[RonD]

My trio (3 vocals, 2 guitars and keys) had our second gig with the EON One last night – a ski lodge pub that holds about 100-150. This room gets quite loud from the patrons, all talking loudly and walking around in ski boots, etc. The room also has sloped ceilings and the walls are a combination of wood and glass (there are three large windows behind the band providing a view of the ski slope…which creates its own set of challenges for monitor mixes). We’ve played here for the past three years, using a pair of Yamaha DXR10s. For this gig, I brought the DXRs as backup but started out with the just the EON One.

Previously with the DXR10s, I’ve struggled to get a good sound in this room. I’d setup the speakers just slightly in front of us and would need to turn them up pretty loud to get above the crowd noise. Even then, the sound seemed muffled and it was difficult to hear us just talk through the system if you were standing in the back of the room. And, from the band’s position, we would hear a constant low frequency “woof” coming off the side of the DXRs. As soon I would step in front of the speakers…the woof would disappear. The DXR cabinets seem to resonate (somewhere around 125Hz) when you’re standing beside or behind them (at ear height), yet out in front you wouldn’t hear it. Very annoying to deal with while playing.

Last night’s setup had me running the output of my Touchmix8 into a dbx GoRack, then into the EON One (positioned stage left and just in front of us). Both the GoRack and the EON One had their inputs to “Line”, and the TouchMix Main Outs were right at “0”. The output of the GoRack was set at 95, and I was using its compression (15), feedback suppression, and EQ (mid cut) settings. I was running both left and right channels of the GoRack into the EON One. At no point did I see the EON’s clip light turn on and was able to get some good gain into the system.

As I anticipated, I had to jack-up both the individual channel gains and the Master volume on the EON One to about 90-95% (each) to get the system to the right level to overcome the crowd noise. This was higher than I would have preferred, but overall the system sounded great and we didn’t experience any distortion. Everything sounded clear and full and there was no “woof” at ear level standing next to the system. Even during announcements, the entire room could hear the person speaking clearly. I verified this by going to the back of the room during some raffle drawings, and I was able to distinctly hear every word being said. Friends and family that attended also said it sounded great and that the system was throwing the sound around the room very nicely (my brother-in-law thought we were running two systems and was surprised that everything was coming from just the one EON One).

I brought the DXRs as backup, and had planned to slave the EON off of one of the DXRs if I couldn’t get enough volume. To my surprise (and satisfaction), I didn’t have to do this. And, as the audience dwindled throughout the night, I was able to turn down the EON and maintain a comfortable volume level throughout the room.

A few more thoughts.
- As has been stated multiple times, you can use an external mixer to drive adequate levels into the EON. Just make sure your inputs are set to “line” and you should be able to get it plenty loud. As with any system, you need to pay attention to gain staging at each step.

- If you regularly need to play to 100+ audiences that are loud, then you might be better served by a different system (or two EON ones). For smaller gigs, and the occasional large one, I think the EON One can get loud enough and provide great sound (and coverage). For $800-$900, you get a portable, lightweight, full sounding system that sounds bigger than it looks.

- The GoRack is an interesting device and I think it definitely helps tighten up the overall sound. I certainly could have spent time trying to use the main EQ and feedback filters built into the TouchMix to tweak the sound coming out of the EON, but I literally don’t have that much time (or patience) when trying to setup everything and not annoy a packed room of patrons (nobody wants to hear me ring out feedback filters). Press a few buttons on the GoRack and you’re in the ballpark very quickly. The feedback suppression adds peace of mind.

Bottom line, I’m impressed enough with the EON One and have decided to keep it. It sounds great, provides great “bang for the buck”, and has a great form factor. As my trio will be scaling down to a duo (and occasional solo gigs), I think it will serve me well moving forward. It’s not perfect, but for 1-2 small gigs a month, it should work just fine. Again, if you need a more aggressive/loud system you might look elsewhere.