Post by: Evan Kirkendall on September 01, 2008, 04:47:52 PM
Some background on the venue/system:
It's the Six Flags in Dallas Texas. A 10,000 seat outdoor venue. The rig was apparently installed sometime in July, so it was still fairly new. Everything was setup and properly tuned. Itechs provided powered, and a Dolby lake was the DSP. I had a PM5D out front and nothing else was in the chain between it and the DSP.
So, as I fired up the rig there was an apparent lack of mids, and an upper shrill, harsh sound. Not to mention some weird bumps around 250hz... The mains sounded very unbalanced. It hit me as soon as soon as I started thinking about it. A 2" compression driver was supposed to cover all the way down to 600hz. Well, it just wasnt happening. It sounded ok at lower levels, but as soon as I cranked it up, the whole upper range of the box just went to shit. The HF needs a much larger horn to actually cover as low as they want it to...
So, I started EQ'ing the box a little, hoping to get something useful to work with. I ended up with some pretty steep cuts. But, I had something workable.
As I played some tuned and walked the arena, I noticed that coverage was pretty poor too. Up front it was muffled and it dropped off fast off to the sides. As I walked further away, all the low mids completely disappeared and it just became harsh and brittle sounding.
The rig also lacked get up and go. I was struggling to hit 103dBA @ FOH. I was only ~70' from the stage too. It was no louder up front either. Maybe 106A as you got right up on the stage.
The subs were the best part of the rig, and that wasnt saying too much. They had enough to make me happy, but no more. I was honestly expecting more from 40 18" speakers.
Come show time, we had around 6,000 kids in attendance. It was tough getting it loud enough for everyone and not having a shit mix. I'd hate to see the system try to cover a packed house. The whole show hovered around 101-103dBA @ FOH. I wasnt overly happy with the sound all night, but I couldnt get it any better. 6 d&b Q1's, 8 dV-dosc, 8 EV XLC's, or 8 EAW KF730's per side would have completely owned the sound quality and output SPL of the Sound Bridge rig.
So, if your considering a SB rig, I'd look elsewhere. Put your money into something that actually sounds good...
Evan
Post by: The Guy on September 01, 2008, 05:39:33 PM
Based on reading the tech data, all of this should be no surprise. Apparently the manufacturer thinks that the laws of physics need not apply to their products.
Buyer (and user) beware!
-JB
P.S., The SLICE wedge bites also.
Post by: Matthew Moser on September 01, 2008, 06:06:35 PM
Post by: Ivan Beaver on September 01, 2008, 07:09:06 PM
| Jim Bowersox wrote on Mon, 01 September 2008 17:39 |
P.S., The SLICE wedge bites also. |
The thing I find interesting about the Slice is the rated SPL. Let's assume (for a moment) that the mid/high device can actually reach the stated 148dB.
But the woofer section reaches its max output about 20dB LOWER!
Yeah, that's what I want- the mid/highs outrunning the lows by 20dB. Must sound really nice
I guess for the guys who have REALLY lost the HF hearing.
Post by: Silas Pradetto on September 01, 2008, 09:39:57 PM
| Evan Kirkendall wrote on Mon, 01 September 2008 16:47 |
The rig also lacked get up and go. I was struggling to hit 103dBA @ FOH. I was only ~70' from the stage too. It was no louder up front either. Maybe 106A as you got right up on the stage. |
Evan, I can't comment on your experience since I wasn't there. It seems as though Soundbridge can't tune their own rigs? However, I can easily hit 110dbA with 4 per side at 100+ feet, without getting hitting my hard limiters at -5dBFS. The 4 per side I've got keeps up with 8 LAB subs no problem, and depending on the music, even outruns them.
There has to be something wrong with this picture...
Post by: Evan Kirkendall on September 01, 2008, 11:33:06 PM
You must have some pretty weak LABs if 4 tops are out running them.
I will say, that my rig today completely owned the Sound Bridge Rig:
It covered 5800 people flawlessly and I was able to hit 110dBA at FOH. It was awesome. I love EV boxes.
Evan
Post by: Silas Pradetto on September 02, 2008, 10:26:37 AM
I don't think you can say that any one system is better than another from one listening experience, because as people have said before, there are V-DOSC rigs that suck. Anyone possesses the ability to set something up wrong, including the manufacturer.
Heck, many like QSC Wideline. I went to the QSC demo in Chicago, and it sucked. I was not impressed, got a headache, and wanted to leave but my plane didn't leave soon enough! But the people are nice at QSC, and it may have just been the room/setup that wasn't ideal...I will never know.
Post by: Adam Robinson on September 02, 2008, 12:14:16 PM
Nonetheless, my experience with Jim leads me to trust his judgment and he trusts Evan's judgment, so I won't write his experience off. At the level of shows his band is doing, he should have decent control of production and I bet he'll never have one of those systems on one of his shows again. Unfortunately, we all only get one first impression, and that's probably my most important point in all this rambling.
Post by: Tim McCulloch on September 02, 2008, 12:38:57 PM
| Adam Robinson wrote on Tue, 02 September 2008 11:14 |
Any rig can be set up to sound bad - it's been a big discussion point amongst my friends lately... One who came across an awful sounding Nexo GeoT rig, another who just mixed on a horrible sounding MICA rig that is part of a "professional install" by a reputable company, and my experience last summer at a world-class festival mixing on a very large and very horrible dVDOSC rig. The difference is: if L'Acoustics found out that their rig sounded *that* bad, they'd take it back! The other manufacturers mentioned would be just as disturbed. Nonetheless, my experience with Jim leads me to trust his judgment and he trusts Evan's judgment, so I won't write his experience off. At the level of shows his band is doing, he should have decent control of production and I bet he'll never have one of those systems on one of his shows again. Unfortunately, we all only get one first impression, and that's probably my most important point in all this rambling. |
Word.
Manufacturers have yet to find a filter for human silliness; even the best system alignment presets and voicing can be sabotaged by people who unwilling or unable to follow the instructions provided.
Granted there will always be exceptional venues or situations, but in today's world, with the level of support available from the Mothership there is no excuse to have crap sound provided enough gear was used and it was set up correctly.
Then there are the products that simply aren't up to the task. Can't say if the XYON is one of them; Silas says his rock but Evan and Jim say "sux out loud.. er not loud enough."
Perhaps a good side-by-side (but not by Sondheim) demo can be arranged for next year's AES convention.
Have fun, good luck.
Tim Mc
Post by: Adam Robinson on September 02, 2008, 02:34:48 PM
I'd enjoy that one.
Post by: Tim McCulloch on September 02, 2008, 03:02:51 PM
| Adam Robinson wrote on Tue, 02 September 2008 13:34 |
How about putting the products side by side while playing Side by Side (by Sondheim). I'd enjoy that one. |
As would I.
I can think of several Sondheim pieces with multiple, independent, vocal parts that could be very revealing.
Have fun, good luck.
Tim Mc
Post by: John Chiara on September 02, 2008, 03:07:50 PM
| Tim McCulloch wrote on Tue, 02 September 2008 15:02 | ||
As would I. I can think of several Sondheim pieces with multiple, independent, vocal parts that could be very revealing. Have fun, good luck. Tim Mc |
"Joahnnaaaaaa..."
Post by: Silas Pradetto on September 02, 2008, 09:24:50 PM
Post by: Alfred_Mapanao on September 02, 2008, 11:44:57 PM
Post by: Evan Kirkendall on September 03, 2008, 12:03:54 AM
| Alfred Mapanao wrote on Tue, 02 September 2008 23:44 |
So Evan, Is there any rig you haven't bashed yet besides your EV QRX? |
Sure!
-EV: XLC, X-Line, X-Array
-d&b: Q series
-L'Acoustic: V-Dosc, dV-Dosc
-Meyer: Milo
-EAW: KF850, KF760, KF730, KF650
-Peavey: Versarray, QW
-Community: SLS series
And thats just a few off the top of my head. I love when manufacturers get it right and make a good sounding product. SoundBridge has yet to do it, IMO. Physics applies to everyone...
Evan
Post by: Richard Rajchel on September 03, 2008, 01:00:54 AM
I would think you could hang 12 of just about anything per side and get usable sound as long as they are properly powered, processed, and pointing relatively close to where they should be.
It could be they were using a digital snake and the run was too long, or any number of crazy possibilities(someone spilled a drink on the console at the previous show that board did, etc....).
Post by: Drew Curtis on September 03, 2008, 01:11:21 AM
| Adam Robinson wrote on Tue, 02 September 2008 11:14 |
Any rig can be set up to sound bad - it's been a big discussion point amongst my friends lately... One who came across an awful sounding Nexo GeoT rig, another who just mixed on a horrible sounding MICA rig that is part of a "professional install" by a reputable company, and my experience last summer at a world-class festival mixing on a very large and very horrible dVDOSC rig. The difference is: if L'Acoustics found out that their rig sounded *that* bad, they'd take it back! The other manufacturers mentioned would be just as disturbed. Nonetheless, my experience with Jim leads me to trust his judgment and he trusts Evan's judgment, so I won't write his experience off. At the level of shows his band is doing, he should have decent control of production and I bet he'll never have one of those systems on one of his shows again. Unfortunately, we all only get one first impression, and that's probably my most important point in all this rambling. |
Would you mind sharing where? I mixed on a dVDOSC rig at summerfest milwaukee on the same stage 07 and 08, this year sounded remarkably better.
Post by: Adam Robinson on September 03, 2008, 02:07:46 AM
For instance, when I was coming up on a show with an A-Line line array, none of my trusted colleagues had been on one. Since there was enough rig for the gig, I said I'd give it a go... never again. I had a horrible time with this rig. A friend of mine about two months later came across a proposal for someone to bring this rig for one of his shows. He called me, I told him my experience, and he hired another rig.
On the other side, a trusted friend can save a bad rig. It's just like my friend with the bad MICA experience. We actually talked about it on the phone again today and I told him not to write it off and promised him that MICA is a great rig. I had a ton of meyer boxes on a tour this summer where MICA was not the main box and it regularly showed the others up! It doesn't sound like any of Evan's trusted peers are gonna back this rig up, unfortunately.
And Drew: it wasn't Summerfest, although I was there this year. I was out on another tour and a good friend was mixing my band there on the same night on that dV rig. He said it sounded pretty good, but there just wasn't enough horsepower. Looking at the tech specs for that stage versus the others, I wonder if that's the one that got added at the last minute when everything else was out of the shop already!
Post by: Mike Christy on September 03, 2008, 08:16:10 AM
| Alfred Mapanao wrote on Tue, 02 September 2008 23:44 |
So Evan, Is there any rig you haven't bashed yet besides your EV QRX? |
You know what's funny? I love my QRx/Growler combo rig, but our friend panned the Growlers, and loves his QRxs, so opinons are like, well, you know, everyone has one, so lets call it a day.
Mike
Post by: Tom Manchester on September 03, 2008, 11:27:22 AM
Then you couple that with 2 8" drivers in something called "horn loading" and expect them to run with a driver rated to the high 140db's. It's no wonder that the rig sounded "thin." I can't fathom that while Tom Danley needs to load more MF and LF drivers in fairly large horn to get it to keep up properly, that Sound Bridge has found a way to place drivers at odd baffle angles in a nearly front loaded configuration and attain the output needed to keep up with a large 2" driver. In my limited experience I have not found boxes with small LF drivers to perform well at the lower end of their bandpass to, regardless of horn loading. The Community SLS920 loads it's 8" LF drivers on what I would consider to be more of a "true" horn and even they are only good down to 120-150hz when you have multiples of boxes for LF summing.
Perhaps with all the trademarks™ soundbridge
Post by: Alfred_Mapanao on September 03, 2008, 11:40:37 AM
Is it me, or is that right hang positioned too far to the right hiding behind that support tower.
Post by: Silas Pradetto on September 03, 2008, 11:46:05 AM
| Tom Manchester wrote on Wed, 03 September 2008 11:27 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Look at the box... It's one of the largest 2" drivers around on a short / small horn running down to 600hz (and supposedly there are options to run it lower). How well can it be expected to load down there? Who knows but the designer?, I can only speculate that it is not all that well. Then you couple that with 2 8" drivers in something called "horn loading" and expect them to run with a driver rated to the high 140db's. It's no wonder that the rig sounded "thin." I can't fathom that while Tom Danley needs to load more MF and LF drivers in fairly large horn to get it to keep up properly, that Sound Bridge has found a way to place drivers at odd baffle angles in a nearly front loaded configuration and attain the output needed to keep up with a large 2" driver. In my limited experience I have not found boxes with small LF drivers to perform well at the lower end of their bandpass to, regardless of horn loading. The Community SLS920 loads it's 8" LF drivers on what I would consider to be more of a "true" horn and even they are only good down to 120-150hz when you have multiples of boxes for LF summing. Perhaps with all the trademarks™ soundbridge Post by: Tom Manchester on September 03, 2008, 11:59:02 AM
Because better designs made by smarter people already exist and I can just go and buy one. Post by: Silas Pradetto on September 03, 2008, 12:08:34 PM
You don't know how good of a design this rig is, you are going based on comments people made based on a picture I posted of the horn. I'm sure we can all determine the performance of a speaker by looking at it. Few here have heard the Soundbridge rig, and they have a right to comment on the performance. People that haven't heard it can't. Post by: Mac Kerr on September 03, 2008, 12:13:00 PM
That's an interesting observation from someone who has just made a series of judgements about speakers by reading Internet opinions about them. Mac Post by: Silas Pradetto on September 03, 2008, 12:14:12 PM
Mac, go check my post there. Sound quality comparison wasn't even part of what I was trying to say. Post by: Tim McCulloch on September 03, 2008, 12:19:08 PM
The need for HF boost to compensate for air loss over distance is best addressed at the drive side of this equasation. As for designing something better... I submit that there are several valid designs from others, and consequently I don't need to design vertical arrays (and I'm NOT competent to do so, anyway). I'm happy that you're happy, Silas. But I think you're reaching the end of the tree limb on this one... unless it was YOUR rig Evan didn't like. Even if it was, his observations are as valid as anyone else's (FWIW). He deemed the rig provided for his Artist's use to be unsuitable, and that is that. No amount of wishing will change that, and your attempts to do so make you look foolish. I'd be interested in knowing which 6 Flags property this was... Have fun, good luck. Tim Mc Post by: Evan Kirkendall on September 03, 2008, 12:23:22 PM
It's just the angle of the picture. Both hangs were equal distance from the stage.
It's an installed rig, so I really hope that everything is in phase and setup correctly. Blown drivers? Maybe. It wouldnt surprise me if some 8's were blown, since they're so inefficient compared to the horns...
Sure! I got a usable sound out of the boxes. But was it good? No way. No matter how much EQ was used, I just couldnt get the boxes to smooth out without going to complete shit. Every box that Ive ever mixed on that has a compression driver loaded mid range just is harsh. Cone mid drivers sound better. And a 2" horn trying to cover most of the bandwidth on a short horn just isnt happening! I dont care what marketing koolaid you drink, it just wont happen...
Hmm, too bad it was an analog snake, and the console was hired in just for this show. And, I really dont think a PM5D would work too well after a drink was spilled in it...  Hell, the FOH dude hired for the show even commented on how bad the rig sounded with music playback. Evan Post by: Mac Kerr on September 03, 2008, 12:25:56 PM
I thought this is what you said:
I'm pretty sure that has to do with sound quality comparisons. Mac Post by: Silas Pradetto on September 03, 2008, 12:28:56 PM
I'm pretty sure I haven't disagreed with what Evan heard. I have only said that I know the rig can perform better than he heard, and that there was probably some misdeployment with that one. I clearly stated that anyone that has actually heard the rig has a right to their opinion of what they heard. I do severely contest people with opinions of speaker performance that are derived from pictures. Like "that horn looks too small, it has to be unsuitable, etc etc etc". I might respect the opinion slightly if the person had a remote semblance of acoustic engineering experience, but the people that are making these comments are barely out of high school and know nothing of any engineering. Post by: Andy Peters on September 03, 2008, 01:22:05 PM
Evan said it was in Dallas. -a Post by: Richard Rajchel on September 03, 2008, 02:25:29 PM Maybe there was a problem with the processors...just because they were Dolby Lakes doesn't mean they couldn't have been setup wrong on accident, or that there is a malfunction in some wiring somewhere. The thing that ticks me off(not just about this particular situation, but in general here) is that some people make such prejudicial negative statements about a product without barely a drop of information....like who actually tuned the system, are all the drivers operational, are they all in phase, are the processors all set correct, are they all set the same, and on and on and on. There are million variables in a properly tuned system of that size and to just make a blanket statement like "Soundbridge sucks" is irresponsible, unproductive, and possible damaging to their business through no fault of their design or "recommended" setup. That stuff is right up there with the hundreds of "those mic pre's sound like crap" comments on this forum to me. If you can single out the difference of the mic pres in a soundcraft vs an Allen & Heath then good for you....just quit wasting my time by telling me what you think you hear, because there are 12 other pieces of equipment in the signal chain that could be causing the sound difference you THING you hear. I have no doubt that the system Evan worked on probably sounded like hell compared to others he's worked on, but blaming that bad sound solely on the speakers is stupid period. And just to clarify...I don't work for Soundbridge nor have they paid me to say this. It could be Nady speakers for all I care. The spilled drink and digital snake comments were just examples of crazy stuff that could be wrong without your knowledge. Edited for spelling Post by: Tom Manchester on September 03, 2008, 02:28:10 PM
Yeesh, talk about making assumptions. Post by: Ivan Beaver on September 03, 2008, 02:39:58 PM Ie: system engineer. Apparently the sound co thought it was "fine".Back in my rental days, when an issue would "pop up" and I would be unable to deal with it show day. In such cases, I would ALWAYS tell the band engineer about it, and how he could possibly "work around" it. So that at least he was aware of the problem. Evan didn't say anything about him being told any such thing, so we are to "assume" that the sound co "thought" the system was fine. I think therein lies some of the problem. "If you don't hear a problem, then we don't have anything to talk about". I run into things like this all the time in installs that are "working fine" yet perform horrible due to bad design. Somebody-at some time- said that "this" was acceptable. I wonder what street they are cleaning now  .
Post by: Jeff Babcock on September 03, 2008, 03:09:59 PM
Silas, Dude, you are digging yourself a hole via these last couple threads..... The same thing happens in other markets, look at vehicles. Somebody buys a car that has a problem and they tell everyone that "that car sucks", without necessarily knowing the specific details as to why that particular car had a problem. Maybe the car sucks, maybe not. It's an opinion. If you want to defend the product, the best thing you can do is simply make it sound good when you run your own rig. About the only thing at this point that would change Evan's mind would be to hear another Soundbridge rig that sounded great. Post by: Richard Rajchel on September 03, 2008, 04:59:50 PM Why is it a "Soundbridge: rig? I could be a PM5D rig, or a Crown iTech rig, or a Dolby Lake rig, or a Sennheiser rig... If it was in Dallas, how do we know that every air conditioner from El Paso to San Antonio wasn't on full blast and the power company couldn't supply what normally comes to that facility...or that the original engineers even specified enough power? Millions of variables and one immediate conclusion...the speakers suck????? Post by: The Guy on September 03, 2008, 05:01:04 PM
Horn size is not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of the laws of physics. If you had any semblance of acoustic engineering experience, you'd know this already. Manufacturers (and users) that think said laws of physics do not apply to their products are asking for trouble from day one. -JB Post by: Jim Duyck on September 03, 2008, 10:56:52 PM Post by: Silas Pradetto on September 03, 2008, 11:05:21 PM
The subs are the line array subs that go with the XYON system. They have the same funny woofer angles, and they aren't online yet. FYI, the Soundbridge site hasn't been updated in 4 years, and all the spec sheets for the XYON stuff are preliminary (wrong). The new sheets spec Powersoft K6 amps, different crossover frequency, and different driver impedance, among other things. Post by: Rick Stansby on September 04, 2008, 02:34:02 AM
Because the speakers have a much bigger impact on the sound of the rig than any of these (except maybe microphones). If it sounds great with a PM5D then it will sound great with a Mackie SR24 or a Heritage 3k. If is sounds great with iTech amps it will sound great with (proper sized) QSC, Crown or Crest amps. And so on. Post by: Pascal Pincosy on September 04, 2008, 03:16:19 AM I think it's irresponsible to write a negative review of a product based on a single use unless you have had the opportunity to inspect and verify the entire system. I would have figured that people would have learned their lesson after the whole Adamson debacle.
Post by: Ernie Bellamy on September 04, 2008, 11:17:44 AM Post by: Jeff Knorr - Cobra Sound on September 04, 2008, 11:27:26 AM Evan could have probably chosen his words a little more carefully. Maybe something along the lines of, "I didn't like the tuning or sound quality of the Soundbridge rig in this venue." Evan is young but he's out working on a myriad of systems and is quickly gaining more experience. We all have our systems of choice/preference but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't let others share their opinions. Jeff Post by: Mike Christy on September 04, 2008, 12:23:34 PM Post by: Jeff Babcock on September 04, 2008, 04:46:34 PM
Wow. That really says something to me. Knowing that does more to tarnish my opinion of them than Evan's review. Post by: Christopher Cole on September 05, 2008, 03:08:45 AM Before I put in my two cents let me be clear that I have taken off my "sales guy" hat and will respond as an engineer. No sales hype... Just reality... The XYON rig at Six Flags has been a poor example of our product since we sold the rig. There are several factors that are contributing to this. 1. The fly is wrong... Angles and box count..It has 12 boxes per side.. According to my calculation that is 2-4 too many. The result is too much "spectral Density" down front and not enough up top... not level... spectrum. The angles are also not correct for even coverage across the venue. 2. The steel beam that the system is hanging from was there prior to us selling the rig... It is positioned straight forward and the result is build up in the center and no coverage left and right. We requested a change but SF said that they did not have the budget to make the change. 3. In a recent trip to the park to listen to the system I discovered that the subs were low passed at 100Hz which was correct but the tops were high passed at 300Hz... Hmmmm... I don't think that was a problem with the frequency response of the loudspeaker... only an issue with the processing. Bottom Line... Any rig can sound terrible... Some are just better at it... Very few systems can get into the "Amazing" category. Our system lives there most of the time. All great rigs can fall into the poor category if they are used incorrectly. I have heard other manufacturers systems sound bad when I know for a fact that the "line array" being applied is an exceptional product... If the system was put into the venue by a unqualified or unskilled tech then it is a shame that the brand on the front of the loudspeaker gets the blame. It is a "system" after all. Rest assured that I am not happy about it and We will get the rig at SF dialed in for next season... Also... our web site is seriously outdated ... I agree...but we are growing so fast that we chose to ignore it for a bit. The new site goes live October 1st. Evan... Jim... Ivan... Adam... Tim... John... If any of you are interested... I would love to have you come to the factory for a demo... I will cover the plane ticket and hotel at your convenience... we do this all the time. The reality is that we close 100% of the demo's we do at the factory because the system it teched and explained correctly and it offers the most amazing performance in any system I have ever heard. I am not selling here... I am giving my honest opinion. If it were not exceptional, we would not have released it Silas will attest to this... The elegance of the XYON rig "and now I put on my sales guy hat" is that when flown correctly it is capable of very high fidelity, extremely even coverage in both planes and crazy amounts of head room/ dynamic range. It is simple to rig and a hang of six boxes is driven by only two powersoft K-6 amplifiers. I have demo'd the product at sustained levels in excess of 125dB at 100 plus feet simply to prove that the system does have that kind of head room while still offering very low THD. To All... Please except this posting in a spirit of humility and pride in our product and know that In no way should my tone be received as condescending.... My invitation to the factory is real... I would love to meet anyone who wants to come. I can be reached on my cell at 214-476-5355. All The Best, I. Christopher Cole, President Post by: Ivan Beaver on September 05, 2008, 07:52:37 AM Just wondering. Thanks for the offer, but if I came out, your 100% closure rate would be broken as I have no use for a line array in what I do. At least as of yet-and don't expect to in the future.
Post by: Tim McCulloch on September 05, 2008, 09:38:18 AM I had a big, long reply for Silas and a couple other posters that ultimately I decided to not post. I covered some of the possible design and deployment issues that seem to plague vertical arrays in general. Many times the sonic failure of a vertical array lies solely with the individual who configured and flew it. The filter for human stupidity still needs some work... Based on your post, there are several questions that come to mind but they will have to wait, there is a gig to be done... Thanks for your post, I'm fairly certain this discussion isn't complete... Have fun, good luck. Tim Mc Post by: Evan Kirkendall on September 05, 2008, 12:18:19 PM
If you can get a comparable box that I already know sounds good(EAW KF730, EV XLD) to do a head to head with, then Im in.
At 1k? Ill believe this when I hear it. If a hang of 12 per side struggles to hit 103, I dont see this really happening... Evan Post by: Mike Christy on September 05, 2008, 12:41:47 PM Just a wild a$$ thought... Mike Post by: Evan Kirkendall on September 05, 2008, 01:15:30 PM Evan Post by: Gene Hardage on September 05, 2008, 02:02:23 PM
No doubt about it. I thought that from the moment I lurked over here. But I'm just a dumb ol' geetar player with a small stack rig. Someone at SF was smart enough to get into the DSP of that rig and monkey with it the same way a night club tries to protect a club rig from an evil DJ. Unfortunately it obviously screwed up what had been a usable rig when first installed. Anyone here remember how it worked right after it was installed and the final official tweak was put on it by some guy with a wizard hat? Post by: The Guy on September 05, 2008, 06:24:12 PM -JB Post by: Evan Kirkendall on September 06, 2008, 01:22:45 AM
Yes. I was actually cutting in the 250 range a lot to get rid of some of the LF mud gak. Evan Post by: Robert Lunceford on September 06, 2008, 02:54:43 AM
Christopher, You may want to check out the following thread. http://srforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/t/28515/0/ Post by: Robert Lunceford on September 06, 2008, 12:55:20 PM Instead of flying half a dozen people to his controlled showroom to demonstrate his system in an optimum environment, why not spend that money to correct the problem at Six Flags. Christopher, can you list a dozen installs that have been done correctly where your system is operating properly? It would be much more reasonable for most of us to hear your system locally in a "real world" setting. Robert Post by: Andy Peters on September 06, 2008, 03:01:55 PM
In his defense, he may not have any control over the install. For example, after the Knitting Factory (NYC) moved from E Houston to Leonard St, their ads trumpeted the "State Of The Art Meyer Sound System." As everyone who had to mix on that rig knew (and everyone who had to listen to it), the rig sucked. But it wasn't the speakers -- it was the install, which was a disaster. Part of the disaster was a result of having to mitigate noise so the neighbors wouldn't complain, but regardless, it was a disaster. No offense to Jason, who has to deal with it, and of course my info may be out of date as I have not been in the room in ten years. But the point is that John Meyer really has no control over how his products are used and it would be unreasonable to expect him to fix it. Same with our friend from Soundbridge. -a Post by: Ivan Beaver on September 06, 2008, 03:44:44 PM Let's assume same amount of money to fix, then why wait and let people get dissappointed and blame it on the loudspeakers. I totally agree that manufacturers cannot be responsible for everything they sell to be used properly. Misuse of audio gear is responsible for more bad sound than poor gear is! Now if they aren't intending on "fixing it", then it is what it is. I totally agree with the misuse of equipment. We do quite a few jobs where all we sell them is some labor to take the old stuff down and redeploy it properly, with much better results. And most of the time this is not cheap gear OR a cheap install-usually quite the opposite. Now if it is the wrong gear for the job, then that is a different story. Post by: Christopher Cole on September 06, 2008, 04:03:58 PM I will respond to all emails shortly… Yesterday was My birthday and my Wife’s Birthday so we are doing some family stuff this weekend. The issue regarding the SF install is that the rig gets taken down every week and the processing is done inside of Crown I-Tech. The I-Tech’s fail in pairs on a regular basis and so the preset that get’s loaded constantly changes. None of the “problem” presets have been taken off of the computer so from time to time they may get reloaded. It is not our PC but the parks. Since it is not our install we do not have control of it however, it is a show place for us or at least it is supposed to be. We will be working on it early next week but the park is not planning to use the rig/venue again until October. The last time I was there and tech’d the Rig…(about five months ago) it was a Seether/Flyleaf show. The sustained spl was above 112dB at mix and the result was excellent according to both engineers and Kris from our factory who was there working with the two engineers in a support capacity. I have a feeling that Evan found himself in a position where the limiters were clamped down and perhaps a bad preset was loaded. If I have my way, That rig will be change to Powersoft and XTA or Lake. That is our typical system spec. I will respond more later tonight… CC Post by: Christopher Cole on September 06, 2008, 04:25:48 PM I did make that change and the rig sounded great when I was finished with the exception of the left/right coverage issues. However, all presets were left in the House pc and that was over one year ago. I think the crossover points were probably correct when Evan was on the rig but someone decided to clamp down the Limiters and perhaps apply some odd parametric eq. Not sure but it was wrong to say the least. I think an interesting thing to note here is that when the SF rig was delivered they were in the process of building the roof for the first Coobrila show. The system was initially put in without our involvement. I got involved about one week into the show. A potential client had commented that it sounded thin. I heard the problem on my first visit and made the crossover correction then. That potential client who was not initially impressed with the rig heard it two weeks later in a different venue. He said at that point that it was the best rig he had ever heard and now owns a XYON rig. Two of the engineers at that show purchased rigs for there churches as well. This rig was setup correctly. In the case of you visiting I simply wanted to extend the invitation... I was not considering that you or anyone else on this posting would be interested in buying a rig... I just wanted to give you the opportunity to hear it and understand it's potential. The best form of advertising for us is through our clients/friends and thier experiences using the rig. That is why we are growing so fast. Feel free to vist if you would like. Take Care, Chris Ivan Christopher Cole, President SBAL Post by: Jason Tubbs on September 07, 2008, 12:31:37 AM
Well, John Meyer may not have been in control, but his certified techs were. The first time I tried to get the system upgraded/replaced, I was told by John Monitto that the current install was sufficient. This was one MTS-4A per side, hanging inverted, and nothing else. The current install, while still lacking in a few areas, is a vast improvement - you might even enjoy mixing on it, Andy! Better hurry, though - the Knit is history in about three months. Enough noise from me. jt Post by: Pascal Pincosy on September 07, 2008, 01:42:24 AM
Since Ivan doesn't have any sort of mention of his affiliation with a loudspeaker manufacturer in his sig line, you might not be aware that he works with Danley Sound Labs, one of your point-source competitors. That might have something to do with his lack of interest in purchasing your products. Post by: Ivan Beaver on September 07, 2008, 01:55:32 PM I am employed by dB Audio & Video. It was in that light that I was responding regarding needs. As the Chief Engineer for dB, I use a faily wide variety of loudspeaker manufacturers in my designs. The proper speaker for the intended purpose-NOT just to use a particular brand-as many designers do and try and "shoe horn" it into working-even though it is not the right fit. It is very common for me to have 3 (or more) different loudspeaker manufacturers in a single job. And as such I never have-nor anticipate ever needing- to use a line array (in the typical sense) for an install. Line source type cabinets, I use all the time-when they are the proper choice for the particular room. I have several of these type rooms coming up before the end of the year and will be using two different manufacturers as needed and per budget. I have had quite a few line arrays at the shop to play with and have yet to find a project in which any of them would be what I would consider to be "the best approach" or even a good approach . The cons FAR outweigh any little possible advantage they would offer.
Post by: Kristian Johnsen on September 07, 2008, 10:04:28 PM
Evan, with all due respect, this is not a product review, it a gig review. There are so many variables here that you had no control over. I do not doubt for a second that your description of how the entire system sounded is correct but why are you so certain that the loudspeakers are to blame? Now that the manufacturer has chimed in it might indeed seem as if there are other issues here. To me a product review is only useful if the person performing it is able to check out the product all the way from taking it out of the flight case, through hanging it, trough connecting it all the way to trying it out with different settings and program materials. If there was a Soundbridge tech next to you for sound check that could change settings and aiming as asked by you and this person said "this is as good as it gets" this would be a proper product review. As of now you were handed a pre(mis)adjusted system by someone (talking about FS concert promoters here) that has no idea of what's going on. I'm sorry that this made your gig that day a pain but just spewing it all on Soundbridge is just plain unfair. It's kinda like flaming Ford for horrible pulling power and then finding out that the mechanic misadjusted the handbrake on the last service so that you've been driving around with the rear brakes partially engaged. Post by: Richard Rajchel on September 08, 2008, 06:43:37 PM If that system is bought and paid for SF doesn't have to let anyone from Soundbridge near it if they don't want to...unless of course there's some language to that effect in a sales contract somewhere. All these accusations against Soundbridge are completely unfounded. Unless you have some inside information on the availability of this system for Soundbridge to have access to and "dial it in" then you should keep your opinions to yourself. I much prefer to listen to people with facts. For those of you that rent out gear or have to deal with opening band BEs that just have no clue, what do you do. You probably have your company name plastered all over the equipment and the trucks and it sounds like hell....so you just kick the offending BE off the mixer and shut the show down and explain to the 15,000 people there that they can't see the band because it sounds bad? Just wondering... Post by: Kristian Johnsen on September 08, 2008, 08:55:07 PM
I'm sorry Richard, this might be a language thing, but I have no idea what this was supposed to illustrate in this discussion. Could you clarify?
Post by: Tim McCulloch on September 08, 2008, 09:46:27 PM
Yet another victim of a senseless flat view tragedy... Tim Mc Post by: Tom Manchester on September 08, 2008, 10:23:46 PM And the good moderator sayeth unto them:
If you don't like that someone is badmouthing gear tough cookies. The validity of statements is are solely up to the reader to evaluate. If you are basing your purchasing decisions soley on an internet forum you really should consider actually using your own ears <and sometimes eyes> to see what you think of a product, and not be so quick to bash some else's opinion. No warranties expressed or implied, your mileage may vary, etc. etc. Post by: Richard Rajchel on September 08, 2008, 10:58:45 PM If however you setup a critical comparison with all identical equipment except for the reviewed items, and double and triple checked that the item(s) to be reviewed have been setup properly, then I would put infinitely more weight upon your review of that item. If you just make random assumptions about system setup and publicly discredit a piece of equipment you should expect to be soundly ridiculed yourself for making such claims. I've read many of yours and Evan's posts and think you both certainly know your stuff when it comes to mixing and getting decent sound from known equipment. But to be honest you've both made bad assumptions about pieces of equipment that you hadn't the slightest clue as to how the system was setup. This is a personality trait where it seems you are quick to judge without proper knowledge. Not a technical ability rip in any way. Most people with common sense would read the OP and simply blow it off as uninformed nonsense. I know I did. I've never heard a Soundbridge or Adamson system that I know of, but neither of those reviews holds a single ounce of weight with me. I'm more concerned with people publicly ripping equipment that they have no business doing. Rip the setup or the sound all you want...rip SF for that matter for setting up a crappy sounding system, but blaming it on a single piece of equipment within that system in public will get you all the criticism you deserve. Edited because I was stupid basically...and apologize to Tom... Post by: Richard Rajchel on September 08, 2008, 11:07:57 PM Post by: Evan Kirkendall on September 09, 2008, 12:26:51 AM
While we're all getting our panties bunched up, I think this point needs to be driven again. While there may somewhere, quite possibly, perhaps, maybe be a good sounding SoundBridge rig out there, I didnt get one, that's for sure. And, that leaves a lasting impression. And you can bet if I see a SoundBridge rig spec'd in any upcoming rigs, Ill be saying "no thanks, get me something else." Until I can demo them side by side with something I know sounds good, my opinion stands. Bitch all you want, it's not changing my mind. Evan Post by: Tom Manchester on September 09, 2008, 12:27:10 AM I also am under the belief that unless a system suffers an immense amount of DSP and setup issues that the boxes should not have suffered the amount of issues described to me by Evan and Jim. A little excess 250hz here, an HF amp turned down too low there I can understand, but if in two separate instances two individuals claim highly unfavorable tonality across the entire spectrum it certainly raises alarm in my opinion. I did not intend on making any comments as to the sound quality of the system as I have never heard it. However, based on my observations of other loudspeakers I am simply skeptical of claimed system performance from techniques that do not seem to follow the more fundamental rules of loudspeaker design (not to suggest that such rules can not be broken, but it might lead one to be highly suspect of claimed results). I can only contend that my two colleagues with whom I have been fortunate in sharing a few years of learning experience in the field of live sound have both had less than favorable results with SoundBridge and I respect their opinions. As a whole there are there are just a small handful of products that I don't like. Some of those products are doing quite well and obviously other people like them. That, my friend, is why I carry earplugs to concerts.  Post by: Tim McCulloch on September 09, 2008, 01:58:36 AM I'm not here to praise Caesar, but to bury him. After looking at Evan's pics, looking at the product data sheets, and perusing the useless website that contains more annoying Flash than I can close my eyes to.... My conclusion is that *some* of the problems described by Evan are the result of Not Enough Rig for the Gig Post by: Kristian Johnsen on September 09, 2008, 06:36:34 AM
So you'll flame the crap out of a loudspeaker brand because you mixed on a system that sounded bad, yet you won't say anything good about it until you are able to test it in a manner that a proper product review deserves in the first place? Post by: Kristian Johnsen on September 09, 2008, 06:38:37 AM
This thread contains statements that by the same reasoning makes a VDOSC rig crap also... Post by: Kristian Johnsen on September 09, 2008, 07:04:22 AM
Edit: it was a dVDOSC not a VDOSC Post by: Ivan Beaver on September 09, 2008, 08:00:49 AM If they were not involved, I would agree with you. But knowing that there is a problem and just choosing to wait awhile is a different issue. I would argue that most "bad sounding" rigs are faults of incorrect usage, installation, alignment rather than the actual product itself. Don't blame the tool, if it is used wrong. Give 3 people a hammer. 1 will build a house, 1 will build a piece of furniture and the other will hit his thumb and blame THE HAMMER! Post by: Ivan Beaver on September 09, 2008, 08:09:25 AM
So how many products reviews on this forum are done that way? VERY few. And then when you factor in how well the comparisom was actually done/setup, it gets really hard to get ACCURATE side by side results. Post by: Kristian Johnsen on September 09, 2008, 09:13:15 AM
I agree, it is very rarely possible to make a proper review containing side-by-side comparisons etc. But if I'm using a pair of borrowed subwoofers and they deliver no bass and I don't have the opportunity to inspect the wiring for polarity errors or check that the HPF isn't mistakenly set higher than the X-over frequency in the DSP etc then basically the "review" is worth nada. Silas has just tested the Growlers. They performed fine in the grassy field. He gets into a bar and the venue's acoustics makes them seem to output 20 dBs less . What if Silas had just walked into a gig, mixed his band on the Growlers and left and then reported back in the same manner as Evan? I'm sure he would have had nothing good to say about them. But instead he also gave them a good run in an controlled environment with access to surrounding cabling and gear. I think this is necessary for a product review to be of any use to me, otherwise, like stated before it really is a gig review, isn't it?
Post by: Aaron Kovacik on September 09, 2008, 10:26:13 AM Post by: Kristian Johnsen on September 09, 2008, 10:38:50 AM
Point taken. However it was indeed posted in the review section, wheras perhaps it belonged just as much in The Basement. To me it seems like someone (rightfully) thought that day sucked because of the sound system that was handed over to him to mix on. Perhaps there was a need to "place some blame" and get some frustration out? Who knows? Anyhow, the review wasn't useful to me unless I go to mix at that venue in the very near future. Post by: Richard Rajchel on September 09, 2008, 12:16:06 PM I suppose there were a few thousand people there listening to that crappy system. Would you want them to judge your mixing skills on the way it sounded at SF that day? I would guess there were a few people there that thought to themselves "this sound guy sucks!" even if it wasn't your fault. Or even maybe thought the band sucked because of a crappy sound system...unjustified right??? Think about it. I'm not ripping on your skills...just your quick to judge attitude. Post by: Ivan Beaver on September 09, 2008, 12:32:33 PM We don't know all of the conversations that went on that day. But I still stand by my comment "SOMEBODY" thought the rig was fine. It must of been somebody who was "in charge" of the system. Maybe it always sounded like it did that day and they did not know the difference-or didn't care-I don't know. A worthless review would be from somebody IN THE AUDIENCE who said the sound was bad. They REALLY have nothing to judge anything on. And while we are on the "review" bandwagon. When was the last time you saw a review in a magazine that anything really bad to say about a product. Such as "poor freq response", "harsh sounding", "distorts easily", wouldn't get loud enough etc. It is usually-color, knob/handle placement etc. They don't want to tick off the manufacturer so they won't advertise in the mag. So they "find" nice things to say. Maybe something was wrong with the "rig", I don't know, and I have no opinion as I have never heard it. But Evan was just expressing HIS experience on that day. And with the loudspeakers being the overall biggest variable on the sound quality-they would "dictate" the "sound" of the "rig" more than anything else. Post by: Richard Rajchel on September 09, 2008, 01:05:07 PM You are right that it's worthless for an audience member to judge anything about the sound, but I'm sure some of them have probably expressed what they thought to friends of theirs, or even other Engineers in the audience, or musicians. That doesn't make their opinions any more right or wrong than Evan's in this case. It was a bad sounding system, and as such should be more indicative of what to expect from that sound system at SF in Dallas...not necessarily of Soundbridge, or Crown iTech, or the Yamaha PM5D for that matter. Common sense easily to me says something was setup incorrectly. Something Evan had no control over. It most certainly COULD be the speakers, but making that assumption without other information about the setup of the system is irresponsible IMHO. Post by: Tim Padrick on September 10, 2008, 02:31:20 AM
Sure they do - they have their reference of what they consider to sound good. They may not be able to say with any certainty whether it was the rig or the guy driving that made it suck, but they can certainly say whether the sound was better or worse than the previous show that they attended - or any number of other shows. Post by: Ivan Beaver on September 10, 2008, 06:36:41 AM
Yeah, I didn't state exactly what I was meaning. I was implying to a review of EQUIPMENT from an audience persepective. Post by: Matt Vivlamore on September 10, 2008, 08:37:53 AM Post by: Bob Leonard on September 10, 2008, 09:27:24 AM While Evan can be very dead set against a product (think JBL), I've noticed his opinions have changed and his stance widen since incurring some real world experience with real world hardware. In a nutshell his opinion of the system setup at this particular Six Flags was probably spot on. What I think is important to remember is this. The system was designed and installed by someone calling themselves a professional. That professional more than likely did not assume that the processor settings for the box should be what they are. That professional more than likely took the settings the manufacturer recommended, applied them, and tweeked the system a little after that and then locked down the system. I'll guarantee that Six Flags didn't purchase the system on price alone, but I'll also bet Six Flags didn't listen to a half dozen systems prior to the purchase. Therefor the burden of responsability falls to the manufacturer because in the end it is the manufacturers responsability to insure their product is installed correctly by their rep. What I would like to know from Evan is this. How did the system sound compared to other poorly installed systems you have had experience with? And; Given the benefit of the doubt that the system could use some tweeks, how much better do you think it could sound. Post by: Evan Kirkendall on September 10, 2008, 12:27:54 PM
Ive come across a bunch of poorly installed systems this year. Most of them just blend together over time. The only thing that I can think of is a JBL VT4888 rig installed in town. It's a shitty install, and it sounds horrible. Of course, I know why this rig sounds so bad, and I've looked at the processor. It's not pretty:   However, I got a pretty usable sound from that system. It's got the typical JBL harshness, but it's not as bad as the SB rig...
I spent an hour just trying to get a usable sound out of the system. I dont think it could get too much better. I just dont buy the whole "lets run a 2" horn on a short waveguide down to 600hz and see what it sounds like" thing... Compression driven mids will NEVER sound as good as a cone driven mid. Evan Post by: ThomasDameron on September 10, 2008, 06:03:05 PM Similarly, when I first read how low the 2" goes on the XYON it immediately made me think of a Meyer M2D. Their pair of 4"/1.5" go down just below 600hz on a horn with a 3" path length. All of this is according to their own data sheet: http://www.meyersound.com/pdf/products/m_series/m2d_ds-B.pdf Now I'm not saying that this is "correct" in the purest sense or it will maintain horn loading down that low. The two things that I am saying, is that Meyer has produced a product using a similar design that has proven to be very effective and has been used with great results on some really substantial projects. I'm also saying that I don't see Meyer getting the same of bad mouthing that Sound Bridge has received. If you bad mouth Meyer no one is really going to care much, but if you bad mouth Sound Bridge, a company trying to get it's start based on reputation, it's really going to have a lot more effect. At the end of the day I just want to see a little social justice here in our community, but neither Evan's bad review or Silas' good one are going to carry much weight with me, personally, until I can either hear it myself or read something that even feigns subjectivity. thomas d. Post by: Silas Pradetto on September 10, 2008, 06:09:19 PM I want someone like Ivan to go to Texas and see the rig, and Chris will show them the horn, and explain everything in detail. But for now, I think everyone is hearing with their eyes. Post by: Anders Prehn on September 10, 2008, 09:53:50 PM Ohh boy, this will be a long one........... Following this for awhile, just to see where it would go, I feel I must kick in some "hands on XYON experience" I actually think I have one of the first XYON riggs shipped in November 2006... Due to my earlier experience with the BMS4592 (The driver in XYON) I decided to take a trip to Dallas and see and check out the system, the main problem with boxes that uses the BMS driver is to get the rest of the system to keep up with the driver / it's simply a loud driver, but sounds really well with the top end you miss in a straight 2" First listen to the system was at a concert where the system was mounted by a guy that didn't have a clue what he was dealing with, at we were about to check out and go home.... We stayed and went to the factory the next day ready to bash Chris for making us travel half around the globe for THIS !! We flew the system 6 box hang, in the parking lot, pulled out the SMART live and did the routine.... One problem occurred, it measured out more than extremely well and had close to none phase errors, we got curios how the processor was setup... The chock the hit us, when we found that the little phase error we found when measuring was the driver that wasn't delayed. All that was done in the system was a small 3db shelving in the top from apx. 8khz and a small 2db notch at 500hz. After a listen to the system again where we cranked it, we were surprised over the amount of headroom for transients, precision and coverage over the horizontal plan. We went back home and reviewed what to do.... The choice was between the DB Q1 or the XYON ??? 2 month later we had 20tops and 12 subs shipped. Now after having had the system for close to 2 years, the status is like this.... It's an hard system to work if you don't know a lot about line array, for the first 4 month I had a really hardcore line array tech hired at my company and every single job was A++. When he left my company, we started to get in trouble and do really shitty gigs with the system due to lack of line array experience, we actually had to replace the rigg 48 hours prior a festival, due to that we couldn’t get it working right. In the end we cracked the riddle after Chris from SB came to Denmark and we found that.... We in general 1. used too many boxes in a hang, 2. Angled totally wrong 3. over eq'ed the system in order to balance out the wrong angles, with devastating results.... 4. Our amplification was too weak. So we took the consequence and did new amp racks containing Xilica XD8080 processor and Powersoft K6 amps. And now we are back on track and actually a lot further than Chris due to that we now divide the array into sections controller wise and this way have 100% control of the array.We in general don't have any eq's doing more than apx. +/-2DB and a little shelving in the top no limiters anywhere in the system (you don't need to). Not a single complain at all, only good wibes. I MUST STRESS, that if you want a system that goes 80>85% of the way and any fool can mount, just hang it and point it some what the right way ...... Go buy a D&B Q1 system and live with the limitations this gives. The XYON is a bitch that will hit back if you don't do it right, due to the precision the box angling needs you must calculate and stick with it. Done right you will be awarded with that crisp 1" top out on 240 feet you only find in so few and true line array systems, the headroom and in your face experience that is so hard to obtain. One point that is not to go unnoticed......... I bought one of the first systems, close to a beta and last month I received 4 more boxes.... containing, the same 8" and driver as in the ones I had already. Not a version 2,3,4 or more. So bottomline is, if you don't know the basics, learn it ..... otherwise you will screw it up, I did Good luck to you all...... out/over there !! AP Post by: Anders Prehn on September 10, 2008, 09:56:16 PM Following this for awhile, just to see where it would go, I feel I must kick in some "hands on XYON experience" I actually think I have one of the first XYON riggs shipped in November 2006... Due to my earlier experience with the BMS4592 (The driver in XYON) I decided to take a trip to Dallas and see and check out the system, the main problem with boxes that uses this driver is that it's simply too loud, but sounds really well with the top end you miss in a straight 2" First listen to the system was at a concert where the system was mounted by a guy that didn't have a clue what he was dealing with, at we were about to check out and go home.... We stayed and went to the factory the next day ready to bash Chris for making us travel across the Atlantic for THIS !! We flew the system 6 box hang, in the parking lot, pulled out the SMART live and did the routine.... One problem occurred, it measured out more than extremely well and we got curios how the processor was setup... The chock the hit us, when we found that the little phase error we found when measuring was the driver that wasn't delayed. All that was done in the system was a small 3db shelving in the top from apx. 8khz and a small 2db notch at 500hz. After a listen to the system again where we cranked it, we were surprised over the amount of headroom for transients, precision and coverage over the horizontal plan. We went back home and reviewed what to do.... The choice was between the DB Q1 or the XYON ??? Post by: Anders Prehn on September 10, 2008, 09:56:51 PM Now after having had the system for close to 2 years, the status is like this.... It's an hard system to work if you don't know a lot about line array, for the first 4 month I had a really hardcore line array tech hired at my company and every single job was A++. When he left my company, we started to get in trouble and do really shitty gigs with the system due to lack of line array experience, we actually had to replace the rigg 48 hours prior a festival, due to that we couldn’t get it working right. In the end we cracked the riddle after Chris from SB came to Denmark and we found that.... We in general 1. used too many boxes in a hang, 2. Angled totally wrong 3. over eq'ed the system in order to balance out the wrong angles, with devastating results.... 4. Our amplification was too weak. So we took the consequence and did new amp racks containing Xilica XD8080 processor and Powersoft K6 amps. And now we are back on track and actually a lot further than Chris due to that we now divide the array into sections controller wise and this way have 100% control of the array.We in general don't have any eq's doing more than apx. +/-2DB and a little shelving in the top no limiters anywhere in the system (you don't need to). Not a single complain at all, only good wibes. I MUST STRESS, that if you want a system that goes 80>85% of the way and any fool can mount, just hang it and point it some what the right way ...... Go buy a D&B Q1 system and live with the limitations this gives. The XYON a bitch that will hit back if you don't do it right, due to the precision the box angling needs you must calculate and stick with it. Done right you will be awarded with that crisp 1" top out on 240 feet you only find in so few and true line array systems, the headroom and in your face experience that is so hard to obtain. One point that is not to go unnoticed......... I bought one of the first systems, close to a beta and last month I received 4 more boxes.... containing, the same 8" and driver as in the ones I had already. Not a version 2,3,4 or more. So bottom line must be, IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING, LEARN IT, other wise you will screw up….. I did ! Good luck to you all...... out/over there !! AP Post by: Anders Prehn on September 10, 2008, 10:05:55 PM Post by: Evan Kirkendall on September 10, 2008, 11:46:32 PM
This is one of the "better" ones that I could find on youtube. It's on axis with the house right array and right in the bulk of the crowd: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0EtpUPrJFY (Sorry in advance for the out of key singing girls...) Here's the same song, on a much better sounding rig: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs9eoK1m8OQ (HOB Chicago) I was hammering the rig trying to get enough SPL... Evan Post by: Silas Pradetto on September 10, 2008, 11:59:09 PM
I need a .wav file
Post by: Winston Gamble on September 11, 2008, 12:16:41 AM
While I can't speak to the quality of the Soundbridge system, I do have some experience with the BMS 4592ND driver as the BMS distrubutor is here in SLC. Jack is a long time if infrequent lab poster who uses the 4592 in most of his systems. My experience is that it is an amazing sounding driver that he uses with exellent results down as low as 350hz. I have had very positive listening experiences with his systems with a variety of musical styles although I'm pretty sure I've never heard it pushed to Evan levels. I too think the tone of the OP is a bit too black and white, but it's just one opinion. Winston Post by: Jamie Taylor on September 11, 2008, 12:21:16 AM Post by: Evan Kirkendall on September 11, 2008, 12:32:49 AM It will be featured on one of the stages at this years "Evan's LAB Get Together 2k8 Spectacular" in mid December. More info soon... Evan Post by: Tim Padrick on September 11, 2008, 01:55:12 AM
2k8 won't be for another 792 years
Post by: Robert Lunceford on September 11, 2008, 04:02:39 AM I found this clip of The Newsboys at Six Flags Over Texas. Is this the same stage you were working at? As far as these types of videos go, the sound on this clip sounds pretty good. One of the comments was posted by someone that was at the show. He wrote that it was the best concert he had ever been to. The sound must have at least been decent, or he was stoned. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWyjVdRuGXI&feature=relat ed Post by: Adam Whetham on September 11, 2008, 10:15:57 AM Doesn't this Line array have aim software? or is it just not being used? or is there some lack of training somewhere down the line that you just can't slap up a line array and pick angles you think will work? Post by: Adam Whetham on September 11, 2008, 10:18:20 AM
He's going Sega style... 
Post by: Silas Pradetto on September 11, 2008, 10:21:09 AM
There is aimware, and it works very well. Post by: Tim McCulloch on September 11, 2008, 12:02:01 PM The software is only as good as the person using it, and if the software is accurate, the rig must be deployed according to the software. A 1 Post by: Christopher Cole on September 11, 2008, 01:21:57 PM Let me interject here... The rig at SF is a portable rig... It is taken down on a weekly basis without fail... Depending on how busy the head Tech is he may not be involved in the re-hang...I will post a screen shot of our SPACE SHAPE software with the correct angle calcs later. The big issue in terms of the L to R coverage is the need for a 12 to 15 degree toe out which their hang can not provide at the moment. I am pushing for a change here. The other issue is that every time I have opened the I-tech settings they are different... The first time they were completely wrong but we caught the errors early. In recent history the limiting has been changed. As I understand it, an issue exists where the I-techs are blowing breakers... ?? I am a bit in the dark on that one. If I have my way, we will switch to Powersoft/Lake or XTA... Our typical system spec for the last 18 months. The last time I was there and fixed the processing issues the system was good with the exception of the L-R coverage. Toby-Mac...Seether/Flyleaf were the Fri/Sat line up and every one loved the rig. I assumed that everything was the same.. WRONG ANSWER... That is my fault and we will be very involved going forward. We are a young company and growing at a rapid pace... This growth is fueled by Product Performance. We are trying to manage this growth in a way that allows us to stay very close to our customers/friends. We are not a huge company but we seem to be pointed in that direction. Either way, our products are made in Texas USA using Italian and German components and will continue to be manufactured here, always. Our success is not accidental...It has come as a result of the extremely positive response of our 7000 SERIES customers. All of them made a decision to use our system over other systems. In the case of SF, they chose us from a group of four. That decision was not based on price but performance. In fact.. the statement was made when we did our demo that "that was the best audio result they had ever heard in that venue by far". Every major array has flown in the Mill and the key decision makers had heard them all and they went with our product. Thanks to the forum for understanding that Audio Systems have many opportunities for errors and while our speaker system is the last element in the SF system it is not where the main issue lies. I do take full responsibility for it however. We will be at every show going forward. Any questions, I can be reached on my cell at 214-476-5355. All The Best, Chris Post by: Evan Kirkendall on September 11, 2008, 02:15:04 PM
So, toe out the arrays and lose even more coverage down front? Ideal! When I was there, the L/R coverage disappeared about 15' from the stage. The highs disappeared and it just became a muddy mess down front. The lack of front fills was great too! I had them throw up 2 wedges to help cover down front... What that place needs is a complete new PA. Hell, I'd take 2 KF850's a side on deck, and 4 flown a side over that rig. A line array is not the proper rig for that venue. It is waaay wider then deep. Evan Post by: Matt Vivlamore on September 11, 2008, 03:53:51 PM
I don't know if this is the same stage, but they used to splay 3 cabs per side to cover everything on a ground stack... At least that the promo pics they are showing at Six Flags Texas. But that was in 2005. Post by: Christopher Cole on September 11, 2008, 04:09:17 PM Actually, There is too much coverage down front. Like I said before, I would drop two boxes and toe the rig out. If I needed a front fill then it would only be one dead center if I remember what the horizontal calculation said almost two years ago. Realize that in 99% of the cases our rigs that are working out in the field sell many more rigs. That is why we don't advertise at the moment. If we did we would have too much business.That is also why we are able to flourish with our horribly outdated web site.(soon to be replaced) Most of our customers get their information directly from us. My phone rings every week with an A list engineer saying that he just had the best sound check or show of his life on our rig. It also rings every week with new potential customers telling me that they heard or mixed on one of our rigs and they want one for themselves. That would not happen if they were not performing exceptionally well. I am really sorry that you had such a bad experience at SF. Hopefully, we can get to know each other outside of the forum. I hope we can get beyond this. I would love to have you come to Dallas if you have some time in the near future... I will cover the cost... Let me know your schedule. Hope to see you soon, Take Care, Chris 214-476-5355 Post by: Christopher Cole on September 11, 2008, 04:19:51 PM The you-tube links are the same stage... XYON rig that Evan mixed on... Thanks for finding it... It seems there are several posts of different artist on that same stage/rig on you-tube. All the best.. Chris...SB. Post by: Evan Kirkendall on September 11, 2008, 04:28:56 PM
Ok, you've said this a few times, and Im calling BS. Im no line array expert, but how would having "too much coverage" cause the issues Im dealing with? If it's too much down front, then just readjust the angles between boxes. Use more boxes to cover out further. Then maybe it wont sound so thin further out. Or, better yet, split the line up into a few segments(not physically) and do some shading within the array. Why compromise one section of the crowd to make it sound ok elsewhere? Never once, when working with ANY OTHER line array have I EVER come across having "too many boxes" or "too much coverage" in one section of the array. Even with very poorly setup systems. Personally, I think the rig is already too small for the venue, and removing boxes would compromise the system's performance even more! Please, explain your theory to me. Im intrigued. Evan Post by: Adam Robinson on September 11, 2008, 04:32:07 PM
I don't think I've ever mixed on a Line Array with "too many boxes." Post by: Christopher Cole on September 11, 2008, 04:42:09 PM Jack is a friend of mine as well. He is also our distributer for DDS Horns as we purchased DDS and moved them to Texas about 18 months ago. 6 months ago Eric with ET Sound purchased a XYON rig after visiting our factory here in Texas and doing some really critical listening. He is in your area near Salt Lake. I did his first show at the courthouse in Salt Lake in late may with him. He loves the rig obviously... Jack heard it and loved it as well. Jack is also aware and has heard the SLICE which we high pass at 375Hz. He was amazed by the SLICE as well. One of the many elegant things about the 4592 is its low thd when driven hard. As an example...We did a show at Escapade 2009 in Houston last year with an A list artist. We hung 8 boxes per side to cover the floor and balcony. When we looked at pink using SL I was even amazed my self. I turned the screen to the engineer and asked him if he wanted and EQ changes. The response was so correct that all three artist's engineers never inserted the graphic on the PM5. Chanel strip eq only... Here was my point... The headliner took the stage and we were running 123dB sustained... also known as way too loud... The club owner came back to foh and said "wow, that is the best rig I have ever heard... could you turn it up a little more?"????????? What he meant was that his perception of the "Loudness" of the system was related to distortion. Since it was clean with the XYON/4592 he thought it should be louder. So we gave him another 3dB. In fact, I think I can still hear that show if I hold my head just right?! All The Best, Chris... Sound Bridge Acoustic Labs 214-476-5355 cell Post by: Bob Leonard on September 11, 2008, 08:26:57 PM Welcome to the forum. Although I have no dog in this fight I can appreciate you taking the time to explain the problems Evan encountered with the rig at SF. I'm not as quick to write off a new player to the world of sound as some tend to be, but am much less forgiving should my trust be violated. With that being said I would hope Evan is able to take you up on your offer. Until then perhaps the good vs. bad can be laid to rest until there is proof positive there is a definitive problem, or proof positive there are no problems with your array. Good luck with your endeavors. Post by: Christopher Cole on September 11, 2008, 08:47:22 PM One more post will follow shortly. I hope Evan will come down as well. I really would like to learn from his experience. Also, I don't feel like it is a good versus bad. I know what I do every day and it is very successful. It is simply a case of a problem with a system that we had no control over. Thanks for the post... All The Best, Chris Post by: Christopher Cole on September 11, 2008, 09:08:26 PM I was not implying that the only problem with the system you were on was too many boxes. That was obviously not the main issue. I was simply making a list of several things. I can't say what the issue was with the rig the night you were there. It is starting to sound like part of the PA was off. Think muted I-tech Channels. When I did the demo for SF we did it with a hang of 8 boxes per side leaving out about the first 20 feet in front of the stage. The level we ran up to was in excess of 120dB at mix. Like everyone, SF wanted to hear the rig hit high SPL because that is the kind of system they needed and they were concerned about the physical size of the box. The XYON Compact is a large format box in a compact footprint capable of very high spl. I also demo with 6 boxes per side over 4 subs per side on a regular basis. In a demo for a client from Greece a few weeks ago he pulled out a Korn cd and an audio tools meter and said he wanted to hear the system run all the way up. We started clipping the amps at 126dB at 90 feet. He now owns two rigs. At this point, I am not sure I can say anything that will appeal to you but here is the data you asked for: It is 204 feet to the back of the mill. I found the original calculations from 18 months ago and it is as I said, 10 boxes would be better. If you start with box 1 (top of the array) placed at the back of the field and place box intersections as evenly as possible throughout the audience down to the closest listening position you can see by the picture that box 11 and 12 are bouncing off of the front of the stage. That is why 10 boxes is correct and 12 is too many. I also would not place 12 boxes per side in a club where 6 boxes offered consistent coverage. Say 10 feet to 130 feet, 18 foot trim and a flat floor. Anyway, hopefully this will make some sense of the "too many boxes" statement. I can also do the math related to array length versus frequency if we want to do that. All The Best, Chris Post by: Tom Manchester on September 11, 2008, 11:43:54 PM Could you provide some specifications and more details on the "horn loading" of the 8" drivers and how they are able to keep up with a large format BMS driver? I'm honestly not trying to call you out on it, I'm just still skeptical on how 2 8" drivers per box are providing sufficient Low mid output when most manufacturers use drivers of that size for mids and other larger drivers to fill out the lows (JBL 4888, EV X-line, etc.) Thanks, Tom Post by: Christopher Cole on September 12, 2008, 10:55:51 AM At some point we will have an official white paper describing polar behavior,close coupling etc. For now, know that the system settings on the XYON 7208XY are as follows: 8" HP 100Hz 8" LP 600Hz MID/HI HP 650Hz Gain -6.5dB Relative to the 8" Pair To date with large number of 7208XY working every week the driver failure is 1. Total... The picture attached is at the show a year ago where I describe the system as having no graphic or box eq inserted. Only channel strip. I think the SL screen can be seen fairly clearly. Note hat there are no issues with low mid's. That show was measuring above 123dB sustained. A final note... To shed a little light on performance and allow me some time with the SF rig, the plan is to spend a day post hurricane at the park going through the rig. I will bring it up to my spec and then video and photograph the result. Hopefully, I will be able to use EASRA Systune with multiple mic placements a the same time. At least we will get multiple location screen shots with SL. I think that whole posting will speak volumes....... Take Care, Chris Post by: Josh Billings on September 12, 2008, 11:10:07 AM Post by: Jordan Wolf on September 12, 2008, 12:09:37 PM
But where were those measurements taken? He does not state FOH position. I agree that "above 123dB sustained" is a high number (practically intolerable, if you ask me), but without further information, we are just speculating. Hopefully he can fill us in. Post by: Christopher Cole on September 12, 2008, 12:26:31 PM Stupid loud... True... This audience expects that. The fellow in the picture is Ramiro Serna... Ram has three or four Grammy 's to his credit now and he will attest that the club owner requested the high spl. The system was shaded in the down front zone and level was similar throughout the venue. I will take screen shots of SL next week on the rig. Chris Post by: Christopher Cole on September 12, 2008, 12:29:27 PM Post by: Tim McCulloch on September 12, 2008, 12:45:59 PM At our local civic center I was mixing corporate Holiday party and the LF (synthesized tuba) intrusion from the Banda act in the adjacent hall was distressing to my client. They had the building TD go ask them to turn down the LF; yeah, right.. like THAT was gonna happen. Their party was still going on when we were done, so I thought I'd look in and see 2000 guests having a good time... but no, there were about 200 in the hall, and the rig was pumping for 5000, outdoors. It's a "culture" thing. Have fun, good luck. Tim Mc Post by: Kent Clasen on September 12, 2008, 12:47:34 PM
Chris, Does this program predict sound coverage? When I setup a LA configuration sound system, I usually need to aim the top boxes above the top row to get even coverage. Also, the longer throw cabs have a tighter inter cabinet angle to get the spl needed for the longer throw. I am curious to see the SPL map at say 4kHz of your aiming here. Post by: Evan Kirkendall on September 12, 2008, 01:04:18 PM Do you have anything that shows the L/R coverage of the system at SF? I'd be very interested to see those graphs... Evan Post by: Christopher Cole on September 12, 2008, 01:27:44 PM We are leaving for the weekend thanks to IKE... I will post that next week.. Have a great weekend. Chris Post by: Christopher Cole on September 12, 2008, 01:40:20 PM Exactly...Like I said in an earlier post... I think I can still hear that show if I hold my head just right. At that show the club owner came to FOH and said (imagine the appropriate accent here...) "Wow, this is the best sound I ever heard but could you turn it up a little?" ????? Go Figure?? The Picture attached is taken from the balcony... All The Best, Chris .. Post by: Dave Dermont on September 18, 2008, 09:31:59 PM
I am quoting Mr. Prehn only because what he says has to do with some things I'd like to throw out there for consideration. Most of us live here in the real world, and a whole lot of us do not own the rigs we mix on. It's anybody's guess what the market is for a rig with very little middle ground between "The most wonderful thing I ever heard" and "a totally worthless pile of crap". Me, I don't see a downside to a rig "any fool can mount", especially if that fool is hanging the rig I am mixing on that day. What happens when the one guy in the company who "knows what they are doing" is not available? You know, like at Six Flags in Dallas. I also know Jack the BMS guy, and when he expects a 2" driver to go down really low, he puts it on the proper sized horn. A horn much bigger than anything you can fit into a box the size of an XYON. That's pretty much Audio Physics 101. Even a dumb-ass like me knows that. It's really hard for a company to target "guys smart enough to buy our stuff" and ignore basic laws of physics at the same time, as the guy who is the former most likely is aware of the latter. That kind of limits your market niche. Post by: Anders Prehn on September 19, 2008, 06:19:21 AM Refering to my remark // ANY FOOL CAN MOUNT.... vs. limitations !! I naturally stand by my statement and must add.... The limitations are quite simple, #1 The XYON will do the job from 4box hang pr. side and the most I've used was 12boxes pr. side. without phase problems occuring..... You naturally need to tune the system different according to amount of boxes. #2 The Limitations in the "ANY FOOL CAN MOUNT" systems are up to about 6boxes pr. side. Then the problems start, and grow fast. #3 If you do a A/B test with 6 boxes pr. side and a 100 feet shot, you will find no big difference in the two types of construction. If you do the same at 180 feet the phase / filter effects and "high's" will be one big mess, output starts to drop off too..... in a "easy system". If you now do the same A/B test with 10 boxes you will find the biggest difference in the world, in both 100 & 180 feet... Phase, filter effects and output sticks out with really poor results for the "easy system". So bottom lie in my oppinion, bigger gigs/arrays.... Get the good technichian and use the real linarray... Regarding the BMS and the 600hz crossover freq. // I don't want to comment on the calculations, just conclude that the issue is not existing, it's not a problem and haven't at any point been a problem..... From the start Chris wanted to run it down to 475hz, all phase, output and freq. issues were gone at 600hz and the driver is way inside the safe zone, so this is where it have been running for the last 2 years. // AP Post by: Tom Manchester on September 19, 2008, 11:09:03 AM
I'm still trying to get over the fact that someone out there actually considers a D&B Q1 rig (or any D&B rig) to be a system with limitations
Post by: Dave Dermont on September 19, 2008, 12:01:18 PM
All systems have limitations. Every single one. Some sound company's biggest "limitations" have to do with the people. It's tough when you dump a huge wad of cash into a rig that sounded wonderful at the demo, and then find out you have no clue about how to deploy it correctly. Sound Bridge seems to have the needed support available to their customers. It's a shame the customers have to crash & burn a few times before reaching out to the company. The fact that this thread even exists is proof that you only have one chance to make a first impression. The concept I am trying to grasp is building a rig that turns to shit if you don't set it up exactly right, and calling it a "feature". Post by: Evan Kirkendall on September 19, 2008, 12:11:38 PM The Q1/B2 rig was probably the best sounding/most ballsy PA I've ever mixed on.  (The boxes look a lot better too...) Evan *I was not mixing at the time. Post by: Anders Prehn on September 19, 2008, 01:38:36 PM This is exactly what I'm trying to point out, 6 box hang at short distance is perfect for the box.... I guess your mix position was apx. 60 feet, right ? Heres a pic from a gig last weekend, pic. taken from mix position 150 feet from a 45 feet wide stage and a 240feet shot !! 5000 seatet. The PA is 10tops over 6subs a side, amped by 10x K6 You can see the processor settings and more pics here http://www.new.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=784564&id=7598 56121#/photo.php?pid=784557&id=759856121 Post by: Christopher Cole on September 19, 2008, 01:40:36 PM Thanks for the post... While it is ALWAYS our intention to support all of our clients, obviously we have no control over the systems once they are deployed. However, all of our customers are aware that we will support them with with anything they need at a moments notice. Just to clarify, The XYON series is a very simple system to calculate and rig. The process is to measure the space, model it in the software, calculate the angles and shade for distance. This whole process takes less than 10 minutes typically after the room is measured. After Anders lost his A level line array tech... for a period of time he and I went back and forth in conversation. Anders for some reason was using a different calculator than the one we provide. That was not working out as well for reasons that should be obvious. Now that Anders has the correct power and is using our calculator he is having tremendous success. All the best... Chris Post by: Evan Kirkendall on September 19, 2008, 02:44:25 PM Evan Post by: Jason Gibbs on January 05, 2009, 03:27:24 AM Soundbridge themselves were demoing the rig with their VERY cool show trailer. I heard it twice and well... as I said, was not impressed. I do like: Vertec V4 D&B All EAW stuff except for the 760/761 Meyer, but not for super heavy rock EV Adamson Y10's (which is never mentioned much, but it is good stuff. The owner and his son is a BIG dick though). Brock and Jessie can go F^%k themselves. Post by: Ryan Lantzy on February 22, 2009, 02:57:41 PM
I was doing some research on SoundBridge's Xyon stuff for an upcoming gig when I came across this post. The thing about Meyer's spec is that they qualify the crossover point of 575 Hz. That is where the acoustic output of the low section and the high section of the box are equal. NOT necessarily where the driver is crossed over electronically. That box is a closed system, i.e. the user has no control over it so listing the electrical crossover doesn't make much sense. I'm not an expert on Meyer, SoundBridge, or Line Array's in general. That said, it makes sense to me that if measured as a single box, the Low section could be much less efficient and therefore the point at which the LF and the HF are equal in output could be an octave below the electrical crossover. In SoundBridge's case, they are listing (I beleive) the electrical crossover of the box because it is not powered. If they are not, they should qualify their spec sheet, or update it somehow to make it clearer. But for passive box, 400 Hz seems entirely too low. Post by: Randy Frierson on March 01, 2009, 05:22:45 PM Post by: David Strebe on March 17, 2009, 01:11:29 AM I wish I had seen this thread waay back in September. I was just cruising on the forum and found it. As an owner of a 32 box XYON rig, I just had to post my take on this epic debate (albeit 6 months late). Let me preface this sure-to-be long post by saying that: I have not had a "real" job since 2000. I have been owner of my little sound co, in one form or another, for almost 10 years now (started mixing in shitty DC clubs 15 years ago in Sr. year of High School), and have toured the world over a dozen times as BE for different mid-level and smaller national touring rock acts (acts established enough to have CDs in Best Buy and Target but little to no rock radio airplay... yeah.. THOSE guys..). I have mixed at Reading and Leeds for tens of thousands, Groezrock for tens of thousands, and various festivals and clubs all over North America, Europe, and Japan (although in Japan it was always Blue Note Tokyo). I have, with my own sound co. provided stacked rigs, flown rigs, and line arrays for thousands of events here in the Washington, DC area. 90% of my boxes are Soundbridge that I have owned for the past 10 transitional years, from "lemonade stand" sound co. to a "respectable size" (I like to think) production company with truss, intelligent lighting, video rigs, and a small, incredibly talented full time staff. I would never be arrogant enough to think that I have nothing left to learn or that I have "done it all". If you really care about and enjoy what you do, the "work" is never "done".. there's always boxes to test, racks to build, processors to tweak, amps to clean out, rigs to spec. for clients, light consoles to de-bug etc.. All good stuff IMO. Like all small sound co. owner/operators, we started seeing the need for (and let's face it- the geeky giddy desire for) a compact line array rig around 2003. Having a sizable SBAL inventory at that time, and being relatively pleased with it, we naturally called Chris Cole and asked him what's up with the SBAL "line array" rig that he had been hinting at. The response was always "it's coming". Well.. the beta boxes finally dropped in 2004, right around the time when we didn't have much of a budget left (of course) due to a recent purchase of a truck and a new van. So we waited. Chris was gracious enough to fly us out to Texas in spring '05 to check out the rig. It was a single 8 box hang of "beta" boxes, hanging over 6 of their SWF "scoops"- folded horn 18"s similar to a CV earthquake etc.. etc..the "same" folded 18" everybody makes.. just to round out the LF. The SWF boxes were supposed to be the array's official subs at the time, although they had already been out as MI or DJ level boxes for 5 years. My first impression of the rig was that it had incredible headroom and sounded fairly good, but then anything would have sounded good if the top box was only 12 ft. off of the ground, the array was straight for maximum driver coupling(absolutely no curve at all in the demo rig), and good quality "easy listening" or country CDs were used to demo. Feeling retarded that I forgot my iPod and CD wallet in the car at the airport, and thus had no music of my market's genres with me (punk and reggae primarily), we made due with Chris's stuff. It all sounded clean, balanced, and handled all you wanted to give it. I was impressed that you could get so much out of such a small box. During the demo, I kept asking myself if this rig could hang in some of the larger clubs and festivals that I had recently toured. I thought that it could, depending on the # of boxes used. We flew back the next day and ordered 16 top boxes, hanging grids, pins, with 6 iTech 6ks to power it all. And here is where I throw in my long winded two cents to this now-stale thread: First impression of our very own XYON 7208XY rig: The boxes are EASY to rig and hang. The fly hardware is over-spec'd for safety and reliability and much beefier than the demo rig. Two people can unload 16 boxes from a truck, throw the grid up, click on boxes (assuming that the motors are already in place, as is usually the case with festival stages), and set curves and cable and be up in the air in about 20-30 mins. Not bad. Rigging is something that a traveling BE like Evan would not consider or even care about, as the rig should be hung and rung when band (insert whiny post-emo or red necky "Saliva" band name here) arrives. But sound Co's take note!! Boxes are relatively light, at 98 lbs per box, and are "truck pack" width for ease of loading and storing. Caster board is sturdy and solid and more than capable of handling the 6 box stack we normally use in transit. But enough about the mechanics, how do they sound? First gig was Flipside Fest in Northern VA. Summer of 2006. We hung 6 per side on Genie Supertowers. We used 6 SBAL 3218 subs and 6 SBAL 3118SWF "Scoops" total for a makeshift center sub array. We put a few SBAL 3115HTs per side as front fill as the crowd was pressed all the way up against the barricade, and the Genies didn't give us enough room to cut the curve to hit the front row. These 3115HTs were run in full range mode and off of an aux. Bands were modern rock. Mae, the Matches, the Starting Line etc.. Good acts. Good crowd of approx. 8,000 in front of the main stage. Smaller side stages were SBAL 3000 series stacked rigs. The rig performed flawlessly, even during the last 3 hours of the festival when we got hit with torrential thunderstorms. It was like the Vietnam scene in Forrest Gump where it rained and stormed nonstop. The rig didn't even hiccup. It just stayed loud and crisp throughout the storm. After the festival and a few more big outdoor shows, the best of which were reggae festivals with many international superstars (you name them, we did them...), I sat around with the crew and discussed our new rig. We all came to the conclusion that we needed subs that could really keep up with the 7208XYs. Especially with many of our clients in the "urban" market. A year later, Chris announced the arrival of the 7218SWX subs. Again, we flew out to the factory and checked out the first "beta" boxes. We were literally demoing the first of these boxes to ever come off of the assembly line. They were raw wood, no paint, no Duracoat. They still smelled like sawdust.. and they were definitely a huge step up from the MI level subs we had been using.. but I still wasn't convinced. We are a Maryland/Washington DC based company, which means hip hop, reggae, and a thriving underground rave scene. We needed sick LF. After much conferring with Chris and a bit of salesmanship on his part (I wasn't quite as enthused about the subs as I was about the top boxes), we decided to pick up 16 subs with 8 Powersoft Digam 6ks to push them. 3-4 weeks after we had closed the deal, at long last, we received our subs and amp racks. I noticed that the birch boxes were much thicker (and heavier) than the SWFs we had been using. The detachable blue casters were also an unexpected and pleasant surprise. These production versions of the 7218s had the same shape and basic footprint of an SB1000. They just looked cool... We immediately set up a set of two subs in their Quad 1 (4x18" basshorn) configuration and used a QSC PLX3402 to power them in our shop. Powersofts were still packed in their boxes and untouched. Three words: holy. f$cking. sh!t. And these were just some old amps that we use on our 15' wedges that just happened to be handy. We spent the next few hours building and tweaking the Powersoft sub racks. We were ready. Next live show with the XYON rig was the annual One Love Festival with international reggae superstars Buju Banton and Beenie Man. We had done this in previous years with mixed results. We had used our existing 3000 series Soundbridge subs one year and it was considerably lacking for the huge crowd, rented some McCauley subs another year (they did sound pretty good), but when we fired up the 16 aux fed 7218s under the flown 7208s, it was a revelation. We knew it would rock, but we just had no idea.. This was the first year that the traveling BE's didn't ask for more low end. I have never heard so many "ya mon"s in my life. When the headliner Buju Banton came on, the venue (a fenced parking lot) was at capacity with 6,500 people, and there wasn't a bad seat in the house. That was when I knew we really had a "keeper" with this rig. And the subs could be used for non-surgical neutering of pets. You can give them more and more and they'll just take it. There is no better example of this than a reggae festival featuring professional touring artists. That was summer 2007, and we have used our rig for dozens of great events since then. To the critics of the XYON rig: I do understand ALL the criticisms about frequency nodes or drops, seemingly low SPLs, etc.. This is completely, 100% due to user/tech error. Throughout the past 3 years and many shows, we have honed in on the absolute correct precise crossover points, driver level ratios, EQ tweaks (we take a bit of 3k out of the horns with a medium Q to smooth out a bit of a natural mid rangy bump in the driver). We have actually tuned the xover freq between MF and HF by as little as 20hz to get a desired response. This is not a "throw and go" rig. It takes a good bit of finesse. This past year we have also added a "mid bass" row of boxes (our own idea)which sit atop the XYON 7218 subs to round out the small slice of low mid frequency that the tops just cannot produce at the correct level. (I don't know why Evan would have had a buildup of low mid at Six Flags). We use our 3118SWs (compact single 18" subs) for this. I know Chris Cole is going to have words with me for saying this, but the rig definitely could use a bit more of that "Barry White" midbass for the vocal range. With the addition of these midbass boxes, we are now running our XYON rig as a true four way system, although it was designed to be a 3 way. This also allows us to run our 8" mids wide open and safely. The truth is, this rig is NOT super easy to configure and make sound great right out of the gate. It is a bit fussy. We have tweaked, pinked, "sined", and re-configured our rig over the course of several years, and right now I would run it up against any compact or even mid sized rig out there, box for box for overall performance (read: value). If anybody out there would like a demo, please feel free to call our office to set it up. 301-464-3632. It would have to be on a Sunday, so our parking lot will be empty. To the criticism that the rig puts out low SPLs: this can be caused by over-limiting, jumper cables out of phase, processor sends out of phase, etc.. we have had a bad jumper cable or two cause low mids to dip. The problem was corrected on-site at the show and that possibility ultimately later eliminated with better shop prep and with a custom wiring harness. We get head splitting levels easily in excess of 115A at mix position while maintaining pristine sound quality from our little XYON rig. Unfortunately, it IS easy to tech this rig wrong and make it sound bad (maybe Soundbridge could have made it a bit more user friendly..i dunno..), but that's true with any rig in the world. When it's done right, this rig is awesome. The devil is always in the details and I guess a lot of people out there with this rig just aren't always doing it right. It's unfortunate that Soundbridge takes flak for the actions (or inaction) of it's end users. That's my real-world take on this. Six months late to the debate. -Dave Post by: Evan Kirkendall on March 17, 2009, 01:28:03 AM
Then why buy it? I want a box that I can set up, plug in the factory DSP settings and sound nice right out of the box. I want a rig that I know will sound consistently good, and not have to rely on home brew settings that vary from rig to rig. d&b and Meyer have perfected this concept. L'Acoustics is finally there, and JBL is coming up from behind. Sound Bridge? No way... My .02 Evan Post by: Pascal Pincosy on March 17, 2009, 02:55:01 AM
Simple reason Evan: because it costs less than an equivalent Meyer rig. It's not easy to build a line array and every step of the process, from the initial design, testing, developing an array calculator, designing and building the rigging, to developing quality DSP settings for the entire array take lots and lots of money and smarts (which also usually cost money). All that money spent will influence the final price of the cabinets. Outside of the 'A' level boxes out there, which seem to have their acts together regarding consistent DSP settings, I regularly hear people referring to line arrays that 'take some work' to sound good. This usually means that the DSP settings aren't dialed in to 100% of the potential capacity. It seems like small sound companies and regional providers are faced with two options: A) buy the best you can and hope you are able to pay for it, or B) buy something with potential and polish it as best you can. Now obviously as a BE you are always going to prefer to deal with option A. But as a system provider I might be able to make a go of it in my market by purchasing option B, where going with option A would be cost-prohibitive. All that being said I'd expect that the Soundbridge stuff will continue to improve as their DSP settings are revised. Look how long it took JBL to get it right... Post by: David Strebe on March 17, 2009, 03:23:07 AM Honestly, the whole company is Chris, the factory guys, and Chris's secretary. That's really about it.. It's kind of frustrating because they have a lot of potential, but things are kind of sloppy and fly by the seat of the pants. They could be so much more if they actually hired a skilled demo/ marketing crew to just come up with some factory settings and properlly setup rigs out in the field etc.. instead of leaving the end user to kind of figure it out.. There are definitely a lot of good options out there now other than SBAL. I'll be the first to admit. And come on.... who hasn't mixed on a muddy Vertec rig, wishing you could somehow get it to go higher than 8K? Their VRX mini array is clean. L'Acoustics is good. Usually anything with a ribbon HF is good. And I agree with you that EV X array has been consistently good every time. House of Blues Chicago. Killer EV rig. I'm not saying SBAL is the end all be all. I just think they get a bad rap out in the field, that's all. If your experience with XYON sucked, it sucked. I can appreciate that. I'm not going to lose sleep over it... our rig is paying for itself, and that's about all we can hope for with this economy... I know sound co's that can't say that! Happy touring with ATL!! You're going to love Japan! Post by: David Strebe on March 17, 2009, 03:33:34 AM I will say that the best array rig that I have ever mixed on was a tour show in Barcelona Spain. Big club. 5 large format boxes per side. No matter how much I pushed it, it sounded clean, flat, and completely devoid of all harshness, even with loud guitar punk rock. I asked the house engineer what it was and he said it was a small company out of Portugal, and the boxes were loaded with 2x15"s and 3x large ribbon drivers. Subs were under the stage, and were great too. I never did get the name of the company, but it was ridiculous clean, punchy and loud sound. It was the only show on the tour that didn't leave my ears ringing, but was every bit as loud as the other shows. That is what I'm going for with the XYON rig. I know it'll never quite be there with compression drivers, but it's close. High SPLs with ultimate smoothness in the upper mids. |