kp-115's question

[colterphoto1]

You might get that Altec amp off the furniture pad, probably blocking air flow. Amps need to breathe- remember that when rack mounting. $100 for KP301's man you're killing me.

I'm driving three hours tomorrow am to pick up a single KP115 (no xover - []) , but I hate seeing stuff parted out on eBay. How do those 115's of your sound?

Michael

[whamo]

Mike, The setup sounds excellent. I purchased a mixer rack, a furman power conditioner, and a Pro dual cd player. I made a amp rack out of 3/4" plywood. I was up til 2:00 am last night wiring everything up nice and in about an hour I have to drive it down to a marina where there's gonna be a nice party. Maybe I can get another pic out to show my progress. Happy 4th of July! Mark

[DrWho]

If I might ask....how loud is the amp on the XTi?

[whamo]

Hey Dr. Who, The XTI is very quiet. However I don't have loads of experience in these matters. The only other pro amp I've ever had other than the XTI is the noisy Altec Lansing 9444a. I was also concerned about some distortion (very small amount) coming from the power supply of my laptop. But in a public setting it was inaudible. I don't play mp3's from it only WMA lossless format. The party was a great success. Sometimes the volume would creep up on you and I'd have to cut it back some. I've heard Mike mention this before. Overall it was a riot and everyone was impressed young and old people. Mark

[whamo]

Hey all, Well I ditched the Altec 944a Thursday night and bought a Crown XLS 402. The Altec would go into protect mode just by bumping into it. I did my first Graduation party Saturday. It was a blast. I did a preliminary setup Friday night. They had me on the side of a garage with a carport type overhang. I put a mirror ball in. Stuck my light tree up. I placed two fog machines in the rafters just above the light tree. I put the 301's on top of the subs. It sounded excellent. There were probably about 150 people there. They cooked 100 chickens and a huge slab of beef. I played a mix of oldies, country and your run of the mill pop songs. Later on I played dance music and those girls were doing alot of that dirty dancing type stuff. I was wanting to break it down around 10 pm but everyone wanted more. All the young men were playing some sort of beer pong drinking game out by the huge bonfire so I played a mess of angry young man music and they were set. I finally get it broke down around midnight. Overall it was a riot and I got a $100 tip. Today I'm going to get some business cards made. For now I'm going to stick with parties and such. I don't want to be responsible for ruining someones wedding. Also I need to look into getting a small trailer so I don't have to load and unload. I think it's awesome that I can turn my hobby into a money making enterprise. BTW I ain't gonna quit my day job. They did take some digital photos I'll see f I can get some. Later all, Mark

[DrWho]

Very cool

Sounds like you might have a loose wire or a loose/worn out cap if bumping the chassis causes it to short out.

Do you have stands for the 301's? Or are you using the subs for your mounting? There are a few tricks you can do with the subs to get you 6dB more output and way better coverage, but it requires you to move away from your mains. Not sure if it's worth the $100 on stands, but it's something to mess around with if you have the flexibility.

[bhendrix]

Very cool

Sounds like you might have a loose wire or a loose/worn out cap if bumping the chassis causes it to short out.

Do you have stands for the 301's? Or are you using the subs for your mounting? There are a few tricks you can do with the subs to get you 6dB more output and way better coverage, but it requires you to move away from your mains. Not sure if it's worth the $100 on stands, but it's something to mess around with if you have the flexibility.

Hey, Mike,

How do we get +6db and way better coverage? Doin' this at camp too . . . .

[DrWho]

Get the subs away from the mains at the side of the stage and put them

up front in the middle, right next to each other. You then wire the

cabinets in parallel and set your subwoofer amp to bridged mono. To do

this properly, your active crossover should have a mono subwoofer

output (to ensure you get the bass from both channels - if you mix

everything with bass equally to the L/R then it's technically not an

issue). This doubles the power output from your amplifier and the subs,

being closepack double in efficiency too (it's like adding a wall down

the middle that goes between the subs - which is like going from 1/2

space to 1/4 space).

The improved coverage pattern comes from reduction of lobing that

happens when you have seperated acoustic sources. Basically, the bass

is now omnidirectional, coming from almost a single point - instead of

coming from two points that are seperated about 3 wavelengths.

Here are two articles you might find helpful:

http://www.prosoundweb.com/live/articles/jbrusi/pa.php

http://www.prosoundweb.com/studyhall/am/lobes/lobes.php

A very important thing to keep in mind is that the main's are also

going to contribute to the comb-filtering. Ideally, you want to run a

mono cluster centered above the stage. If I may vent for a moment, it

seems a lot of people insist on stereo thinking it will be better. All

of acoustic theory points to the complete opposite (when talking sound

reinforcement). I'd be more than happy to go a bit more in depth if

y'all wanna hear me rant. I promise not to get drool everywhere.

ANYWAYS, I understand that a flown cluster in the middle isn't always

possible so we've gotta work within the framework of mains to the sides

of the stage. In this situation, the goal is to make the comb-filtering

so dense that it isn't noticeable. I believe the basic rule of thumb

here is that a minimum distance of 4-wavelengths between acoustic

sources is required to ensure high density. So for a 100Hz crossover to

the subs you're talking about 45 feet between the mains. Yikes! The

significance of this is that you can dramatically change the coverage

of the system between 75-150Hz by altering the delay of the subwoofer.

And this is where my experience ends because I've yet to play around

with adjusting delay between the subs and mains. I will however have

the opportunity to answer some of these questions by the end of summer.

The venue on campus has a similar issue that I hope to track down and

fix...it'll be a fun way to exercise the my magic red box []

Well that's my two cents. The fun thing about audio, especially sound

reinforcement, is that everyone has their opinions. I just happen to be

the best [][][A][H][li]

Btw, when doing music for parties and stuff....you might try putting

the mains at a central location and firing outwards instead of

spreading them apart and trying to fire inwards. The improvements you

gain will let you go from straining the system for a 200 people party

to totally rocking out with 700 people. I can even say that from experience (with just a measley pair of KP-3002's and no subs).

[DrWho]

I guess to sum it up (I'm trying to find ways to use less words these days)...

Go mono whenever possible. If the mains can't be mono, at least make the subs mono.

[bhendrix]

So, Mike, subs together in front of the band and mains together flown over the band ( and the subs )? Have you ever played with the BBE 362SW?

http://www.bbesound.com/products/maxim/362sw.asp

[DrWho]

Ideally you would have everything flown together, but flown mains above the stage with subs under the stage can work very well. Specific applications are all gonna have their own compromises to deal with.

I think I've mixed on a few systems with the BBE maximizer dohickeys, and fore sure a few with the DBX versions, but they always sounded wierd and now I just bypass them instead of trying to make them work. I guess the proper thing to say is that I haven't yet figured out how to use them to the benefit of the mix. In the grand scheme of a new install, I can probably think of a few better ways to spend the money. But that's just one guy's opinion.

[whamo]

Thanx for the replies guys, I think the kp 301's are kinda heavy for stands unless I get those nice metal mounts from fender as mentioned in previous post by Micheal and Dr. Who. I do have industrialized Heresy's to work with too. I can get some stands in the future. Right now I gotta work with what I got. This is a low budget fledgling operation. I think stacking and bridging the KP-1000's would be more ideal too. Now this BBE thing can't I pretty much achieve the same thing with the XTI? Mark

[colterphoto1]

for sure those 301's are beasts, but some of them came with stand mounts. Be certain to use heavy duty stands like the TS90B from Ultimate, it has a clutch grip so that you can raise the speaker up a bit at a time and it won't pinch yer fingers.

Personally I'd rather raise up some KP250's, either pole mounted with the KP115's as base/bass or above the KP301's.