Old Rodgers Speakers - Need advice

[Hartley Mays]

Hello,

I'm in the process of upgrading my studio with new speakers, particularly to take advantage of all the new routing capabilities in Hauptwerk. I've been using a pair of Rodgers 1.7 Tone Cabinet passive speakers that I bought in the late nineties along with a Rodgers 535 Organ.

As far as I can tell, the speakers still work fine, but they're obviously a few years short of state of the art. My question is whether I should continue to use them along with new speakers, or just replace them altogether?

Thanks in advance,
Hartley

[mnailor]

I don't think speakers have suddenly gotten a lot better for organ music in recent years, so replacement would be because you can't use the sound of the old ones any more, or the amp died and you can't get an affordable new one since discrete amps have gone the way of component hifi price snobbery. I only replace speakers when they break or degrade badly.

When I buy new speakers, I make a new audio group for them and keep the older ones in their own groups. I have 26 speakers and a subwoofer, bought over many years. My groups suit my room and ears, but you can get an idea of splitting up the organ's audio into groups to allow for newer speaker models even if my groups don't apply to your case.

Groups with their usage, number of stereo pairs, and speaker models are:

Front manuals, 6 pairs, Adam A8X, T8V, and T7V
Front pedal, 2 pairs, KRK RP10 G4
Rear manuals, 3 pairs, Adam A3X
Rear pedal, 1 pair, KRK RP10 G2
Console noises, 1 pair, Adam A3X
(All mixed down to an SVS sub)

It looks like a senseless zoo, but they do the job well.

[larason2]

I agree. In fact, a lot of modern speakers don't reproduce organ sound well, particularly if the biggest driver is too small. If the surrounds degrade, you can replace them, if the amp dies, get a new amp. You may be dissapointed if you buy something and it's not the right design for organ music.

[Hartley Mays]

Thanks for the good advice, very much what I was hoping for. I'll tentatively plan to go forward using the Rodgers and add on to them with additional speakers to set up a surround environment, probably including a pair of monitor speakers I can use for mixing and mastering.

The back story is that I did a big upgrade of the studio a couple of years ago with a new PC, new midi equipment, and a Focusrite Clarett+ interface. I also upgraded from HW 4 to 8. Because of problems during all the upgrades, I held off on doing anything about the speakers then. The Rodgers speakers were connected to a Mackie 808S Mixer/Amplifier which is even older than the speakers (I bought it used around the same time I bought the speakers). The Mackie seems to not be working anymore so that forced the issue on the speakers and presents the opportunity to upgrade significantly now, as the rest of the studio is now functioning well.

I have a large sub woofter to use, an Alto 18".

I'm open to ideas on the monitors, whether active or passive. I've done some research on power amps to replace the Mackie, and the surprising thing (related to your comment about hi-fi price snobbery) is that one large enough for the four speakers is about double the price of one for just the Rodgers. But there's not a lot of choice for passive monitor speakers. JBL has a few models. From my research, I read that passive monitors are recommended for Hauptwerk?

A general observation is that there seems to be a price gap in speakers, with good models available under $400, and then the next tier up averaging 7-$800. What do you get for the additional money?

Hartley

[Stuart]

My setup is in a relatively small space (about 10 x 12') so I only have 4 Adam A7V speakers and 1 Adam Sub/10mk2. In my space these speakers brought clarity and definition to many stops which I have greatly appreciated. But, they also brought too much clarity to some upper harmonics which was not helpful. I eventually discovered that it was best not to have the two closest speakers (on the console) pointing directly toward me (as is usually recommended for studio monitor type speakers). Now the sound seems very balanced and satisfying. If I had more space I would have kept some Behringer speakers that I had used previously (as recommended in the above post) since they were also satisfying in their own way. In smaller spaces especially I think it is worth the time to try various arrangements (physically and via software) until the most satisfying sound can be realized, even if the arrangement doesn't follow the usual rules. A friend who played the cello once remarked "in the end it is all about the sound and less about how you obtain it."

[mnailor]

Passive vs active. I haven't seen those recommendations for passive speakers being better for HW, but I gave up passive speakers a decade ago when I could no longer find any affordable 12 channel power amps for mine. Active speakers seem to work very well.

Speaker prices. Higher priced speakers, some called "reference" speakers (none call them "Tim"), may be better sounding or may just be a prestige line for sales. I recently decided on more Adam T8V speakers instead of A7V because, best I could tell, I would be paying hundreds of extra dollars for duplicate electronic controls in the speaker that I can do in my audio interfaces. The cheaper T7V and T8V sound just fine for the organ, when you're listening to pipes spread out over multiple pairs of speakers and diffused through the room. If I had a hifi stereo system and a listening corner with one pair of speakers aimed right at my head, I'd think of paying more per speaker.

An example of what you could do is to move your Fr1.7 pair to the rear, put a pair of T8V (or whatever you choose as main speakers) in front, and make it surround that way. Swap the pairs if you like the Rodgers better after testing. I'd go with 8" woofers on your front speakers since 7" or smaller tends to rely too much on the subwoofer for basses, which can sound muddy.

[Hartley Mays]

OK, I've ordered an Ashly 300W power amp for the Rodgers speakers. Consistent with your comments (thanks again), I couldn't find a 4 channel amp at any reasonable price, and the selection of passive speakers is very limited. So I'm instead looking for new active speakers to fill out the studio.

The music room is 20 x 17, and has a sloped ceiling 12 ft down to 7 1/2 ft. In addition to the Rodgers, I'm thinking of getting a pair of QSC CP12 speakers for the other corners, and a pair of Kali LP-6 or Adam T7V monitors.

I'm interested in any thoughts about what height to mount the corner speakers (the Rodgers are currently at the top of the 12 ft wall), the choice of the QSC, and Adam vs Kali.


 

[mnailor]

I'd at least think about getting two pairs of the same model -- rank routing is more flexible that way and you can distribute the audio load better. Expanding is easier, too.

If you're getting Adams, get T8V instead of T7V. The price difference isn't worth the smaller woofer, unless space to fit them in is a problem.

I wonder if the CP12 is a good buy for organ music. The 12" woofer is only giving you bass down to 49 Hz at -6dB, which is poor. T8V goes to 33 Hz at -6dB, for example.

Instead of CP12s, I'd save your money for a subwoofer. You'll need it eventually.

My room is somewhat bigger, a central cube with 17.5 ft sides and 17.5 ft ceiling extended at full height into a 10 x 10 ft square foyer and into a 9 ft height dining room. It only takes a 3 or 4 speaker pairs and a subwoofer to fill it decently. The other speakers are more about getting a diffuse sound from a lot of directions, which I like, and keeping distortion down by spreading the load across a lot of speakers that don't have to work hard.