Hi All
Sorry Danny, for a little thread hi-jack, but Bennetts original thread has become a wee bit long...
In the first ADR thread, I promised I'd post my comparison between my 'normal' Turbosound TQ445DP/TQ425DP setup and the ADR U103/ATA118 (or ATA218) combo - here it is:
First of all: If any of you Danish Labsters are interested in a demo of these speakers, just get in touch. contact info can be found at
www.onstage-online.dkSecond: Thanks to Ales and Franci for providing the demo-rig and for stellar support.
First, I've been really pleased with the Q-light speakers. I've never really liked Turbosound, but these are actually very good speakers and extremely versatile. They are worth comparing to the U103 for two reasons: 1) they cost the same, almost to the penny, and 2) they try to solve the same problems and come up with very different solutions. You can see the details at Turbos and ADR's homepages, but the short version is that the Turbo TQ445DP is a bi-amp class D, 3-way design (12"coax + 6" hornloaded mid) with 96/24 DSP, while the U103's are a bi-amp ICE Power, two-way (10"+1,4")all analog design.
These two systems a virtually night and day. The Turbos are insanely loud - nothing can touch them in terms of dB's per cubic meter (they are almost the same size as the U103, only slightly wider of course). We proved this later on after a few beers, when we came up with the brilliant idea of putting all the subs together (1x ATA118, 1x ATA218 and one Turbo TQ425DP pr side) and putting one TQ445DP on top - and they very nearly kept up! We measured 124dB's at 6 meters.....
Both systems try to tackle excellent vocal reproduction, The Turbos with the 6" inch driver, The ADR's with a very warm focused frequency response and even dispersion. The techs there unanimously decided that for rock'n'roll, the TQ445 would be the best bet, but for everything else we would most likely prefer the U103. The dispersion is a major problem with the 445, due to the odd design. I did a cosumer-fair last month with a U103/ATA218 combo and both us and the visiting techs were amazed at the uniformity of the sound image, you could walk the entire hall (1000 capacity when empty) and as long as you stayed within the coverage area, all that changed was essentially the SPL. With the Turbos we would have gotten good results too, but we would also have had to fight low mid build-ups at the center and poor, 'jumping' coverage in the outer parts of the audience area. With the ADR's we got better sound with less effort.
In short: The TQ445 was built to be a do-it-all box, and by choosing the odd-ball 3-way design, heavy DSP capacity was needed. The end result is a really good speaker with very good intelligibility (I hate that word) and unsurpassed SPL capacity, but with dispersion/phase issues and limited arrayability.
The ADR U103 was designed with pretty much the same goal, but with a very different approach: emphasis is on good solid engineering with a KISS 2-way design with very high quality drivers and a big, wide dispersion horn. Innovation is there in form of ICE powerpacks and 'retro' analog electronics. The result is essentially a much more neutral speaker, with extremely even dispersion pattern. You could almost describe the sonic difference as the Turbos being 'digital' and the ADR's being 'tube-like'. The trade-off is lower SPL capacity and shorter throw. Arrayability was not tested, but I think it is fair to say that the U103 would be the winner in that category.
The (prototype) U103 we got had two shortcomings:
1) the noise floor. They are really noisy, enough so to make them attract negative attension at, say, theatre gigs. Ales has told that this is being fixed by changing to a better quality op-amp.
2) If you don't use the ASI integrator, be ABSOLUTELY sure that your source has a balanced output, otherwise you will nothing but hum. This is pro-level gear, sure, but it is not particular combat audio friendly. With the ASI, no problem.
Actually, the U103 is hard to demo. As I mentioned, they lack that LTL smiley-face sound most techs expect from their PA's, but in real life usage they provide a blank canvas that is extremely easy to mix on: You have to try very hard to make them sound bad, and with a minimum of effort they will sound fantastic.
The Turbo and ADR subs are also very different beasts. The ADR's goes a LOT deeper than the TQ425DP, almost 3/4 octave according to the spec sheets, On the other hand the Turbos have more clarity in the 60 -100 Hz range and significantly more punch, pretty much what you'd expect from 18" subs vs. 15" sub. We got killer results by combining them, by the way, making us guess that an ATA412 + ATA218 combo would sound pretty spectacular.... The cardioid pattern of the ATA218 has been a plus in every application so far! Ales claims an 18dB difference between front and rear. I'put that figure somewhat lower, but still impressive and useful - and done without DSP!
The ADR's really comes through when pushed: The Turbo subs simply looses dynamic range and starts to rumble in a not particularly pleasing manner (they are bloody loud, though), The ADR's limiters acts more like a slow-attack compressor, so that, for instance, a kick drum will remain a kick drum even at very high SPL's and the box flashing brightly. Very well done indeed. I would like to have a bit more clarity, as they tend to rumble a bit, but the LF extension and dynamic range are really really impressive, probably the best I've heard in any PA sub.
One thing we've noticed over time is that these boxes, both tops and subs, fare much better with live material than canned music - luckily
:
The warm 'anti-PA' character of the U103 could lead you think that it could become muddy and unclear 'in real life'. I deliberately tried it out with some jazz vocals using KMS105 mics, thinking that this might make any problems in the low mids fairly apparent. With a flat channelstrip-eq and no outboard, apart from the ASI23, everything was exactly as it should be: warm, clear and transparent. Sometimes it's easy being the sound guy
I think that was it....
Erik
On Stage