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PA speakers for home stereo ?

Have you bought them?

It's not this manufacturer:


Nor this manufacturer, which makes vintage inspired Hifi speakers so we can definitely rule them out:


If it had been speakers from the PA speaker manufacturer in the link above, it might have been worth investigating. They seem to be a serious company.

To me, it smells like white van speakers. I could be wrong but if that's the case, you should avoid them like the plague. :oops:
 
The use of "PMPO" On the box is very concerning.

This is a fake metric used to market things to consumers who know "more watts are better" but no more than that.

It's basically adding up the peak power handling of every component in the speaker, which is a lot like quoting the horsepower of a car by adding the maximum torque of the engine, all 4 wheels and all 4 brakes into one number, it makes absolutely zero sense.

My guess is these speakers will have problems you can't fix with EQ. I used to go to audio trade shows overseas where these no-name, gigantic speakers come from. Most of them are bad, some of them are truly horrible, a few are ok at lower levels. It's impossible to say how this one will be just from the info we have here.

In general you should know what you're buying, whether high end or low. Can you listen to them before buying? You could at least run some tone sweeps and try to check the performance by ear, but speakers this cheap and this large tend to be really bad. Most of what you pay for is the sheer size.
 
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Yes. :) .......if you need it, that is.:)


With good stuff pleasantly surprised, with bad stuff horribly disappointed, like so much else in life.

Do you need PA speakers? I mean do you like to listen at really high volumes? If that's not the case, then why PA speakers? High SPL is kind of the thing for PA speakers. That's what they're built for.
PA on low volume with fans from the PA amp making noise, with noise/hiss coming from a high powered amp/ highly sensitive speakers. Nope, not fun, BUT it drowns out when the volume is turned up.:)

How physically large speakers can you imagine having in your listening room? Approximate budget?

By the way, welcome to ASR.:)
Buddy of mine use a pair of Fender guitar amps for his stereo setup. He's happy with that.
 
Mark? @gnarly ? :) Small ported diy mid high with LTH142 there
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SO what it comes down to, I am on a strict budget. Can i use a PA system as my home stereo. Will i be pleasantly surprized or horribly disappointed ?
Welcome!

So, what is your budget?
Your room is 15x15m, did I read that right? And the ceiling height?

In my experience a top quality “PA” system absolutely delivers the musical goods. And for larger rooms, there simply is no replacement for displacement when it comes to bass drivers.
 
I am a big fan of (very) vintage theater-type loudspeakers.
They get the job done, efficiently (literally, in the electrical sense), sensitively (literally, in the acoustical sense), and dynamically.
Not an inexpensive habit, though -- because those who know...know.
;)

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I’ve had lots of experience with PA gear and been an audiophile for 40 odd years. PA speakers sound awesome, sometimes better than home hi-fi and skys the limit with cost of these as well. The trouble is for most domestic purposes they’re just too loud. They are meant for live use and usually in larger spaces. I love the sound of PA speakers though, and if you like live music that’s what you’ll be listening to anyway at a live event. But you can get some big speakers at home which are a bit more subtle and usually have tweeters that are tamer to listen to, and are 3 way, which gives you a better overall sound generally. PA speaker are usually 2 way, nothing wrong with that but if you want a bit more finesse and detail and better reproduction of high quality recorded material domestic speakers are generally better. Just buy one with a 12 inch woofer and its basically near the output of a PA speaker anyway. The compression horns in PA speakers are so much fun though, but they’ve scream and deafen you at home if your not careful :)
 
Been using passive dual concentric Tannoy V12s for several years now. Like them as much as my Neumann KH310s. I use both with twin subs. They go loud effortlessly when compared to most hifi speakers and are in heavy, well braced birch ply boxes. Seems to me that the Tannoys are somewhere between hifi and full on super high SPL PA stuff. The power handling and SPL specs shown below indicate this. Tannoy states they are designed for installs in smaller venues.
Anyway, I have four pairs plus spares now, as they can be bought fairly cheaply second hand. (They cost about $1000 each when new, circa 2000.)
With a bit of EQ, they punch way above their price point, I reckon.
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A good designed speaker with Pro components can eat for breakfast most of the speakers , i did hold the project but i was planning to do a 12 inch + horn paired with subs
 
I use the speakers below.
JBL am6212/00 (jbl 2206h + 2431h).

I did use a diy version of jbl 4722 (active crossover 24db LR @ 750hz - 1,000hz, jbl 2435 compression driver with beryllium diaphram on jbl 2384 horn, 2 x 15" eminence 15lf woofers with shorting rings)
 

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Hi Kevinsonic, I agree with most of what’s been said.
I have a pair of passive 15” cheapies with 1” throat compression tweeters:-
1753144658812.jpeg

They sounded horrible, boomy without deep bass and probably measured similar or worse than this


I tried an experiment with nothing to lose by stuffing them with a full sized polyfill pillow each, and then sealing the bass ports. What a difference that made! For classical, jazz and acoustic, they’re my favourites now.
Their bass is very recessed but goes really low to at least 30Hz in-room and most of the boominess is gone.
Can use a sub or equalise them up to a certain point. Their efficiency gives you a lot of headroom for eq.

With the tweeter handling from 1kHz to the upper limit they image like Kef LS50’s and do depth and width incredibly. There is such a sense of immediacy and coherence that I never seem to hear out of 3-ways. Maybe that’s just been my bad luck though.
Percussion, kickdrums, cymbals and triangles are so lifelike with no detectable compression at low or high volumes.

The big caveat is their crappy dispersion, being ‘controlled directivity’. If you sit in front of them in your main listening posn, bliss!
Get up and walk around and they sound mid-range-recessed.

If you value a sense of timing, perceived explosive dynamic performance above flat response, then they’re worth an audition. I love them for that and their ability to sound like a live venue performance.
 
Have to say that I now value lack of compression/distortion way above a perfectly flat FR these days. With quality PA speakers you should have plenty of headroom available to EQ a slightly rough response with DSP anyway. Distorting speakers just sound like ass. Literally.

I put up with this for many years when pushing the volume on, so called "quality hifi speakers". (Won't mention any names.)

No more...Sensitivity is your friend, and life's too short for distortion/such tomfoolery.
 
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I have a Yamaha DBR 10 and it sounds excellent inside,I wish I have the opportunity to listen stereo.
Still I use a Hifi setup inside.
 
I consider high-ish sensitivity (90dB or better), low IMD, and minimal compression at elevated SPLs to be essential for speakers intended for far-field listening. Good PA speakers tend to deliver these qualities in spades, but you can't always simply EQ a bad FR when directivity is also bad. That tends to often be the case when you have a 2-way where you're mating a big-ass woofer to a little tweeter. You're also squandering a lot of that headroom if you have to make big adjustments via EQ.

There's also plenty of hi-fi speakers that meet the criteria while also having a good FR, you just have look beyond standard 2-way TM bookshelves.
 
Indeed. This is why I like my Tannoys. Big coaxials tend to have good directivity along with the slam. And their slightly uneven FR is easily EQd.
Also, as the woofer is only dealing with 70/80 Hz up, diaphragm displacement is minimised helping avoid the HF distortion commonly found when subwoofers are not employed.

They sound better off axis than my Neumanns, I reckon.
 
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Welcome!

So, what is your budget?
Your room is 15x15m, did I read that right? And the ceiling height?

In my experience a top quality “PA” system absolutely delivers the musical goods. And for larger rooms, there simply is no replacement for displacement when it comes to bass drivers.
Well, @kevinsonic wrote:

My setup, just a normal room 15x15 square meters. and occasionally outside (i live on a smallholding)

Can one equalize these speakers out?


TS have to explain that a little more, my guess is that he means a 15 square meter room, because it's a more normal room than a 225 square meter room. But IF it's 225 square meters, I think he should definitely look into some larger types of speakers, some good PA speakers (or PA similar i.e.; big woofer, compression driver, high SPL/power handling and so on)
Or, with a large listening distance, for example, a couple of line arrays from floor to ceiling would be something to consider. A couple of line arrays completed with some beefy subwoofers. :)

If it's a 15 square meter listening room, which TS listens in mostly around 65-75 dB, I mean a couple of "normal" Hifi speakers together with one or more subwoofers, well integrated as speakers-sub, would be more than enough. I'm guessing about that. But with that said, I don't know if TS likes to listen at really high volume. Maybe a bass-pumping techno party is at his house/room every day. In other words, it's difficult to give tips and advice with so little information about needs, conditions to start from.
(in that case the speakers in #15 plus sub in a 15 square room should be more than enough, or any other combo Hifi speaker with decently high power handling plus sub with equally high power handling. It doesn't have to be PA, if you don't want to)

Then we haven't even touched on the aspect that TS said ...My setup, ...... and occasionally outside (i live on a smallholding) what does TS @kevinsonic mean?

Edit:
@kevinsonic you can try to figure out if it's Eminence Omega Pro 15A bass drivers in the speakers you're interested in. If that's what it looks like, that is.

Regarding the speakers you're considering. The speaker cabinets are too small, in terms of volume/cavity, to have two Eminence Omega Pro 15A in each cabinet. That's if you're going to get any decent bass/FR with them:

Compliance Equivalent Vol. (Vas) 258.5 Liters/9.1cu. ft.

 
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