ProAudio Review - August 2008 - (Page 42)

LIVE | REVIEW show when the gate is open or not. Personally, I would have liked to see a compressor over a gate; I see no use for a gate in a “two-input maximum” situation. One of the neat features of these boxes that I really warmed up to was a timed turn-off switch. After approximately three minutes of not seeing signal, the speaker would go into standby, therefore saving power. This is a great feature for an installed box that is out of reach to turn off or regularly forgotten about. Upon seeing signal, the boxes immediately turn back on. The speakers have EQ contours for music or speech. In the music setting, the box put off a beefier bottom end and had a warmer sound; the speech setting offered a boost around 3 kHz to 5 kHz for vocal clarity. Either setting worked well for voice. The voice setting did give a bit more projection to the box, which is useful when a slightly longer throw is needed. The boxes were field-tested on an acoustic act: a B412DSP pair and B415DSP pair as monitors and mains, respectively. Instrumentation was a single acoustic guitar and a vocal microphone. Both inputs went into the first monitor, using the loop-through feature to go to the other boxes. On setup, the handles again offered awkwardness and trouble, so I grabbed a friend. It made the burden of weight easier, but again, the awkward handle placement made matters worse trying to place them on a stand. On-board EQ didn’t offer enough options for the vocal and acoustic. Personally, I would like to see a sweepable mid there as well; however, because of the price, I’m not complaining. On the next show with this artist, a small mixer and a 31-band graphic EQ were added. These tools made the job much easier and not only by audible standards; it was physically easier to adjust as needed (instead of crawling and leaning forward a wedge to achieve perfection) and I was able to get a good sound out of these speakers. The main notch I took out of these speakers was between 160 Hz and 315 Hz; it really took away the muddiness of the box and cleaned up the vocal. Back at the shop, I decided to test the serviceability of the boxes and learn more about them from the inside out. The first step was to take off the amplifier panel. The panel is held in with several #2 Phillips screws around the outer edge of the module. The amplifier module is in a gasket-sealed metal chamber. This may prevent water or bar sludge from getting inside. Liquid can still enter by the vent on the top of the module, but is highly unlikely because of how it is set in on the back of the box. I wouldn’t recommend putting it out in a torrential rain, but it appears like it would hold up until you got things covered. The grille on the woofer comes off very easily with more #2 Phillips screws, and again more #2 Phillips to take out the low driver. The woofer easily comes off via two push-on terminals. Tapping the woofer while in the box determined that the 160-315 Hz muddiness is the resonating of the box itself. Upon removal of the woofer, I took note of no batting in the box. Lastly, I attempted to pull the horn driver; on this one, I had to give up. It seems you have to unscrew the entire front plastic panel, and my longest Phillips screwdriver could not reach the screws in the deep holes of the box. If these boxes’ pretty LEDs ever get knocked out or broken, or if you want to change colors on the front, it is glued into place from the back (accessible when the driver is taken out) and soldered in. Those who don’t like them just have to take off the back amp module and unplug the 3-pin connector. BEHRINGER continues on page 54 ® BEHRINGER Continued From Page 41 me a little top-heavy and unbalanced, but it kept my hands from getting crushed. Upon turning on the speakers, I noticed that they created a lot of hiss. This is not surprising and is quite typical of similarly priced preamps. I played several CDs of many genres of music, each going directly into the speaker’s XLR input. My first impression was that they sounded good for the price range. They had good solid lows and crisp high end. They didn’t sound “honky” — a characteristic typical of plastic boxes — although they did have a low-mid muddiness that I couldn’t get rid of with the EQ knobs or contour switch on the back. The last CD played was a test tone CD I created; I played the pink noise track; it worked great for annoying the neighbors as well as a noticeable boost in the 5 kHz range and a honky/muddy sound in the 160-200 Hz range. When I played a logarithmic sweep of the spectrum I noticed the imperfections of the speakers and how much work the DSP was truly doing. The boxes were set up as wedges, and I plugged a Shure SM58 into one of the inputs. To get an audible volume, the volume knob had to be set really high. The on-board parametric EQ offered no help in feedback rejection, yet the angle of the box did offer a perfect angle for monitors. You can get up on top of the monitor and still hear it as clear as when you step back. The design of the horn performed well in this application. The gate feature is an interesting option in that I am not sure why they put it there. There is a delay in kicking on and turning off, but it didn’t sound bad at all. There is also a handy LED to 42 | ProAudio Review | August 2008 www.proaudioreview.com http://www.linearsystems.com http://www.proaudioreview.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of ProAudio Review - August 2008

ProAudio Review - August 2008 Contents Publisher's Page Broadcast News and New Products Yamaha Pocketrak 2G Olympus LS-10 Linear PCM Recorder Bench Test Marantz PMD620 Flash Recorder TASCAM DR-1 Portable Digital Recorder Tips From The Pros: Location/Production Audio Prosumer Portables in a Pro World Studio News and New Products Apogee Ensemble Solid State Logic Duende Mini FireWire DSP Live News and New Products Avril Lavigne's The Best Damn Thing World Tour Behringer Eurolive B412DSP and B415DSP Active Loudspeakers Gear for FOH Engineers — A PAR Contributors’ Wish List Contracting News and New Products Buyer's Guide Single Slice

ProAudio Review - August 2008

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