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Author Topic: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007  (Read 66772 times)

Elliot Thompson

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Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout Results
« Reply #20 on: January 30, 2007, 11:31:11 PM »

I'll share my thoughts on the Eona ATA 618 C since you left before hearing it.

A quick review about this cabinet


This sub houses six 18-inch neodymium woofers. It's an isobaric design which offers four drivers firing forward and, two drivers firing backwards to create a cardioid effect. This is powered by an 8400 watt  (1400 watts x 6) amplifier. The amplifier is a Dual-Mono design. So, if one channel sees a fault and shuts down, it doesn’t affect the other channel not registering a fault. It weighs in at 240 pounds which, is not heavy considering it holds six 18-inch woofers, in addition to an amplifier offering two toroidal transformers. However, seeing that the weight is even on all sides of the cabinet, it’s dead weight. So, it’s like you are moving 300 pounds. Definitely not the type of box you want to be left alone to move around yourself because the roadies are too drunk to stand up much less, lift speaker boxes.

Sine wave listening

The sine wave sweep was interesting. To appreciate the lower notes, you needed to be furthest away from the source. My observation came from being at FOH, located at the rear of the club whereas, the 618 was close to the stage area. The response was very good. It actually didn’t offer any signs of strain all the way down to 20 Hz. Mark swept it at an average level, then a high level. Again no sign of strain. Just to let you know, a pair of these arrived on day 2. So, they were tested before playing the tracks.

Music Listening

IMHO the box sounded very good. It went loud and low with ease. Bennet requested to push it harder for he wanted to hear how loud they would go before they began breaking up. So they were pushed harder. The limiter really clamps down on the amplifier. At this point, I decided to walk over to the box to hear if any port noise, burning voice coils, or cone breakup was apparent. Many Labsters were hanging out behind the box to find out if the rear firing eighteens were doing their job. When I arrived to the source, the SPL of the upper bass sounded as if I was sitting in front of an EAW KF 850. The gain got reduced for it was getting too excessive, and many were walking away from the box that were standing within its pathway. We then moved over to the final track.

There was one track that Greg Rosenkrans from EM Acoustics provided. We began calling it the subwoofer killer because subs were smoking due to the severe low frequency sine waves the track offered and, learned it would be best to use that track last. I was back at FOH and decided to take a venture towards the back of the box to hear if the cancellation was noticable for myself. As I maneuvered my way towards the back of the box, the top box wasn’t working. The breakers tripped on both amp modules. We need to keep in mind that this box was designed for 220 volts and was wired to 110.

As Bennet pointed out before the sine wave testing, that Eona warned him that the breakers were never switched, and excessive sine waves will trigger the breakers in which it did.

If you can feed them 220 volts that minor altercation would not be an issue.

Best Regards,
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Elliot

Rob Spence

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Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout Results
« Reply #21 on: January 31, 2007, 12:21:08 AM »

I just got home.

I also want to thank Paul Bell for his super effort. He sure took care of all of us and even those who arrived on Sunday! Real nice ales and fun in the snow  Very Happy

Thanks also to Mark Seaton and Ivan Beaver for really making sure all the measurements got done right!

Thanks to Bennett for the work box. Now I got to get one, sigh...
And thanks to the guys from across the river for the super racks full of amps & Lakes and also for the power distro. It was great to see again the folks I have met before and to meet so many others from the forum.

I sure liked the Les Paul show. A must see.

Nite now...
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Rob Spence
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Jeff Permanian

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Re: The Next Shootout - Part II
« Reply #22 on: January 31, 2007, 12:54:46 AM »

Jim Bowersox wrote on Tue, 30 January 2007 15:17



Also, where can we see some information on the bassmaxx Z5000 or the JTR?

-JB

JTR's website is still in the works with hopes to have it up within feb. JTR's Growler subwoofer- single 12" driver, horn loaded, fr 45-100(40-100 in pairs), 100db@1watt, +133db PEAK, 1000watt music power, 2000watt PEAK, 18mm 13ply birch cabinet(24mm baffle), 30"w x 20"t x 22.5"d, 95 lbs, Line-X coating

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j123/racingxtc7/GrowlerLayingDown.jpg
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Tim McCulloch

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Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout Results
« Reply #23 on: January 31, 2007, 12:58:16 AM »

Greetings-

Basically I want to echo what Scott and the others have said:  Paul hosted a useful and fun event that was productive AND a blast to be at, and well worth the trip from Kansas.  I don't think I've been in a room with so many smart, resourceful, and genuinely nice people in ages.  THANK YOU!

Scott, I read your post timestamped 19:29 and pretty much agree with your assessment of the speakers we listened to.  I'll post my subjective observations after I get home Wednesday night.

For those of you who didn't attend, but might have been able to, please come to the next event of this kind hosted by LABsters.  You will leave with vastly more than you arrived with and be in the company of some of pro audio's best folks.  Really.

Thanks again, Paul, Karl, Mark, Ivan, and everyone else who made the NYC SubShoot such a delight.

Tim Mc
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Paul Bell

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Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout Results
« Reply #24 on: January 31, 2007, 07:57:35 AM »

I just wanted to thank everybody that participated in the shootout. Extra helpings of thanks to the guys that brought gear, Mark, Ivan, Bennett and the Big Mo Pro boys with the amps and DSP’s. Kudos to Pro Sound Web for providing a forum to announce and post plans, ideas, photos and results.

I would say I was very impressed with the EM Acoustics cabinets. While I initially felt the 215 cab would sound better than the Quake, the listening test made me go the other way. The 215 didn’t like certain music yet the Quake ran pretty hard. Too bad both Quakes lost their drivers, I could’ve used some more pounding from them.

I’m really backed up with work and I still have gear to pull from the space so I’ll be watching the thread and post more thoughts later.

BTW, the complaint from the 5th floor neighbor across the street during the BASSMAXX Trip test was real, it may be construed here as if it was a prank I pulled (which I’d never do). I’ll attribute it to us adding time and tracks to the testing of these speakers. Anyway, we needed a break afterwards.
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Paul Bell
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Michael 'Bink' Knowles

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ATA 618C Isobaric
« Reply #25 on: January 31, 2007, 08:28:13 AM »

What was the top box used on the EONA ADRaudio ATA 618C? Both the top box AND the subwoofer protected themselves from overcurrent by shutting down? At the same time?? Just curious about the protection mechanism... Sounds like you guys were really beating up on it but giving it half its normal Wheaties yet it made the right noises and survived without releasing any smoke. Good show!

Bennett must've pulled some crazy logistical magic out of his hat to get the thing there by day two.... Nice one, Bennett!

-Bink
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Michael 'Bink' Knowles
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Ivan Beaver

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Re: ATA 618C Isobaric
« Reply #26 on: January 31, 2007, 08:52:34 AM »

What he meant by the top box was the sub stacked on top of the other one.   Not top as in full range.  We used the house McCauley lines turned down QUITE a bit as playback fill in.

The cabinets were fine untill we got to the high level sine wave type music, that is what killed several loudspeakers.  Peaks are one thing (Kick drum) but sine is brutal.

There was no damage done to the EONA's and they could operate fine off of 110V, but the circuit breakers in them were setup for 220V, so they simply tripped at the extra current at 110V.  

The change was a last minute one to get the cabinets to us (I think I am understanding this right) and the breakers didn't make it into the swap.
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Ales Dravinec 'Alex'

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Re: ATA 618C Isobaric
« Reply #27 on: January 31, 2007, 09:07:17 AM »

Ivan Beaver wrote on Wed, 31 January 2007 13:52

....There was no damage done to the EONA's and they could operate fine off of 110V, but the circuit breakers in them were setup for 220V, so they simply tripped at the extra current at 110V.  

The change was a last minute one to get the cabinets to us (I think I am understanding this right) and the breakers didn't make it into the swap.


Thanks Ivan. Explanation is in place and is correct. Due to transport mix up, there was no time to swap the fuses....We even considered calling Bink to make "parallel" shootout in SF since boxes were already there... Cool

Thanks to everybody in "transport chain" to expeditiously corrected routing error.

Alex

Confession : ATA618CHH indeed weighs 300lbs. There's error in specs. Sincere apologies. Will be corrected soon
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Ales Dravinec
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The Guy

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Re: ATA 618C Isobaric
« Reply #28 on: January 31, 2007, 09:09:27 AM »

Alex and Bennett,

Kudos to getting the boxes there on time.  I was hearing some of the details along the way and it's no small feat that you managed to clear up the freight mess....it's never easy!

-JB

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Jason Dermer

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Re: ATA 618C Isobaric
« Reply #29 on: January 31, 2007, 10:40:26 AM »

Just a quick post and a small correction until my full post tonight (after some rest!)

Thanks to everyone involved, especially Paul for the room and hospitality. My experience in SR is primarily as a mix engineer in the middle to lower high end (I love that type of terminology!), world of rock and roll combat audio. I do have enough knowledge in Smaart/Spectrafoo/Ease to perform "basic" system setup and alignment, or as I like to call it, confirmation of what my ears are telling me. Working with the likes of some of the brains in the room was like being a lab assistant (pun intended) to Albert Einstein, though never once did I deal with a "clean my boots" attitude from anyone, knowledge was shared freely and explained in such a way as to make perfect sense.

As the designated driver once we reached the music portion on day two...

The installed McCauleys were not turned down as a whole, only the HF drivers were. I also applied a pretty good amount of EQ above 1.6K. I'll save the theories and explanations as to why for another post, and I'm sure Paul will want to chime in as well. The mains were fed from the LR of the installed Spectra T, with the tested subs fed from the Mono. The Mono was in turn fed from an Aux . Using this technique, we were able to balance the outputs of each of the subs to the tops quite easily. To be fair to the EM guys. lest anyone think that their subs were not up to the task at hand, they only gave up their smoke AFTER I was asked by Greg to bring up the sub level 4-6db beyond what I would consider a very sub heavy but still balanced point. Or, as someone put it, they died honorably in service to the Powersoft amplfier gods...

More later on the shootout itself, with followups over the next few weeks as I have demos of the EM and Bassmaxx boxes heading my way for awhile.
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Jason Dermer
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"Rock & Roll and cars are just slightly different versions of the same mental disorder."- Peter Egan
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