Driverack PA - Should I sell up?
Totally Wired
Posts: 3
Hi all. I've been browsing this forum for a while as a guest and firstly can I say how good it is to see a friendly exchange of useful information.
I recently started hiring out my services to local bands in small venues. My FOH is the old HK Lucas system (2x8\" tops and 1x15\" sub). For what it (still) does for the money I'm still satisfied with the sound.
It struck me that I should invest in a driverack to get GEQ/PEQ/Anti-Feedback/RTA in one box. The product itself seems very useful and fairly user intuitive.
Upon purchase I ran my sound thru the DRPA as a Full Range (stereo in, stereo out) set-up to the sub on the Lucas which has its own internal crossovers/limiter etc.
After running Auto EQ a few times it seemed I was having trouble getting a decent vocal sound out front. It became quite thin and raspy although the rest of the band sound was pretty much fine. I read more on this forum and got into the fundamentals of Auto EQ and why it may not be suitable in my particular case.
I would actually like a little control over EQ when pinking. I understand the next model up has a \"live RTA\" feature (?) but at this time I cannot commit funds to that step up.
It seems HK Audio engineered their kit as a matched PA out of the box. That leads me to wonder how useful the DRPA will be in my case.
One part of me says \"okay, the speakers are matched as well as they can be for that price level...trust HK on that...ditch the DRPA and get another analog GEQ instead and tweak the response in the room by ear using GEQ and a CD of full range music I know\"
Problem is the original Lucas doesn't seem to have a clip led (!) which makes it fairly impossible to achieve proper gain structure - unless you guys have any ideas on that?
Another thought is that should I decide to upgrade in the future to a set-up of say passive tops and subs and seperate amps I may actually need the DRPA (although I'd prefer the facility to pink manually).
Sorry this is such a long post. Congrats if you've stayed awake this far!
I recently started hiring out my services to local bands in small venues. My FOH is the old HK Lucas system (2x8\" tops and 1x15\" sub). For what it (still) does for the money I'm still satisfied with the sound.
It struck me that I should invest in a driverack to get GEQ/PEQ/Anti-Feedback/RTA in one box. The product itself seems very useful and fairly user intuitive.
Upon purchase I ran my sound thru the DRPA as a Full Range (stereo in, stereo out) set-up to the sub on the Lucas which has its own internal crossovers/limiter etc.
After running Auto EQ a few times it seemed I was having trouble getting a decent vocal sound out front. It became quite thin and raspy although the rest of the band sound was pretty much fine. I read more on this forum and got into the fundamentals of Auto EQ and why it may not be suitable in my particular case.
I would actually like a little control over EQ when pinking. I understand the next model up has a \"live RTA\" feature (?) but at this time I cannot commit funds to that step up.
It seems HK Audio engineered their kit as a matched PA out of the box. That leads me to wonder how useful the DRPA will be in my case.
One part of me says \"okay, the speakers are matched as well as they can be for that price level...trust HK on that...ditch the DRPA and get another analog GEQ instead and tweak the response in the room by ear using GEQ and a CD of full range music I know\"
Problem is the original Lucas doesn't seem to have a clip led (!) which makes it fairly impossible to achieve proper gain structure - unless you guys have any ideas on that?
Another thought is that should I decide to upgrade in the future to a set-up of say passive tops and subs and seperate amps I may actually need the DRPA (although I'd prefer the facility to pink manually).
Sorry this is such a long post. Congrats if you've stayed awake this far!
0
Comments
If your thinking about replacing the DRPA then I recommend getting the DR260 for a real upgrade... There's no comparison between them...
Kev
Regardless of what you decide to do, I wouldn't \"scrap\" the DRPA. You'll still have access to the GEQ, PEQ, AFS, etc...
DRA
As I said in my post, I ain't got the $$ to upgrade to 260 right now.
The other question, non dbx related, was whether anyone knew of a technique of optimising gain on the speakers when the active amp (built into the sub) has no clip led.
DRA
Brochure
Manual
If you have the HK Lucas "Max" system then you have one LED that turns green when you have a signal, yellow at limit, and red when protection... This means that yellow indicates clipping and red indicates shut down protection... Then I would use the yellow as the clip indicator and set the attenuator about 3dB below that point...
Kev
I think you will find that the ability to manipulate the sound on a number of levels gives flexibility to fine tune a system that really doesn't offer any tuning except the basic volumes. \"It simply offers possibilities\"
Happy holidays to all...Look for my holiday \"limerick\" on a new thread, I posted this on the PSW Live Audio Board in \"05\", and it caused quite a stir...
Gadget