Speaker recommendations

This question has doubtless been asked before, but I'm asking it in the context of currently available product.
Right now I am using a single stereo output from Hauptwerk to feed a QSC GX3 amplifier, which in turn feeds the two original speaker cabinets from my Rodgers Olympic 333. Each speaker cabinet has two 12" woofers, four 5" mid range, and 1 horn tweeter. They sound really good. The only issue is the inevitable intermod products from pushing everything to a single stereo output.

I am contemplating the transition to 12 speakers (6 each left and right) to enable C/C# cycling in stereo, along with two subwoofers. Apart from being, I believe, the minimalist "ideal" configuration, six speakers either side of the console is about all the space I can afford. The room size is 13' x 25' x 9 feet high.

This leads to the question of a recommendation for the speakers and subwoofers. There have been a lot of postings about Mackies, Behringer 2031As, Adam F7s etc. I have read comments both on the forum, as well as various other reviews. Each of the aforementioned brands has its proponents as well as opponents. I realize there is a wide range of pricing and you get what you pay for, both in terms of sound and build quality. But it also appears that there may be a "sweet spot" in terms of the tradeoff of value versus aural perfection, where the incremental benefit versus expense starts to flat-line. I would appreciate the opinions of those who have implemented multi-channel systems of the scale I am contemplating.

Ray

Hi Ray,

As the old saying goes and seems to apply here as well, you get what you pay for, I also say good and cheap don't come in the same box, but as you mention there is a point where a number of options in speakers although having a considerable difference in price range, all give very satisfying results. It's really difficult to pinpoint what's going to be best as you will get all kinds of opinions here based on what the person who gives the advice is using. My best advice? Take 2 or 3 of the recommended speakers and if possible, demo them at a local retailer and let your ears decide for yourself. I did this myself and stacked up some Bose the salesman was pushing for considerably more money up against some Polks for considerably less, and walked out the door with the Polks. Go figure.

The next question is: Are you planning to use powered monitors or a separate amp and passive speakers? The units you've mentioned thus far are all of the powered monitor design and you will get much debate on which way to go is best here as well. If cost is a factor, typically a multi-channel amp (or two to get to where you want to go) and separate speakers is going to cost a bunch more vs. powered monitors and we haven't even added in the subs yet.

The final thing is: What type of sample sets do you plan to use (wet or dry) and mostly enjoy? You mention wanting to take advantage of the algorithms HW offers, I've found and others here will likely agree that dry sets benefit the most from multi-channel AND the use of the algorithms, whereas wet sets do not share the same benefit of using multi-channel and the algorithms and from my experience and experimentation are much better off and produce the most realistic results based on how you configure your audio outputs and choose to load the set from the rank table and leave the algorithm part out of the equation.

If you mostly enjoy wet sets and in particular those offered in surround, 8 to 10 channels in my opinion is about all you will need and will produce fantastic results, if you're planning for dry sets then the sky is the limit on how many channels.

Marc

Marc,
if I may join in , PSE let me say that I appreciate Your advice backed up by convincing arguments.
But I have the following questions:
- which influence does the room size have on dimensioning the speakers and their positioning,
- what type of speakers are suited best for a surround solution ( or is a home cinema set up enough?),
- what do You think of vertical speaker set ups?
https://www.google.de/search?q=rundumla ... d=0CCAQsAQ

Rgds,
amun

Marc,
if I may join in , PSE let me say that I appreciate Your advice backed up by convincing arguments.
But I have the following questions:
- which influence does the room size have on dimensioning the speakers and their positioning,
- what type of speakers are suited best for a surround solution ( or is a home cinema set up enough?),
- what do You think of vertical speaker set ups?
https://www.google.de/search?q=rundumla ... d=0CCAQsAQ

Rgds,
amun

Hello amun,

First off thanks much for your confidence in my opinion, I appreciate it! I will attempt to answer your questions based on assuming we're talking about home use vs. commercial use in a much larger space as that is a whole nother can of worms.

I think regardless of your average home room size (unless you're in the hallway broom closet ) any multi-channel set-up should include a combination of one pair of larger 2 or 3 way speakers (like tower speakers) with drivers of 8" to 12" in size combined with smaller speakers having drivers of the 5" to 6" variety and all of the same model and brand, and 1 good sub included in the set-up should be more than enough. A smaller room will require less overall amp power, a bigger room more, but if you shoot for anywhere from 100 to 300 watts per channel and lean towards the higher number for the larger room, you should be able to rattle the windows right out of the house and the in-laws will never come back! I'm more of a multi-channel amp advocate vs. powered monitors simply because I feel there's much more to choose from in speakers, especially when hunting for the larger 2 or 3 way units. Yes, good quality and / or respected name home theater surround components would be a great foundation for a HW set-up, but from there the outcome really depends on how you set things up.

I read of some here who will route just the 16' and lower ranks to the sub only, I think this is a mistake, or will send the entire pedal division to the sub only, which I also think is a mistake. Even though we are dealing with mostly very low notes, there are some high pitched ones in the pedal division as well, and no matter how low or high the pitch is there's additional sounds present in those pedal notes that a sub alone can not re-produce, this is where the larger 2 or 3 way speakers come into play. I use one amp which it's sole purpose is to deal specifically with the entire pedal division and any 16' pipes in the manuals. I have both my larger 3 way speakers and the sub connected to this amp, so they all get the same signal and the bases are then completely covered for anything that goes to this amp. The rest of any sample set, the 8' and higher is split evenly between 6 channels (3 stereo pairs) of the smaller 6" driver same brand and model speakers.

As far as vertical speaker set-ups go, after much experimentation I discovered a vertical arrangement does indeed sound best, but this is where we could potentially be drawing a line between what works best for wet and dry sets, I use wet sets only so I can only say this applies to wet sets. In my arrangement for the front speakers I have the 2 larger 3 way speakers spaced 6' apart to the left and right of me, behind and off the back corners of the console on each side, they are also off the floor about 3-1/2 feet with the smaller speakers stacked on top, each stack is pointed slightly inward towards me. Getting the speakers stacked vertically and up off the floor was probably one of the most surprising discoveries I made, and I have tried all kinds of different arrangements from evenly spaced speakers going from one side to the other in front of me to a couple pairs space @ 6' and some @ 2' to speakers pointing down from the ceiling and on and on. Bottom line, nothing has matched the current 6' spacing and stacked arrangement.

I hope this helps and gives some ideas as to which direction to go.

Marc

Marc, in answer to your questions, right now my sample sets are all dry theatre organs - primarily the Paramount 341 and Masterworks 331. I also have the free Barton and Robert Morton sample sets.

I am using the reverb algorithm that came with the sound card, but the intention is to go with a high end sound interface like RME, and Lexicon reverb. There have been some negative comments about some of the convolution reverb plug-ins. Active speakers are okay because I don't need a lot of watts per channel for the average power level, and I want to avoid the horrible fan noise associated with most power amps. My GX3 is an excellent sounding amp given its classic class B design with super heavy power supply, but the cheap bearings in the fan (and no variable speed control) means it sounds like an idling jet engine all the time, regardless of the power output.

The notion of 12 channels is to minimize intermod for the stereo samples. If there is an intermediate solution with fewer speakers, I could start there and work my way up if necessary.

Regarding listening to speakers in stores, I see two problems with that. The environment is a lot different than my music room, but more importantly, it's difficult to emulate the virtual pipe organ source material in the store. I suppose I could bring in a dry CD recording and try that. But there are still a lot of extraneous variables in the store environment that may lead to a flawed conclusion. Your own personal experience with Polk versus Bose underlines my point about the "sweet spot" . What we need are speakers that make the virtual organ sound good, and that may mean less perfect speakers.

Some speakers have been criticized as being overly bright. They may in fact be too accurate. I was at a VTPO concert a few months ago in a church, and the speakers sounded far too bright, and the sound too dry, despite being in a reverberant acoustic environment.

Ray

Hi Ray,

Now that we know you are leaning towards powered monitors we can go back to your original question here which is what is best and what would be recommended. I will first say I understand your concern about demo-ing speakers in the store and being able to judge them in this way, all I can say is trust me, go to the store and demo the ones you are interested in and choose the ones you like best. It's not like they are going to sound good at the store and sound like crap at home. Even if the store is set up with an ideal listening environment (highly unlikely), once you get a listen to a few you will know which you like and which you don't and can buy in confidence and bring them home.

The second point I will make is any speaker could end up sounding too bright out of the box no matter the environment and just because they do doesn't necessarily mean they are a bad choice and that you should rule them out, again go with first impressions and what sounds best to you. No matter what you go with, if you just bring them home, plug them in and use them "as is" you then have to settle with what they offer and is where you need some added control if you want to change that. Any serious sound system will incorporate some sort of equalization to "tune" the speakers to the environment and if you are looking for maximum results you should not rely on just the speakers alone and end up having zero control over their sound. Expecting to find the perfect speaker that will give you exactly what you want by just plugging them in is ultimately unreasonable and you will never be happy no matter what you go with.

If you purchase multiple sample sets you will end up with some that will sound more bright and others that will sound more dull, all which may prompt you to make changes and all more the reason to be able to tweak your sound. The options for doing this include EQ software (probably not the best) or some sort of external hardware. I chose the latter and went with BBE Sonic Maximizers which I have been very happy with. Got a set that sounds too bright, too muddy or too much low end? Turn a few knobs and viola! Sounds good!

Marc

[mdyde]

Hello Ray,

The RME UFX (which I have) has built-in EQ and reverb available on each output channel, so that might be a good audio interface model to look at.

Something else I neglected to mention is you do also have the great built in feature in HW of voicing if you are concerned with the sound being too bright, dull, etc. It's a feature I find very useful for certain circumstances, but it by itself should not be considered as a substitute for some kind of an EQ and instead something to be used as a tool to tweak things and make final adjustments. I often use the voicing on certain ranks where overall I am happy with the sound of the instrument, but maybe there's those one or two ranks (or just a few notes in those ranks) be they mixtures or other more bright or harsher sounding ranks that still have a bit too much volume or brightness, or there's that note or two in the pedal rank that just jumps out at you with a boomy unnatural sound, for these I use the voicing controls to fine tune them.

I've found as time goes on and the recording techniques and HW improve (thanks Martin, Brett and all set producers!), the more recently released sets are very good out of the box and generally require little fuss other than minor voicing work here and there. If a person is spending a lot of time voicing, in particular finding they have to address many ranks of an instrument to get things to sound as desired, it could perhaps point to either a deficiency in the sound components (or lack of components) selected, or perhaps more likely is just an issue with how a person has chosen to set up the audio groups and / or load the set in question. I've discovered considerable sound differences with the same instrument just in the loading / routing techniques alone that I've used.

Marc

What we need are speakers that make the virtual organ sound good, and that may mean less perfect speakers.

This is certainly a possible solution, but IMHO it would be better to manipulate the audio stream, which is output by Hauptwerk before it reaches the speakers. Some hardware and software solutions have been mentioned already.

Before making a recommendation, I would to draw Your attention to a collection of means to shape an audio signal: http://www.mediacollege.com/audio/effects/

These effects can also be shaped through various parameters. An example with informative pictures of the effects:
http://www.reaper.fm/guides/ReaEffectsGuide.pdf

A guide on the How-To-Install Reverb within the Reaper Software can be downloaded from the Hauptwerk site.

A realistic and acceptable sound reproduction of VTPO samples IMHO is a quite demanding job, because of the properties of the auditorium: curtains, seats, public, two chambers etc. The mentioned audio effects are suited to cope with it.

amun