PA speakers with Naim amplification

When’s the party @khan84 - and are we all invited!? Given the makeup of the forum I suspect we’d be more likely to tidy up than wreck the place :wink:

Could you hire some active PA speakers and reduce the risk of popping your 135s? Plenty of places hire that sort of gear out.

Hope it’s a good party too :tada: :smiley:

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for general info

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

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Guitar amp/cab modelling is a whole different rabbit hole… :wink:

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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.

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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,

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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.

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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.

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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… :wink:)

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.

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I have a pair of 10 m Linn K20 speaker cables.

The only issue I’m having is that PA speaker often come with a balanced connection rather than the typical domestic speaker terminals.

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.

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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…

A photograph would help.

You’re absolutely right. It’s my mistake. I mistook the Neutrik connector for a balanced XLR- low quality images on google.

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Oddly, some passive speakers do use XLR connections - but mostly professional (BBC certainly) studio monitors, and Linn Saras… don’t know whether 'briks did.

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I think you might find that was for old designs or legacy compatibility for low to moderate power - XLR connectors can’t really support the wire gauges required for high power speakers - unless perhaps its some sort of customised XLR spec. Perhaps for vintage high voltage low current amp outputs you might be able to use smaller gauge wire.
I think you’ll find the BBC like most broadcasters tend to align with industry standards now… its cheaper and more reliable…

I recall a party at the Sound Organisation, London Bridge, where 135s were powering active DBLs: the place rocked.

I know. Perhaps I should have said ‘old’ BBC design monitors…

XLR spec does include loudspeaker-type connectors - but I don’t think I’ve ever seen any.

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Mine did, but I believe that changed later.

Troels Gravesen has some HiFi speaker designs using PA drivers. I built one, the Faital 3WC-15: Speaker Build - Faital 3WC-15

There’s also smaller ones. Perhaps you could have one commissioned if not building yourself?

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