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Old 02-25-2018, 08:42 AM
varmonter varmonter is offline
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Default The long and short on long throw vs short throw?

I have a monitor question. When using pa speakers
as monitors I find with judicious eq i can
hear some better than others. Now we are talking
about a distance of anywhere between 6 and 12 feet from
my ears. My question would be " is using pa speakers as monitors
really a good option or are dedicated wedges better
because are they designed as a more nearfield speaker
as opposed to a pa speakers more long throw design.
where the sound actually "comes together " if you will
at a further distance than practical for "monitor" distances. ??
I hope this makes sense.?
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Old 02-25-2018, 10:39 AM
lkingston lkingston is offline
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I really don’t like using anything with a horn in it as a monitor.
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Old 02-25-2018, 03:44 PM
varmonter varmonter is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lkingston View Post
I really don’t like using anything with a horn in it as a monitor.
could you expound a bit?
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Old 02-26-2018, 12:26 AM
lkingston lkingston is offline
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The highs from a horn need some distance to blend with the lows. Usually you’re too close in a monitor setting. Plus, a close range high frequency driver is going to sound better. Horns are a necessary evil when you need to make high frequencies project. There are PA cabinets that sound nice as monitors, but usually they don’t have the throw of horn loaded cabinets. Line array speaker columns (like the Bose L1) have lots of throw without horns and work well at certain volume levels.

You mentioned 6 to 12 feet distance. That is a unusually long distance to be away from your monitors. Why?
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Old 02-26-2018, 02:28 AM
pieterh pieterh is offline
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As Ikingston says, 6 to 12 feet is very long for monitor placement. Dedicated monitors will often have a playing angle of higher than 60 degrees so that they sit close to the person using. A greater distance means a higher level and thus increased risk for both feedback and others on stage getting some of your mix.
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Old 02-26-2018, 05:42 AM
Murphy Slaw Murphy Slaw is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pieterh View Post
As Ikingston says, 6 to 12 feet is very long for monitor placement.
This doesn't make sense to me.

My ears are over 5 feet from the ground, so if my monitor is even 3 feet in front of me it's over 6 feet. So, it's ALWAYS over 6 feet, and sometimes more, sometimes it's down a level and such.
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Old 02-26-2018, 07:10 AM
varmonter varmonter is offline
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yes i did say "from my ears" and i am 6 ft.
What lkingston said about horns makes sense..
And is basically my question.
Are dedicated wedges going to have a shorter
throw or are they just wedge shaped pa speakers.?
I've been contemplating one of these.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...hoCbFcQAvD_BwE
but want to know if i would gain anything over
using a qsc k10 as a monitor. (current)
now these(the turbosounds) have a conical driver instead of
horns .

Last edited by varmonter; 02-26-2018 at 07:48 AM.
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Old 02-26-2018, 07:26 AM
pieterh pieterh is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by varmonter View Post
yes i did say "from my ears" and i am 6 ft.
anyway this is basically my question.
Are dedicated wedges going to have a shorter
throw or are they just wedge shaped pa speakers.?
I've been contemplating one of these.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...hoCbFcQAvD_BwE
but want to know if i would gain anything over
using a qsc k10 as a monitor.
now these have a conical driver instead of
horns .


My bad, I get what you mean!

Generally speaking (good) monitor speakers are designed with a tight dispersion to minimise bleed on stage (you don’t want to be having to raise your foldback level because someone next to you has their instrument loud in their monitor nor do you want a loud monitor adversely affecting the overall sound for the audience). The closer a monitor can be to its intended listener the better as gain levels to the speaker can be kept down, volume is adjusted accordingly etc. Although many monitors can be and are used as point source (main) speakers dispersion characteristics will often be optimised for the original usage.

The Turbosound you have linked to should be a good speaker - I haven’t heard that model but it is plenty powerful enough (should cope with noisy stages with plenty of headroom to keep the sound clean) and the inbuilt dsp is a good feature which will allow you to trim the performance to suit you.
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Old 02-26-2018, 10:54 AM
varmonter varmonter is offline
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like i said i use a k10 my partner uses a small
powered light grey Peavy . i would say it's
also a 10in. with a horn. i think he can't hear
it well so close. he turns it up so loud it hurts
my ears sometimes. so i think the sound
is blowing by him. This of course lends to
muddying up our FOH mix. which is never a good thing.
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Old 02-27-2018, 11:34 AM
lkingston lkingston is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by varmonter View Post
like i said i use a k10 my partner uses a small

powered light grey Peavy . i would say it's

also a 10in. with a horn. i think he can't hear

it well so close. he turns it up so loud it hurts

my ears sometimes. so i think the sound

is blowing by him. This of course lends to

muddying up our FOH mix. which is never a good thing.


This is exactly why I don’t like using horn loaded speakers as monitors.
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Old 02-27-2018, 12:35 PM
dannyg1 dannyg1 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lkingston View Post
This is exactly why I don’t like using horn loaded speakers as monitors.
What you’re not liking is piezo, bullet or titanium drivers. Horns, per se, are (mostly) just a design element. You can, like what s probably in Bose arrays, find horn loaded conventional drivers.

The main difference between a typical PA box and a wedge is a heavy bass roll off and a wedge cut and that’s it. If you look around hard enough, like in the Community CPL27s I own, you can find horn loaded silk dome tweeters in PA designs (and yes, they do sound markedly warmer).

Farther along the explaining route: the intended ‘focus’ of a given speakers design is made by the mounting of the drivers on the front baffle, with the ‘image’ coherent at a distance that the designer chooses. Time alignment is also part of that but, for most of what people consider ‘near field vs mid or far field’, it’s just the drivers tilted a touch differently.
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Old 02-27-2018, 05:07 PM
varmonter varmonter is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dannyg1 View Post
What you’re not liking is piezo, bullet or titanium drivers. Horns, per se, are (mostly) just a design element. You can, like what s probably in Bose arrays, find horn loaded conventional drivers.

The main difference between a typical PA box and a wedge is a heavy bass roll off and a wedge cut and that’s it. If you look around hard enough, like in the Community CPL27s I own, you can find horn loaded silk dome tweeters in PA designs (and yes, they do sound markedly warmer).

Farther along the explaining route: the intended ‘focus’ of a given speakers design is made by the mounting of the drivers on the front baffle, with the ‘image’ coherent at a distance that the designer chooses. Time alignment is also part of that but, for most of what people consider ‘near field vs mid or far field’, it’s just the drivers tilted a touch differently.
So if one chose a driver that is alingned For say 35 feet and
uses it as a monitor for acoustic guitar ..and places it 10 feet from
his ear on the floor tilted in front of him. Would he not hear it as clearly/cleanly
as if it was 35 feet away?

Last edited by varmonter; 02-27-2018 at 05:15 PM.
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Old 02-27-2018, 07:55 PM
dannyg1 dannyg1 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by varmonter View Post
So if one chose a driver that is alingned For say 35 feet and
uses it as a monitor for acoustic guitar ..and places it 10 feet from
his ear on the floor tilted in front of him. Would he not hear it as clearly/cleanly
as if it was 35 feet away?
Since you’d be off axis of the ideal line of projection of the tweeter, you’d probably be hearing a sort of oddly balanced sound but nothing too weird. The time alignment will be off too so probably some phase issues too but I’d think that some nice were all so used to the crappiest floor monitor sounds imaginable ( most of the floor Monitors I’ve ever heard sounded terrible, even the most expensive ones. Engineers have a decided tendency to make them far too loud which exacerbates the problems ), you won’t be too put off by using anything as a monitor.
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Old 02-27-2018, 09:00 PM
varmonter varmonter is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dannyg1 View Post
Since you’d be off axis of the ideal line of projection of the tweeter, you’d probably be hearing a sort of oddly balanced sound but nothing too weird. The time alignment will be off too so probably some phase issues too but I’d think that some nice were all so used to the crappiest floor monitor sounds imaginable ( most of the floor Monitors I’ve ever heard sounded terrible, even the most expensive ones. Engineers have a decided tendency to make them far too loud which exacerbates the problems ), you won’t be too put off by using anything as a monitor.
Well i can agree to a point. at least about the.
crappy part. But i can't imagine in today's
technology there isn't something better for
an acoustic trio . We can get loud but not
enough to warrant soundhole plugs.
do you think if we turned the speaker vertical
( the way it is designed) it would work better
at those close distances? This is a peavey pr-10p.
i looked it up it has titanium compression drivers for the horn.
My fear is the dispersion .. I don't want to hear his guitar in the peavey
over my mix in my monitor .. i mean that's the goal.
I can always be louder (qsc)but i dont want that war..it's stupid. i need him to be able
to hear his own mix.
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Old 02-27-2018, 09:53 PM
lschwart lschwart is offline
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Best monitoring I've had was when a friend ran sound for us and brought along his RCF NX 10-SMA and NX 12-SMA coaxial wedge monitors. If I could afford a set, I'd invest in them. A coaxial design offers a lot of advantages. Sister company, dbTechnologies, makes a series of coaxial monitors called Flexsys FM that have a good reputation, and they're a lot more affordable. Here's a link to the 8" model (there are also 10" and 12" versions):

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...m8_8_200w.html

These have been on my radar for some time, but the cash is not yet in place.

Louis
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