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Sound Reinforcement - Forums for Live Sound Professionals - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Live Sound Forums => LAB: The Classic Live Audio Board => Topic started by: Dave Guilford on April 21, 2021, 11:06:41 AM
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What’s the deal here? The DZR15 specs 139 max SPL. Meanwhile the CZR15 (same thing but passive) says max is 129 - literally half the volume. I really prefer passive for my set up, and I have great amps itech .. but 129 isn’t enough.
Anyone use these in real world?
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The CZR specs are believable.. the DZR not at all. If anything the CZR should get louder than they are claiming.. 98dB +32db gain from 1000w equals 130dB. And even more confounding the SPL numbers for the DZRs are claimed as "measured" but I just don't see how. Even a super short 3-4khz signal burst could only produce maybe 135dB peak but what good is that when the end user expects fullrange output.
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I used to have a bunch of dxr , a step down , and they were way overachievers. The DZR would be amazing. But I figured their amp has filters and such. I wonder if I could get tunings for my itech or xti amps.
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I used to have a bunch of dxr , a step down , and they were way overachievers. The DZR would be amazing. But I figured their amp has filters and such. I wonder if I could get tunings for my itech or xti amps.
Yamaha publishes full settings for the CZR speakers. Of course all processors are different but this should provide a good starting point.
https://usa.yamaha.com/files/download/other_assets/4/1228974/CZR_series_processor_settings_11.pdf
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These boxes are overachievers, Yamaha+Nexo have managed performance that exceeds the sum of the parts so I really don't see the average end user replicating all of that with external amps and processing.
But that said, I'm also a DXR owner and if it's more SPL than those produce that you want/need than a DSR, DZR or even a CZR with 1000-1500w peak into it will get you there. And that is simply because the rated output for the DXR is similarly juiced, no way this box produces more than about 125db continuous with fulrange material.
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What’s the deal here? The DZR15 specs 139 max SPL. Meanwhile the CZR15 (same thing but passive) says max is 129 - literally half the volume. I really prefer passive for my set up, and I have great amps itech .. but 129 isn’t enough.
Anyone use these in real world?
DZRs go bi-amped, from amp directly to drivers. CZR can be connected in passive mode, when power is delivered through internal crossover, which in turn eats some power, or bi-amp mode, from two amplifier channels directly to drivers, with internal crossover in bypass. In this mode, more juice can be punched into the box.
As for usage experience, an advice: if you need full spec'd SPL from a box, than it's not the box you're looking for. Aside from measurement methods etc. I've installed literally hundreds of CZRs. Objectively, the best price/spl/quality on the market today. With decent DSPs, of course. YAMAHA PX amps recommended, YAMAHA PC-D would be ideal because of FIR-presets. And bi-amp config, naturally. Itechs are great, but processing is required, like in everything nowadays.
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It's that Nexo magic. Selective limiting, dynamic eq, etc, etc. It all adds up to a box that will "seem" like it gets much louder than what's printed on the box. It's not getting that loud broadband, but parts of it will get that loud for a very short time. Nexo is real good at walkibng that tightrope.
For you, you'll throw power at it and it should perform really well. But it most likely won't perform *as well* as it's powered counterpart. There's millions of dollars in R&D baked in to those things.
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I've been working with a lot of L'Acoustics stuff lately and had to replicate some presets for a couple of speakers using run-of-the-mill amplification. I can tell you with certainty that there is a whole lot of stuff going on inside some of these speakers' DSP settings.
Multiband dynamics, input limiting, output limiting, expansion, compression, filter shifting, you name it, they are doing it. I can make a preset on an ordinary amp that at X volume sounds identical to the proprietary stuff, but as soon as you deviate from that volume things sound off. The vendors are truly doing some mad scientist stuff in these amp modules to get the most out of the speakers. Things you just can't do with basic DSP and amplification.
I don't believe for one second that Yamaha is getting a real 139db out of the DZR, and what the CZR is stating is probably an actual real number that any human can achieve with standard stuff. RCF seems to do things that way too. The spec they state is an actual achievable result.
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I've been working with a lot of L'Acoustics stuff lately and had to replicate some presets for a couple of speakers using run-of-the-mill amplification. I can tell you with certainty that there is a whole lot of stuff going on inside some of these speakers' DSP settings.
Multiband dynamics, input limiting, output limiting, expansion, compression, filter shifting, you name it, they are doing it. I can make a preset on an ordinary amp that at X volume sounds identical to the proprietary stuff, but as soon as you deviate from that volume things sound off. The vendors are truly doing some mad scientist stuff in these amp modules to get the most out of the speakers. Things you just can't do with basic DSP and amplification.
I don't believe for one second that Yamaha is getting a real 139db out of the DZR, and what the CZR is stating is probably an actual real number that any human can achieve with standard stuff. RCF seems to do things that way too. The spec they state is an actual achievable result.
I do a lot of outdoor work and I would NOT want to put powered speakers up in the air , only to have a rain come halfway through the show.
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I do a lot of outdoor work and I would NOT want to put powered speakers up in the air , only to have a rain come halfway through the show.
It depends on the powered speaker (e.g. Meyer makes optional rain hoods for their speakers' amplifier modules for exactly this use-case).
-Russ
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I don't believe for one second that Yamaha is getting a real 139db out of the DZR
They'll do it. Once. At a carefully chosen frequency. It might catch fire.
I heard about another Manufacturer You've Heard Of's max.SPL tests, and it went like this: line up 10x speakers, and a Very Large Amplifier. Hit each speaker in turn with larger and larger signals, while continually tracking SPL. Destroying the speakers was mandatory - if it hasn't failed, you haven't got everything out of it yet.
After going through all 10, whatever the loudest sound at the mic was, is what goes in the brochure.
Chris
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^^^^^^
I can believe that and have a pretty good idea of who you're referring to :)
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^^^^^^
I can believe that and have a pretty good idea of who you're referring to :)
I have an idea as well. Any way we can post a list of manufacturers and an approximate "take off X dB from published" to shame the guilty?
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It depends on the powered speaker (e.g. Meyer makes optional rain hoods for their speakers' amplifier modules for exactly this use-case).
-Russ
Martin makes rain hoods for CDDLive...as does RCF for the HDL
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I have an idea as well. Any way we can post a list of manufacturers and an approximate "take off X dB from published" to shame the guilty?
Sounds fun.
Meyer's M-Noise seems like a useful test signal, and the protocols they built around it makes a lot of sense. Apparently they enjoyed the article published in 2017.
All we need now is a selection of boxes from each popular manufacturer, a high-end test system, somewhere we can make a lot of noise, and someone who's happy to run the thing.
Chris
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Martin makes rain hoods for CDDLive...as does RCF for the HDL
How hard could it be to make my own? Clear and thick vinyl. Put it in place
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My way of coming to real-world numbers is to take the peak number and reduce it by -16db.
My math on it assumes that the peak number is the number you can get only for the instant that it's created. So factoring continuous power as opposed to peak you would reduce the peak number by -6db. This does not take into account crest factor. Most live music has a crest factor of around -15db. I give a wee bit back since canned music is about a -5db CF or you could say I take away -10db from the theoretical continuous output to come to what I feel is an actual achievable number. This does not account for any inverse square law loss, so be sure to reduce that from your calculations as well.
With my recipe, a speaker that says it's capable of a 136db peak should be able to hit a real-world output of about 120db at the 1-meter mark. In most cases where I have measured at distance and calculated back to 1 meter, my recipe has been very close to true. Give or take a few dB.
Using this method I can tell pretty much right away if a speaker will or will not work at a given venue or if I will need to increase the speaker count to use for delay lines.