Shouldn’t we be looking more at PA speakers?

[GXAlan]

I think companies like RME, Benchmark, Genelec, Neumann, Kali, and Meyer Sound have shown us that the gear marketed genuinely for studio/professional use can offer superior performance to “audiophile” brands with the obvious tradeoffs of looks. Audiophiles have also moved from the idea of separates are the only way for purity to the idea that active speakers are a good option or better option. Powerful DSP software from Dirac, Acourate, or even PEQ in Roon or a WiiM stream gives us ability to make corrections unique to our room.

I am curious, what happens if you mix PA level products designed for very high SPLs and use DSP to attenuate as appropriate?

The Bose L1Pro32 has these specs from the factory, which seems pretty reasonable and you can easily fill the highest frequencies with a super tweeter if you wanted. Bass looks like it rolls off early but you still are at 110 dB at 30 Hz.

Independent measurements show us pretty solid directivity

And the peak SPL frequency response at 1m is this

Which looks bad until you look at the numbers on the Y axis. This gives you a lot of leeway to correct it down to 106 dB flat at 1m, which we only see in the very best speakers tested here.

Or something like the Yamaha DZR315 with these measurements from the factory

Again, the FR doesn’t look that amazing until you see that there is a staggering amount of SPL headroom to work with in EQ.

143dB of pink noise at 1m (!)

It seems like as long as you were far enough to get integration of the drivers and the self-noise of the integrated amplifiers was low enough to minimize hiss, and any speaker requiring fan cooling was quiet enough, then these speakers should sound pretty good and punch way above their weight when mixed with modern AVRs and full bandwidth EQ, right?

 

[Chrispy]

Might have to do with few members sending such in for testing? Does Amir have any waiting for a test? I'd love to see some more tested....

 

[jhaider]

There’s a subculture of people who use cinema or PA speakers at home.* The problem for most of us is they’re mostly big and ugly.

*I guess I’m in it, given the 4 JBL CBT surrounds in our family room!

 

[ThatSoundsGood]

Professional Audio Speakers are generally designed for a different application, which is to distribute live sound to a given audience in rooms that are normally much larger than where we will listen to at home. The focus is more on getting louder and covering further. The lower priced stuff will have much higher levels of distortion as a sacrifice to getting louder volumes. Some of the higher priced stuff (L-Acoustics, Meyer, D&B) could be used at home. They all have their own amplifiers and software to control their proprietary DSP programs. I think their smaller boxes would work great. There are some pro amplifiers that I think could work great at home also you want high wattage for cheap, but when I see measurements on them they are often much higher in distortion than what we can achieve with hypex or purifi class D so it isn't really worth it unless the price point fits.

 

[GXAlan]

There’s a subculture of people who use cinema or PA speakers at home.* The problem for most of us is they’re mostly big and ugly.

Wouldn’t this be a good business idea though? Rehouse cinema speakers in more elegant exterior? Make fancy fabric grilles that look like the Beolab 90? We have wood and leather cases for iPhones, aftermarket wraps or faceplates for gaming consoles…

It would be silly in that people spend ridiculous amounts for cables because they look cool, but maybe spending ridiculous amounts of money for beautifying something makes a lot of sense?

Back in the 1950s, you would buy drivers from JBL and run them full range or buy crossovers and put them into your own box. You could buy a L88 and which was a 2-way L100 and then later upgrade to the L100.

 

[GXAlan]

The lower priced stuff will have much higher levels of distortion as a sacrifice to getting louder volumes.

But look at that 10% THD on the Bose L1Pro32. That’s at 130 dB! Surely as you drop down to domestic levels, the THD drops as well?

 

[ryanosaur]

I never want to walk into my room and see the Peavey logo.

 

[ThatSoundsGood]

But look at that 10% THD on the Bose L1Pro32. That’s at 130 dB! Surely as you drop down to domestic levels, the THD drops as well?

I can't answer that since I have never actually measured for that. I think money is much better spent on home audio stuff for home though. Even if distortion levels are lower because you're running it quieter, it won't sound as good. Speakers that are designed to throw further (such as a Bose L1) will miss the mark a bit in a smaller room.

 

[GXAlan]

Even if distortion levels are lower because you're running it quieter, it won't sound as good.

Why? Genuine curiosity. My own home theater system mixes Meyer Sound Amie for the center and Bose 901’s heavily EQ’d for Dirac for the left and right and I genuinely enjoy it more than the JBL 708P for left and right.

The on-axis sound, directivity index describing off axis sound, dynamic compression, distortion (multitone and standard) and phase should hit all of your metrics, right?

It seems like the limiting factor used to be DSP power, but with each generation of PA speakers being better than the previous, it can change the environment.

Speakers that are designed to throw further (such as a Bose L1) will miss the mark a bit in a smaller room.

For the 3 way Yamaha, that makes sense about distance to integrate the transducers, but the L1 shown there has 32 identical drivers so it should be no different than a Magnepan planar speaker, right?

My thought is that self noise from the amp will be the biggest challenge followed by fan noise for anything with a fan…

 

[ThatSoundsGood]

Why? Genuine curiosity. My own home theater system mixes Meyer Sound Amie for the center and Bose 901’s heavily EQ’d for Dirac for the left and right and I genuinely enjoy it more than the JBL 708P for left and right.

So, I'm mostly thinking about high quality, well designed home speakers with Purifi and scanspeak drivers VS. ****** PA gear like the low end JBL Eons, Mackie powered stuff etc. The difference would be obvious if you listened to both of them. Even with EQ. Meyer stuff is different. It's much better quality and I can see that working well in a home. Bose 901's could do a pretty good job in a lot ways at home. It's really just different places that your dollar goes to. The lower quality PA drivers and amplifiers will not measure as well and they won't sound as good, but they will get a lot louder and cover more area. I really don't know about the measurements, but I don't think they would hit my metrics. DSP is good, but it doesn't fix everything.

The on-axis sound, directivity index describing off axis sound, dynamic compression, distortion (multitone and standard) and phase should hit all of your metrics, right?

It seems like the limiting factor used to be DSP power, but with each generation of PA speakers being better than the previous, it can change the environment.

For the 3 way Yamaha, that makes sense about distance to integrate the transducers, but the L1 shown there has 32 identical drivers so it should be no different than a Magnepan planar speaker, right?

My thought is that self noise from the amp will be the biggest challenge followed by fan noise for anything with a fan…

The Bose is very different than a magnapan. The Bose L1 (as I understood it many years ago when I sometimes installed its cousin, the MA12) has several full range 2" drivers. I believe they are turned left and right in the enclosure in order to maximize the horizontal dispersion, which is around 180 degrees. This is much wider than what you want with home speakers. It's also mostly run in mono, which will not sound good at home. The multiple 2" drivers are a line array which couple as you get further away. The point is to try and cover the room evenly (not louder in the front and quieter in the back). When I've heard them, they are quite good at that. The Magnapan speakers are an electrostatic speaker which is completely different. They are not designed to throw far and they would probably not do well with live inputs.

 

[kemmler3D]

So, I think this makes sense at the headline level, but there are a few reasons it might not be great in practice.

1. Size is a much more important constraint for home vs. stage use.
2. Having 10-20dB+ of headroom above the highest peak I ever want to listen to doesn't do me any good. I'm about as likely to hit 130dB as I am to light fireworks in my living room.
3. As you note, many have active cooling or deprioritize amp self-noise due to the intended application, they're not designed for quiet environments.
4. Driver integration might be a problem if your MLP isn't far.
5. Whether you think they're "ugly" or what, they definitely clash with most home decor.

All that said, they could be great options for people with big rooms and loose interior design goals. In my case, I don't need to hear anything from more than 6m away and I sit about 2.5m away. I don't have space for a PA speaker even if I wanted them, and the WAF deficit would force me to choose between ugly PA speakers and my marriage.

As to why Amir or Erin don't test them? They've aimed their reviews at the consumer or prosumer space for the most part. But other than that, I get the impression that it's just a major pain in the ass to put huge speakers on the Klippel.

 

[ta240]

Awhile back, the local Macys had a Bose L1 Pro 16 playing and it sounded really good; especially if you consider how muddy the usual PA systems end up sounding. Most of the time, I walk quickly away from wherever they have setups playing in stores and street fairs because they sound so bad. And this sounded good from wherever I was in the store. I looked at them a bit and found a few videos of people using them in their home. The tall skinny Bose one would actually be fairly unobtrusive, especially the smaller one I heard.

 

[Philbo King]

Bose PA products are good. Very good. Their tower + subwoofer PAs have captured the market for bar & small club gigs, and inspired copy products from EV, JBL and others. Their horizontal toroid radiation pattern allows performers to do away with stage wedges and use the gain from a corner position or rear wall to cover the whole venue. However, they're not great at outside gigs unless you have a wall behind you.

I wouldn't consider owning any of their hifi products, but on PAs the stars aligned for them.

 

[GXAlan]

So, I'm mostly thinking about high quality, well designed home speakers with Purifi and scanspeak drivers VS. ****** PA gear like the low end JBL Eons, Mackie powered stuff etc.

I agree about the JBL Eon's, although the new Eon's are very different from the old ones. But think about something like the Studio 5's which sound great and use the same compression driver from 2414H-1 which is used in the cheapest.

I also agree about the flagship 3 you mentioned.

But what about the flagship Yamaha's, or mid-tier JBLs like the VTX?

I believe they are turned left and right in the enclosure in order to maximize the horizontal dispersion, which is around 180 degrees. This is much wider than what you want with home speakers. It's also mostly run in mono, which will not sound good at home. The multiple 2" drivers are a line array which couple as you get further away. The point is to try and cover the room evenly (not louder in the front and quieter in the back).

But we do have home speakers like MBL or the Linkwitz?

When I've heard them, they are quite good at that. The Magnapan speakers are an electrostatic speaker which is completely different. They are not designed to throw far and they would probably not do well with live inputs.

The Magnepan's are technically planar magnetic instead of electrostatic, but they do have a nice 1/r decay in sound. They don't do well with live inputs due to the compression you get at high SPLs but they do great for cocktail parties and the like where you want gentle background music that is below the level that interferes with conversation since the SPLs closer to the speaker and farther from the speaker are more similar.

So, I think this makes sense at the headline level, but there are a few reasons it might not be great in practice.

1. Size is a much more important constraint for home vs. stage use.

Agree. I have one 15" subwoofer and it was a challenge getting into to place. I definitely see owners of 16, 18 and even 21" subs on AVSForum though

1. Having 10-20dB+ of headroom above the highest peak I ever want to listen to doesn't do me any good. I'm about as likely to hit 130dB as I am to light fireworks in my living room.

Agree about the volume. The idea was that with something like DSP, we usually say you can only boost so much because you run into headroom issues. Here, if I was shooting for 85 dB, I'd have so much leeway in my DSP to correct the FR to perfectly flat. If we had anechoic data from the NFS and the directivity was good, it seems like you'd be golden.

1. As you note, many have active cooling or deprioritize amp self-noise due to the intended application, they're not designed for quiet environments.

Yeah, this seems like the big one. I wonder if you can disable the fan without triggering a failure since you're not heating the amp up to the full power. The self-noise is also a huge issue if there is no gain control. As a lot of these PA speakers move to Class D, that should help decrease noise too...

1. Driver integration might be a problem if your MLP isn't far.

Agreed. This is why I wonder if the Bose-style array of full-range drivers might work better-than-we-think. Still, the 15" PA speakers aren't too different from someone owning the JBL 4367 or Klipschorn.

1. Whether you think they're "ugly" or what, they definitely clash with most home decor.

Agree. This is where I think there's a market for "covers" or "rehoused" speakers *if* the measurements and sounds actually are good. I used the BeoLab 90 as an example. The BeoLab isn't for everyone -- but you could make that a hollow enclosure for $1K easily. How close does the $3600 Yamaha + $1000 in cosmetics approach something like the $16,000 JBL 4367 once you throw a ton of DSP at it?

The Bose L1 Pro 32 is also the contender in a home environment. It would be better if it was white, but the visual "mass" is tiny with <3" width. That also gives you a lot of option to design around it.

As to why Amir or Erin don't test them? They've aimed their reviews at the consumer or prosumer space for the most part. But other than that, I get the impression that it's just a major pain in the ass to put huge speakers on the Klippel.

People have to send stuff in of course. Something like the Yamaha is probably too heavy for Amir (91 lbs) but the size of the DZR315 is 35.3x21.6x20.5 so it's in the class of the JBL 4367 or Klipsch Cornwall, just 4" deeper but not as wide or tall. That 4" depth saves you from needing amplifiers though. Many home entertainment cabinets have a depth of 18-20" anyway, so it could work to have these flanking a home entertainment center *as long as you had an acoustically transparent fabric cover* that made it look like the Beolab 90 or that type of speaker design.

Awhile back, the local Macys had one of the Bose ones L1 Pro 16 playing and it sounded really good; especially if you consider how muddy the usual PA systems end up sounding.

I agree about the Bose always sounding pretty good. I think even Paul McGowan from PSAudio even talked about the Bose setup sounding pretty good when he was at an airport somewhere in one of his videos. Usually Bose doesn't publish measurements but the Pro level products do have measurements and Production Partner did a really in-depth set of reviews. With the Bose, you need the latency of the DSP to be tiny since it's designed around live reproduction and lag can interfere with the timing of the musicians. In a home theater or even better, a stereo playback environment, you can spend a lot more time with DSP without running into trouble.

I wouldn't consider owning any of their hifi products, but on PAs the stars aligned for them.

That's the question right? The L1 Pro might be one of the easiest speakers to integrate given their slim visual mass, and if the L1 Pro came in a white version (and some of the active Panaray's do), it might be a really solid choice at home.

 

[ppataki]

I don't want to digress, I am not sure if the topic of using PA speakers (drivers) for DIY projects is also in scope of this thread
If yes, then my answer is definitely 'yes' (with big bold letters)

I have done this project with PA drivers then this one also (the sub part) and most recently this one with PA drivers too and I must say that I am more than impressed
Yes, you need to know your stuff with DSP since these beasts need very heavy DSP to sound great but then you will be amazed
Not to mention the unbelievable price/value ratio of these speakers....actually that was the point that made me try these. I had to try and see how they sound for a fraction of the cost of 'hi-fi' drivers - I got totally sucked in, I will never consider a non-PA driver for a subwoofer project anymore

 

[thewas]

1. Size is a much more important constraint for home vs. stage use.
2. Having 10-20dB+ of headroom above the highest peak I ever want to listen to doesn't do me any good. I'm about as likely to hit 130dB as I am to light fireworks in my living room.
3. As you note, many have active cooling or deprioritize amp self-noise due to the intended application, they're not designed for quiet environments.
4. Driver integration might be a problem if your MLP isn't far.

Exactly all above, a friend of mine has a PA equipment event and rental company with a stock of approximately a million € but still he has and prefer Hifi loudspeakers in his home. When I visited in the beginning I also wondered why didn't he use his great PA struff at home but listening to both I soon understood.

 

[thewas]

One extra point I would like to add is the usually quite higher directivity of PA loudspeakers which according to the research* is not preferred by the majority of listeners at the typical home stereo setup.

*I know that this research is questioned and discussed already in dozens of threads here but I would nevertheless like to add it as point. Personally I have the feeling that my own preference while it had moved in the last decades to higher directivity loudspeakers currently seems to be reverting partially to wider dispersing ones but that possibly is mainly a result of my current listening room.

 

[audiofooled]

Having 10-20dB+ of headroom above the highest peak I ever want to listen to doesn't do me any good. I'm about as likely to hit 130dB as I am to light fireworks in my living room.

I can imagine this as having an F1 car that idles very loud at 3000 RPM and trying to navigate it around a parking lot.

 

[Multicore]

I am curious, what happens if you mix PA level products designed for very high SPLs and use DSP to attenuate as appropriate?

I just wanted to add more than a like to your op. It's an interesting question.

 

[Chr1]

I use passive Tannoy V12s from around 20 years ago. They are made for use in small venues as they only take a max 400W peak. This is because they use the same HF driver as Tannoys TOTL hifi speakers. They are well made with heavy birch ply cabinets, well braced and with good quality crossovers. I use them at a distance of approx 2 1/2m in a fairly large room, and as they are point-source there's less issue re proximity anyway. They are much better than the current Tannoy options which are less hi-fi but made to take a lot more power. One of the main benefits of this type of pro-audio speaker is that they are made for use with subs, so there's no need for MiniDSP or other additional crossover. With a bit of EQ this type of speaker can sound very good indeed. Also, not sure if I agree with the idea of being too big though. Most hifi speakers that can do decent volume tend to be pretty big too. Definitely taller. Mine sit on top of twin subs and as they are not as tall as hifi towers, I am able to put my Neumann KH310s on top. I am able to easily switch between the Neumanns and the Tannoys. Have to say that I actually like the utilitarian look of pro-audio gear personally too.