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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 => Pro AV Forum => Topic started by: GT Hill on September 11, 2018, 09:17:15 PM
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System:
Mains: Funktion One Res2s
Subs: Danley 2x TH115 and 1x TH112
Amps: Ashly KLR 2000s and 4000s and necessary
Processor: Ashly Protea ne24.24M
My place has terrible acoustics that will be dealt with eventually but I'm pretty positive that I'm not getting the bass that I should. I figure that standing 4 feet from a TH115 should give a good punch no matter the acoustics.
Volume is not a problem. The subs and mains can get plenty loud but its like the subs are somehow restricted to really do what they are designed to do.
With that said, I don't know what I'm doing.
But here's what I've done.
All subs sound the same. I've done this by muting inside the processor and by turning amps on and off to see if the problem was isolated. I also did this just in case my subs were out of phase somehow. But its a widespread problem.
I've saved my processor file in case someone can look at it.
I've set the LPF and HPF based on specs I've seen recommended from Danley.
Right now I'm just air playing through my Apple TV into a receiver. I also have connected directly from my phone (aux cord) into a small mixing board. Same result.
I really don't know where to go from here.
Speaker wires too long? (They are 50')
Not sure what else to say. Any help is appreciated!
GT Hill
Arkansas
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Hi everyone! Just bumping to see if anyone would have some thoughts. Thank you very much!
GT
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Hi GT,
How is your rig deployed? Do you have any photos of the space?
How are your crossovers set between the 15" driver on the funktion-one cabinet and your Danley subwoofers? Do you have any delay in your processor between the outputs? Have you checked your speaker cabling for polarity inversions? Any chance there's a speaker cabinet that has had a driver replaced or removed at some point that could have caused the wiring inside to be polarity-reversed? Does your processor have variations in the output send levels going to the amplifiers? Do the amplifiers have the same sensitivity and/or do they have sensitivity selection switches? If you have multiple subs in a line together with only one operating, the others can end up absorbing some of that energy. Also don't underestimate the cancellation power of a well-placed boundary (or poorly placed depending on your opinion).
I don't have any first-hand experience with any of the equipment in your list, just stepping up to see if I can help. Both top cabs and subs are very efficient, so you should be getting quite a bit of output even with modest input levels. If the volume is not a problem, can you try to explain again in your words what the issue is? Have you used the TH115 cabs in other venues? Sometimes people are so used to listening to distorted bass that they hear a clean sounding cab like these and think it's quiet even though the SPL meter reads the same or louder than a different cabinet with more distortion. Just some thoughts to get the conversation started.
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Hi GT,
"Punch" is such a subjective term I have a hard time understanding what you feel the issue is. You state that there is plenty of volume.
Do you have the ability to move the rig out of the acoustically compromised space to confirm the issue - like out doors?
You are correct that you have spent a considerable amount of money and should be able to achieve extremely positive results. The subs you list are very high quality!
If you are using known good speaker wires (14 gauge or larger) 50 feet is not a distance that might cause problems.
Are the speakers separated or clustered together? Clustering should give more output as the speakers will "couple". Separation can cause destructive interference. Though there is a caveat that speakers of different design might not couple as well as matched speakers.
I think I need more information on your set up before I can shotgun either solutions or the cause of your perceived issues.
Also - I suspect your post would have gotten far more views if it had originated in the "Lounge" forum.
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Hi GT,
How is your rig deployed? Do you have any photos of the space?
How are your crossovers set between the 15" driver on the funktion-one cabinet and your Danley subwoofers? Do you have any delay in your processor between the outputs? Have you checked your speaker cabling for polarity inversions? Any chance there's a speaker cabinet that has had a driver replaced or removed at some point that could have caused the wiring inside to be polarity-reversed? Does your processor have variations in the output send levels going to the amplifiers? Do the amplifiers have the same sensitivity and/or do they have sensitivity selection switches? If you have multiple subs in a line together with only one operating, the others can end up absorbing some of that energy. Also don't underestimate the cancellation power of a well-placed boundary (or poorly placed depending on your opinion).
I don't have any first-hand experience with any of the equipment in your list, just stepping up to see if I can help. Both top cabs and subs are very efficient, so you should be getting quite a bit of output even with modest input levels. If the volume is not a problem, can you try to explain again in your words what the issue is? Have you used the TH115 cabs in other venues? Sometimes people are so used to listening to distorted bass that they hear a clean sounding cab like these and think it's quiet even though the SPL meter reads the same or louder than a different cabinet with more distortion. Just some thoughts to get the conversation started.
Jeremy,
Thank you for the questions and the thoughts.
A few of your first questions are with regards to polarity. Although I could have made a mistake with one, I'd hope I didn't do it will all three. But to check, I reversed the polarity in the processor and I didn't hear much of a difference.
The bass with the entire system running isn't great so the testing I've been doing is with one sub at a time. They all sound the same. Even the 15" in the Funktion Ones don't sound great.
I've never used any of these outside of the current location. These are in the launch control center of a decommissioned nuclear missile silo (Titan II) so being 55' underground... its a pain to move them elsewhere for testing. But I may need to do that to get a sense of performance elsewhere.
Maybe I'll make a video of the entire setup? That may help give some context.
I know I didn't answer your processing / crossover questions. I'm doing all of that with the Ashly processor. The only filters I have enable are HPF and LPF. I set them per Danley's suggestions.
Thanks again!
GT
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Hi GT,
"Punch" is such a subjective term I have a hard time understanding what you feel the issue is. You state that there is plenty of volume.
Do you have the ability to move the rig out of the acoustically compromised space to confirm the issue - like out doors?
You are correct that you have spent a considerable amount of money and should be able to achieve extremely positive results. The subs you list are very high quality!
If you are using known good speaker wires (14 gauge or larger) 50 feet is not a distance that might cause problems.
Are the speakers separated or clustered together? Clustering should give more output as the speakers will "couple". Separation can cause destructive interference. Though there is a caveat that speakers of different design might not couple as well as matched speakers.
I think I need more information on your set up before I can shotgun either solutions or the cause of your perceived issues.
Also - I suspect your post would have gotten far more views if it had originated in the "Lounge" forum.
Thanks for the thoughts Lawrence.
I know its quite subjective and I apologize for that. I've been in small bars with a DJ that sound better than this. That give me sads. :-)
The speaker wires are 12 or 14 gauge so no problems there.
Regarding the constructive or destructive interference... I've been testing these separately to check for that. Doesn't seem to yield any good troubleshooting results.
I'm new to the forum. Why is "lounge" better? Should I ask for it to be moved?
Thanks!
GT
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Have you moved the subs around in the room that you're in?
Even standing 4' in front of one sub running, you may have significant cancellation depending on the distance from walls, room dimensions, etc.
You could try the home theater sub positioning approach...put a sub in the listening area and walk around the room all the way to edges and corners and see where it sounds the best--putting your head at sub level near the floor. That may not be a position you can leave it in but it will reveal a bit about your space.
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Just to cover all our bases. What is the connection from the airplay receiver to the dsp and then to the amp. Is the stereo signal getting summed properly. Could it be cancelling due to a polarity inversion there?
Good luck.
LOU
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Thanks for the thoughts Lawrence.
I know its quite subjective and I apologize for that. I've been in small bars with a DJ that sound better than this. That give me sads. :-)
The speaker wires are 12 or 14 gauge so no problems there.
Regarding the constructive or destructive interference... I've been testing these separately to check for that. Doesn't seem to yield any good troubleshooting results.
I'm new to the forum. Why is "lounge" better? Should I ask for it to be moved?
Thanks!
GT
This forum is for touring audio questions, the subject is more suited for the lounge. Many of us troll without much regard to the category but the mods try and herd the cats into the right container.
Two TH-115's by themselves in that room should be devastating. They sum really well so I would have the side by side with the horns touching for best coupling.
My advice to you would be to simplify things and use an app on your phone or an AF signal generator and send some sine waves to the power amp and measure the SPL in the room and see if you are wildly out of spec.
"In God we trust, all others bring data"
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Have you moved the subs around in the room that you're in?
Even standing 4' in front of one sub running, you may have significant cancellation depending on the distance from walls, room dimensions, etc.
You could try the home theater sub positioning approach...put a sub in the listening area and walk around the room all the way to edges and corners and see where it sounds the best--putting your head at sub level near the floor. That may not be a position you can leave it in but it will reveal a bit about your space.
The subs are about 5' away from the wall. The room is a 37' diameter circle. So in terms of walls, there's nothing really to the sides and the nearest "back" wall is about 30' away.
GT
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Just to cover all our bases. What is the connection from the airplay receiver to the dsp and then to the amp. Is the stereo signal getting summed properly. Could it be cancelling due to a polarity inversion there?
Good luck.
LOU
Hey Lou - I have two ways to play music through the system.
1) Apple TV --> Yamaha receiver --> Small mixing board --> Ashly processor
2) Aux cord --> Small mixing board --> Ashly processor (There's something wrong with this... has some crap noise going on so we don't use it anymore)
Probably 18 months ago I had an aux cord go directly into the processor.
Truth is... I don't really know the right way to get audio into the system.
And another note... I HATE these European connections to / from the processor. I'm probably doing something wrong there but ug. I hate them.
Would it make sense for me to go DIRECT from phone (via aux cord) direct into one of the amps for a sub? I know I need to have a crossover in there. But maybe I do that to eliminate any problems in the system?
GT
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This forum is for touring audio questions, the subject is more suited for the lounge. Many of us troll without much regard to the category but the mods try and herd the cats into the right container.
Two TH-115's by themselves in that room should be devastating. They sum really well so I would have the side by side with the horns touching for best coupling.
My advice to you would be to simplify things and use an app on your phone or an AF signal generator and send some sine waves to the power amp and measure the SPL in the room and see if you are wildly out of spec.
"In God we trust, all others bring data"
If you guys think it should be moved I'm all for it if a mod wants to do that.
Your advice is solid... get the other crap out of the loop. Any suggestions for apps / devices? Do I need a crossover to protect the sub?
GT
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The subs are about 5' away from the wall. The room is a 37' diameter circle. So in terms of walls, there's nothing really to the sides and the nearest "back" wall is about 30' away.
GT
You may have something going on with the electrical side, but perfect circles are no fun. Every sound wave hitting every surface is creating a focused reflection. Your room isn't large enough for you to hear a discrete echo, except maybe in the VHF, so everything is just getting smeared. You really need to address the acoustics of the space first.
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You may have something going on with the electrical side, but perfect circles are no fun. Every sound wave hitting every surface is creating a focused reflection. Your room isn't large enough for you to hear a discrete echo, except maybe in the VHF, so everything is just getting smeared. You really need to address the acoustics of the space first.
I have about 7 4'x8' wall panels made of Owens Corning 703 on the back wall. The room also has 5 couches and a kitchen. I've been told the 2" 703 probably doesn't help with bass much.
But maybe I'll pull the panels down and make a little "box" in the space and put the sub in it and see what it sounds like inside?
GT
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I have about 7 4'x8' wall panels made of Owens Corning 703 on the back wall. The room also has 5 couches and a kitchen. I've been told the 2" 703 probably doesn't help with bass much.
But maybe I'll pull the panels down and make a little "box" in the space and put the sub in it and see what it sounds like inside?
GT
The 703 treatment will absorb effectively to roughly 125Hz. There is a .5 absorption coefficient in a four inch thickness at that 125hz frequency. So your results in the sub (30 to 100hz) range may be marginal. But by all means experiment! You will no doubt learn a lot in the process.
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Make sure you have an inch or three behind the panels.
Did you say how big the room is? LxWxH.
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Make sure you have an inch or three behind the panels.
Did you say how big the room is? LxWxH.
It's a circle 37' in diameter with 13' ceilings. Decommissioned Titan II nuclear missile silo (Launch Control Center).
GT
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Yikes,
Every time I've dealt with a round room or curved surfaces, some acoustic problem arose.
Lots of slap-back echo and nodes.
Try putting pink noise through the system and walk around the room.
I would guess you are going to have some severe low end nodes and nulls.
Can you get the PA up high and point it down?
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Hey Lou - I have two ways to play music through the system.
1) Apple TV --> Yamaha receiver --> Small mixing board --> Ashly processor
2) Aux cord --> Small mixing board --> Ashly processor (There's something wrong with this... has some crap noise going on so we don't use it anymore)
Probably 18 months ago I had an aux cord go directly into the processor.
Truth is... I don't really know the right way to get audio into the system.
And another note... I HATE these European connections to / from the processor. I'm probably doing something wrong there but ug. I hate them.
Would it make sense for me to go DIRECT from phone (via aux cord) direct into one of the amps for a sub? I know I need to have a crossover in there. But maybe I do that to eliminate any problems in the system?
GT
You can try going direct to see if anything changes. I'm convinced that there is a connection error somewhere. I'm thinking that the stereo unbalanced tip-ring-sleeve (Left-Right-Ground) is getting plugged into a balanced connector Hot-Cold-ground and the Left and Right channels are being cancelled in some way. When you use the "aux cord" (which is an 1/8 in or 3.5mm TRS) does it break out into two separate left and right connectors or is it 3.5mm on both ends? Where does the aux cord connect?
Also with a phoenix connector is it 3 pin or 5 pin. 5 pin is usually balanced 2 channel with L+,L-,Ground,R+,R-. What connections do you have to the processor? More detail here might help hunt down the issue.
LOU
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Yikes,
Every time I've dealt with a round room or curved surfaces, some acoustic problem arose.
Lots of slap-back echo and nodes.
Try putting pink noise through the system and walk around the room.
I would guess you are going to have some severe low end nodes and nulls.
Can you get the PA up high and point it down?
The main speakers are flown right now pointing slightly down.
I can do the pink noise thing and see what happens!
GT
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You can try going direct to see if anything changes. I'm convinced that there is a connection error somewhere. I'm thinking that the stereo unbalanced tip-ring-sleeve (Left-Right-Ground) is getting plugged into a balanced connector Hot-Cold-ground and the Left and Right channels are being cancelled in some way. When you use the "aux cord" (which is an 1/8 in or 3.5mm TRS) does it break out into two separate left and right connectors or is it 3.5mm on both ends? Where does the aux cord connect?
Also with a phoenix connector is it 3 pin or 5 pin. 5 pin is usually balanced 2 channel with L+,L-,Ground,R+,R-. What connections do you have to the processor? More detail here might help hunt down the issue.
LOU
Not sure if we are talking about the same thing; I don't use the Aux cord anymore but b/c it sounded like the speakers were blown (I was scared for a bit actually). My current setup is the Apple TV one.
But, there's a lot between the source and the speakers so eliminating some of that for testing seems smart.
Its 3 pin on the processor. I found a pic online (below).
Thanks!
GT
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Not sure if we are talking about the same thing; I don't use the Aux cord anymore but b/c it sounded like the speakers were blown (I was scared for a bit actually). My current setup is the Apple TV one.
But, there's a lot between the source and the speakers so eliminating some of that for testing seems smart.
Its 3 pin on the processor. I found a pic online (below).
Thanks!
GT
OK so for clarification the chain looks like this.
Apple TV connects with either HDMI or Optical to
Yamaha Receiver out via?? RCA stereo? to
Mixer plugged into two channels?
Output from stereo out via? to two inputs of Ashly DSP.
Can you fill in the gaps here to see if there is any issue?
LOU
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Hi GT.
You mentioned the processor crossover settings as being "what Danley recommends" but I believe they only make a recommendation on the high-pass filter (removing extremely low-frequency content that's outside the cabinet's effective range and therefore increasing amplifier headroom and avoiding damage to the drivers by over-excursion). Edit: Just confirmed, manufacturer recommends 25Hz HPF @ 24dB BW. For the crossover between the 15" in the tops and the sub, do you have any overlap (as in, what are you using for a subwoofer LPF and top box HPF frequency)?
A lot of the perceived "punch" of a kick-drum comes from the area typically covered by both cabinets (low mids) to some degree (with the "whack" of the beater coming from the horns), so getting it to "hit hard" with authority requires some time-alignment (signal delay) to ensure that both impulses meet the listener at the same time and in-phase. This is especially important with horn-loaded cabinets, since the length of the horn adds time of flight to the signal.
Spending some time with an analyzer like SMAART or similar would allow you to adjust your crossover slopes for a summed-flat magnitude response, do some polarity tests, and determine the best delay to use to align the two cabinets.
Flying the tops away from the subs means that they will never be perfectly time aligned throughout the whole area (since the difference in distance between the two sources will change with positioning more-so than if they were co-located). You'll just have to find a setting that gives you the best possible alignment for the largest possible part of the listening area (or most important section IE: VIP seats).
FWIW, it's unlikely that the level you would get from your aux-cord would give you enough level to drive your amplifiers to full output. But again, i am not intimately familiar with your particular gear. Generally speaking, the signal coming from your headphone amplifier will be somewhere around mic-level, and you'll need something more around line-level for your amps, which is what the mic-preamp in the mixer is doing for you.
Sounds like quite the venue.... and definitely not worth hauling the gear outside. Let's try to fix it in the space, but we need to rule out an interconnect problem or level-problem before stepping into system tuning 101.
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You say the tops are flown and pointed down a little.
How high are they and where is the speaker actually aimed?
At only 37’ max distance, I would think you need to point em down quite a bit to keep the sound off the back curved wall.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
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Just to cover all our bases. What is the connection from the airplay receiver to the dsp and then to the amp. Is the stereo signal getting summed properly. Could it be cancelling due to a polarity inversion there?
Good luck.
LOU
This was going to be one of my first suggestions to look at as well.
In short, you can not take a stereo source and have the left and right channels going into a single balanced input as in wiring the right to + and left to - or visa versa. You need to use a proper stereo summing adapter/DI box to provide you with a true balanced output......or wire the left and right to two separate balanced inputs an connecting those inputs as an unbalanced input connection. To do that take your + stereo line and connect it to the + balanced input and then take the shield and connect it to both the - and the ground on the balanced input.
On an XLR connection pin 2 is +, pin 3 is - and pin 1 is ground.
You may indeed have other issues but that will not matter if the input is not correct.