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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: Kevin Maxwell on November 28, 2015, 04:57:15 PM
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EAW SM12 monitor speakers.
I am just starting a consulting job at a church and this past week I visited and took a quick to see and hear what the needs might be. They have a bunch of EAW SM12 Monitor speakers. I listened to playback thru these speakers they didn’t sound like they were setup right to me. This is only a minor part of the job, but this is one area I would like to improve. They are being feed by an analog console though a graphic EQ to an analog crossover. The analog crossover is sitting in a rack on stage and anyone could come up and twiddle with the setting. I have heard that the SM12 is a very good sounding monitor. This was not the case here. They were extremely harsh sounding.
I talked to EAW the next day about the rest of the system and about the SM12s. I downloaded the recommended setting for them. I was wondering if anyone here has used these monitors and do you use the recommend settings? I was planning on recommending an Ashly processor to set them up. And they will most likely be getting a digital console with this upgrade and that will give them some additional capabilities to EQ the feeds to them or mess them up when all is said and done.
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EAW SM12 monitor speakers.
I am just starting a consulting job at a church and this past week I visited and took a quick to see and hear what the needs might be. They have a bunch of EAW SM12 Monitor speakers. I listened to playback thru these speakers they didn’t sound like they were setup right to me. This is only a minor part of the job, but this is one area I would like to improve. They are being feed by an analog console though a graphic EQ to an analog crossover. The analog crossover is sitting in a rack on stage and anyone could come up and twiddle with the setting. I have heard that the SM12 is a very good sounding monitor. This was not the case here. They were extremely harsh sounding.
I talked to EAW the next day about the rest of the system and about the SM12s. I downloaded the recommended setting for them. I was wondering if anyone here has used these monitors and do you use the recommend settings? I was planning on recommending an Ashly processor to set them up. And they will most likely be getting a digital console with this upgrade and that will give them some additional capabilities to EQ the feeds to them or mess them up when all is said and done.
Kevin,
The SM12 is a decent sounding monitor. Because the SM12 is a bi-amped only design, they really do require proper processing to shine. There are many well designed Passive MI level boxes that would sound better than an improperly set up bi-amped rig, albeit at a lower SPL. But that may not matter. The first thing I would do is see how good I could get the monitors sounding with the gear they currently have. It may be that you can get them to sound much better than they do now with a couple of tweaks. I can't tell you how many service calls I go on where I simply just "undo" the previous settings and re-tune/align. FWIW, It's unfortunate that there are no "Focused" programs for the UX8800/UX3600 for the SM12. If there were, that would be the best way to go. If I remember correctly, EAW has some "non focussed" settings for the SM12 for the UX processors. Incidentally, I thought I read where EAW's UX series processors are actually made by Ashly. If that's true, and I would definitely want to verify this , EAW's settings may transfer perfectly to your Ashly processors. Otherwise, I would want to do a transfer function measurement of a UX series processor with the SM12 settings if I were planning on using another processor.
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Kevin,
The SM12 is a decent sounding monitor. Because the SM12 is a bi-amped only design, they really do require proper processing to shine. There are many well designed Passive MI level boxes that would sound better than an improperly set up bi-amped rig, albeit at a lower SPL. But that may not matter. The first thing I would do is see how good I could get the monitors sounding with the gear they currently have. It may be that you can get them to sound much better than they do now with a couple of tweaks. I can't tell you how many service calls I go on where I simply just "undo" the previous settings and re-tune/align. FWIW, It's unfortunate that there are no "Focused" programs for the UX8800/UX3600 for the SM12. If there were, that would be the best way to go. If I remember correctly, EAW has some "non focussed" settings for the SM12 for the UX processors. Incidentally, I thought I read where EAW's UX series processors are actually made by Ashly. If that's true, and I would definitely want to verify this , EAW's settings may transfer perfectly to your Ashly processors. Otherwise, I would want to do a transfer function measurement of a UX series processor with the SM12 settings if I were planning on using another processor.
This is not direct quotes by any means it is just a summary of what I remember. When I spoke to EAW they said that they have limiter settings in their processor for the M12 but other than that there are no focus settings for them. When I asked about getting a transfer function file for their setting they didn’t have them and they mentioned that the settings would be directly compatible (or something along those lines) with the Ashley processors. And I don’t think I can come anywhere close to those setting with a simple analog crossover.
When you look at the recommended setting they seem to have some boosts in the low end that look like where one usually has to cut when EQing a stage monitor for vocals. I will probably use the EAW recommended setting and see how it sounds, if we get a new DSP for them.
I was just looking to see what others have experienced with them.
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I demoed the SM12 and the SM84 shortly after they came out way back when. Very good sounding monitors and huge amounts of volume, especially the SM84. They definitely do require a good quality DSP as they are biamped. I used a Crown 36x12 and a XTA 226 dsp and ran the settings that are on EAWs website.
EAW SM12 monitor speakers.
I am just starting a consulting job at a church and this past week I visited and took a quick to see and hear what the needs might be. They have a bunch of EAW SM12 Monitor speakers. I listened to playback thru these speakers they didn’t sound like they were setup right to me. This is only a minor part of the job, but this is one area I would like to improve. They are being feed by an analog console though a graphic EQ to an analog crossover. The analog crossover is sitting in a rack on stage and anyone could come up and twiddle with the setting. I have heard that the SM12 is a very good sounding monitor. This was not the case here. They were extremely harsh sounding.
I talked to EAW the next day about the rest of the system and about the SM12s. I downloaded the recommended setting for them. I was wondering if anyone here has used these monitors and do you use the recommend settings? I was planning on recommending an Ashly processor to set them up. And they will most likely be getting a digital console with this upgrade and that will give them some additional capabilities to EQ the feeds to them or mess them up when all is said and done.
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I demoed the SM12 and the SM84 shortly after they came out way back when. Very good sounding monitors and huge amounts of volume, especially the SM84. They definitely do require a good quality DSP as they are biamped. I used a Crown 36x12 and a XTA 226 dsp and ran the settings that are on EAWs website.
Thank you for the reply. I have used the XTA 226 and the 224 and really liked them. The best we will probably do for these is to substitute an Ashley DSP for the DBX analog crossover. I plan on trying the EAW recommended setting to start with and see how they sound. But I am starting to wonder if the way they are set up now is to compensate for some of the musicians hearing lose. But in talking today to the musician in charge he said they can’t use the Sennheiser wireless mics with the 865 capsule near the monitors without feedback but the 835 capsules work ok. I need to check this all out.