I was looking for some advice on hooking up PA 2 channel speakers to my second system which consists of the Naim NAP 135s for a party I will be hosting. The area that they will need to project sound into is about 17 metres long and about 7 metres wide.
I found speakers like the Yamaha S215V but they only have a balanced connection. Can anybody reccomend a suitable speaker for me. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a PA speaker although for loudness i imagine PA and horn speakers will be the most suitable.
When I ran a mobile rock disco many years ago I used speakers with bass/lower mid bins identicsl to Altec Lansing Voice of the theatre
The upper mid HF horn was different, and I added supertweeter horns on top. At 105dB/W sensitivity, when powered by my then hifi amp, 50W per channel Radford, they filled large pub rooms and a variety of halls with music as loud as any rock band playing there.
It probably diesn’t help, but for myself for parties I used my hifi system, obviously loud enough inside my home, but once did in the garden, speakers at the end of the garden facing the house, and for the first third of the distance from speakers to house it was plenty loud enough for people to dance if they wanted, next third perfect music enjoyment listening level, with the third nearest the house low enough for conversing. (Details here: Hi-Fi Corner - Naim Audio - Community)
Pro or semi-pro JBLs of one variety or another are usually fairly plentiful.
I remember the first time I heard a restored pair of 4343s - wonderful. The owner confessed that they were often brought out for parties and could really fill a large space. Following that experience I bought myself a pair of 4311s (pro version of the L100), but with their rather interesting history, I’m not sure I can bear to subject them to party levels and potential accidents.
btw, 135s are probably overkill here, and an unregulated amp might be a better bet.
I always thought that PA speakers are voiced have a flat response, and as such all the fiddling of frequencies is done outside of the speaker. In the guitar world, you might like a Marshall or Fender speaker, but now with clever processing devices, you have a black box that effectively simulated those speakers voicing, and then you can send that signal through a PA speaker to get your specific sound without having to lug around a load of different speakers for different songs. That’s pretty much what happens at big stadium gigs. So you may be disappointed.
I would have thought PA speakers aren’t designed for long home listening, and therefore you may find home listening tiring.
Saying that, I’ve no experience of trying this - just my thoughts…
135s, being regulated, are more suited to quality over “quantity” of sound. Running at high levels they will be working hard maintaining the high quality performance. Hard working means heat and stress, although luckily they have good heatsinking and fans, but I guess there are always limits, hence why there’s a thermal protection shut-off.
In my opinion the best hifi speakers have as near a flat response as possible, so i’m somewhat puzzled by your comments if PA speakers have a flat response. However I think in general PA speakers do not have a very flat response, and I believe many are stronger in the midrange. And of course there is s huge range ic price/quality from a few £hundred to many £1000s fir even s smallish setup, with anything of any great size generally being active.
As regards EQ and making a direct injected instrument sound like it would through a specific combo, that is not something that would be mussing at home because it would already be in the recording, so applying tge EQ again would be undesirable (but perhaps I musunderstood you?)
Whereas the speakers you’d find in a typical guitar cabinet are designed to be paired with specific guitar amp heads, they also have tonal characteristics all of their own that don’t always play nice with a modeled guitar amp. On the other hand, an FRFR speaker should have no such coloration. Standing for ‘Full Range, Flat Response’, an FRFR speaker won’t color your sound or add any unwanted frequencies, providing a true picture of your guitar tone
Now where I suspect I may be going wrong is I recall a salesman said that I could use a Yamaha PA speaker as an FRFR speaker, because PA speakers are FRFR. So to check my understanding, I found this on musicradar .com, which seems to match what I was told.
If you’ve got an amp modeller with a built-in power amp, like the powered Kemper, for example, then you’ll want a passive FRFR speaker. The Yamaha CBR10 is just that – whilst it’s technically a PA speaker, it actually works really well as a more compact FRFR speaker.
I may be putting 2 and 2 together and getting 4.1 here, just repeating what I was told - again from a guitar world point of view, not HiFi
I would love to host members. I think that’ll be a better party than the one I’m throwing as the one I’m hosting is for people who will listen to music I don’t typically listen to.
I’d also love to listen to some Naim gear I’ve never heard like the statement, ND555, DBLs in a home setup.
@Richard.Dane thank you for clarifying why NAP135s ideally should not be used in this application.
@Innocent_Bystander Steve Guttenberg did an episode in which he mentioned the Voice of the theatre speakers. I’ve always wanted to listen to them.
Whilst they sounded ‘right’ when wound up (the best compliment I ever had with my disco was when someone came up and said that before they saw me on stage they though it was a band playing), they weren’t as good at domestic levels: I did try when I first got and converted them (I had to saw the bass bins in half as too heavy for me to lift, then added bracing, seals and clamps, and added the mid/HF flares and supertweeters), and they were rather insipid. And I had to reduce the amp input gain for the volume control to gave any movement! My reference was my hifi speakers of the time IMF TLS50ii transmission line monitors,
I bought 135s specifically because my 250 wimped out whenever I had a party. The 135s were absolutely rock solid and sounded massively better. As you already have the 135s I can’t see why you shouldn’t use them.
Having said that, if it is a big party outdoors then hiring a PA system may be a good idea.
I think you’re conflating PA speakers driven by neutral amp, through which anything can be fed, and the EQ/modelling of an instrument’s signal when that is wanted - The whole point is that different instruments, eac with their own modelling as desired, and also vocals, can all be fed through the same speaker system. It’s exactly what you do when you play a recording at home. However decent hi-fi speakers I think are more accurately neutral than the majority of PA speakers, because at the end of the day with the PA system ultimate sound quality is not the goal.
The ultimate goal is probably “is everyone happy”, so - can I make it loud enough, without (too much) distortion, notch out all the feedback frequencies, make the singer sound good, and keep the rogue bass player under control?
(Note - you can buy outboard processors to automate some of those… )
For good effective PA/sound reinforcement for music I would consider active speakers… they will take balanced preamp out puts… they will often sound first class for modern designs… I think ElectroVoice tend to sound superb, and have heard superb results with their Evolve column speakers for gigs… power and passives/passive crossovers don’t always go that well together… so you might consider active cross over. Unless you are going to do regularly I would rent them.
However if you if you have access to some passives then go ahead, go for the best quality you can get for it not to sound bland or glarey. Remember on passives try and keep the speaker leads between 3 and 10 metres for Naim amps… easier said than done on some setups… and you may need to solder up some suitable leads with suitable connectors.
Yes those will typically be for actives and are designed to be connected to balanced preamp or console outputs, not amplifier outputs.
Passive PA speakers often use the SpeakON connectors or locking Phone connectors which can handle the higher power, however these could be connected to a hifi amp output… though you might need to hack a lead.
I think we need to be sure what you mean by ‘balanced connection’ - as far as I know the S215V is passive, and from photos I’ve seen has both jack and speakon connections…
