I have and would appreciate people's feedback on is, would you buy Yamaha C112VA or EV Sx300E speakers for the setup knowing that the EV speakers will nearly be twice as expensive? (We are looking at either 2 or 3 speakers for our church setup.)

The questions you should be asking are: How are the speakers going to be installed?  Will they cover the congregation evenly?  Will they provide the need spl?  Do they sound good?

The most glaring difference is the coverage angles.  The EV is 65x65 while the Yamaha is a 90x45.

So my point is that it's not about price it's about what you need to get the job done correctly.

Personally if budget was a big factor I would be willing to give up the LS9 for a properly installed and tuned speaker system.  If the LS9 is required I would ask for more money for the speakers.

[Brad Weber]

Aaron McQueen wrote on Tue, 24 July 2007 10:15

The most glaring difference is the coverage angles.  The EV is 65x65 while the Yamaha is a 90x45.

That and about 5dB difference in output, which may or may not matter.

Be careful in auditioning these speakers.  You really want to audition them in a situation that emulates as closely as possible the systems proposed.  Just listening to single boxes will not tell you everything as they may differ greatly in how well they array and work together in multiples.  Some speakers work well together while some introduce significant anomalies when arrayed, and the exact issues may be greatly dependent upon the system design.  Another related design aspect would be what processing, if any, is planned for tuning the array performance.

Don't let the better low end of one box impact your listening if in use they will be cut off an octave or so higher.  Since you are using subs the low end would be rolled off so that's what you want to compare, in fact it would be best to listen to them as a system with the subs.  It would also be good to know if any other processing is applied when you listen as once again, this should represent what would be used in the system.  All of this may not be feasible, but should be kept in mind when you audition them.

[Guest]

This sounds like a case of "What do we have in stock to sell?" on someones part. Is it 2 different companies bringing the cabinets? If its the same they are definitely trying to sell you what's in stock. The problem is most of the time instead of really finding out if the room is going to be covered properly the attitude is "well its gonna be better than what they have so they should be happy" you want to make sure this is not the case. As stated by Aaron coverage is the most important issue here and listening to the 2 different speakers on sticks (stands) and not hung will give you a different result in the end. What sounds good on the ground and seems to cover well may not do so when in the air. In the end neither of these cabinets might be what you need. Both of the manufacturers probably make a cabinet that will fit your application but the ones you are comparing are vastly different. If it is the same company bringing both I would ask why are they demoing speakers that have different coverage patterns and what does my room need? If you don't feel like you are getting a honest answer your probably not, and you should get someone else to come look at your facility and make suggestions. Aaron also made the comment "Personally if budget was a big factor I would be willing to give up the LS9 for a properly installed and tuned speaker system" and he is right one of the biggest mistakes made is blowing all your money on a console and not having the speakers you need. The console is one of the easiest things to replace in the signal chain. But once you hang speakers your keeping them for a long time. Spend the money on the cabinets, amps and control wait on the console if you have to buy something that will work in the interim. If your church will allow take what you have and structure it into a lease with a little more to be added on next year to finish paying for the complete install with the right speakers and the right console. just my .02 hope it helps.

Thomas Lamb
TD
www.journeychristianchurch.com
Apopka Fl

[Joshua Pitman]

Wow, thankyou everyone for your comments! I'm at work at the moment so I can't post long, but I just want to fill you in on where I'm at.

Firstly I'd like to say sorry for not posting info about the speakers, it's my first time, so I didn't know what information is standard expectation.

The information I have received is more than valuable though!!

Just quickly, I went to our church last night and tested the speakers. We didn't have the opportunity to fly them from where we would like as it is about 3-4 metres in the air. It just wasn't practicable. But we did listen to both speakers in comparison to the 802 we currently have. The Yamaha to listen to seemed quite similar to the 802, maybe with a little more capacity. The EV speaker though, had so much more definition in it! It defined all the sound so crisply mids through to high end and there was no comparison in my opinion. This was done by running a cd line signal straight through a Yamaha 3200 amp.

Until this point I was leaning towards the Yamaha, even due to aesthetics and not wanting scare the older generation of our church with out-there speakers. (Yamaha's look prettier)

In regards to the desk and downgrading that. If we got a cheaper desk, the church would not consider upgrading it for 10 years, so whatever we get, we are stuck with. They have made this quite clear, so to get all the compressors, processors and eqs that we need from scratch without having to go out and buy other rack units, we have made our decision to get the LS9-32.

Our church building redesign is such that we are going to be facing into the corner. Our church building is about 25 metres (82 feet) by 25 metres (82 feet) by about 7 metres (23 feet) at its highest point.

We have recently approved plans for stage extension and rearranged our seating so that the church will now be facing the corner - almost like a baseball diamond. Thus I think we will hang speakers in a cluster in the front corner.

I'll let you know how we go!

Thanks again and I will try to assist with any more information as I have available time.

Josh.

[Aaron McQueen]

Quote:

In regards to the desk and downgrading that. If we got a cheaper desk, the church would not consider upgrading it for 10 years, so whatever we get, we are stuck with. They have made this quite clear, so to get all the compressors, processors and eqs that we need from scratch without having to go out and buy other rack units, we have made our decision to get the LS9-32.

When faced with a limited budget, sometimes things have to been done in stages.  I don't usually put mixing consoles in the first stage.  I would focus more on the speaker system (includes amps, processing, and tuning), next microphones, and so on.  I can get by with less comps, channel eqs, effects etc, if the the speaker system is done properly and the microphones are nice.

Are they willing to upgrade the speaker system in 10 years?  If not I would spend my money there.  It's much easier and cheaper to swap out a console then to replace a speaker system.

[Gary Creely]

Joshua,

There are a lot of objective considerations when choosing the right speakers as have been mentioned. I have used the ev's and the yamaha's and the EV's come out way on top. I find the yamahas to be a little "barky" when pushed. The EV's seem to have a smoother response across their range.

I agree with the others you need to figure out what kind of coverage you need, and what will work. When you start to move into speakers that are geared exclusively for installation you will find that they come in a variety of dispersion arrangements so that they can fit the specific application.

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