Looking to buy some drivers for a DIY speaker project. What do you think about Eminence pro serie like Omega pro for home audio(15 in). will they sound as good as home audio speaker. What is the difference between PA speaker and home audio speaker. Somewhat hard to find high wattage home speaker. Thanks
Using PA drivers at home is fine provided you like the sound of pro gear and that you have a decent sized room. If the room is less than about 400 square feet, you might not enjoy them as much. As mentioned by Gregg and Tenson, you might need help in the low end unless you EQ them.
Just MHO.
Just MHO.
One question was the difference....
PA is optimized for efficiency and loudness, home woofers are more for max bandwidth and low cost. You can easily see this in the driver's specifications. Few PA woofers are rated very low in the bass, yet many home woofers can cover the subwoofer range in the right box. Of course, the average efficiency is several dB less. That's the trade-off. Considering that power is cheap these days, most home speaker makers just don't care about efficiency. At all.
If low bass is not an issue, and you want to get evicted from where you live, PA is the way to go. Even the smaller, cheaper Eminence drivers can be good. I have used the Alpha 8 (which is called a midrange driver) and it has great midrange, but also can do reasonable bass in a fairly compact vented box. A good option for low-powered tube amps, like I am doing.
PA is optimized for efficiency and loudness, home woofers are more for max bandwidth and low cost. You can easily see this in the driver's specifications. Few PA woofers are rated very low in the bass, yet many home woofers can cover the subwoofer range in the right box. Of course, the average efficiency is several dB less. That's the trade-off. Considering that power is cheap these days, most home speaker makers just don't care about efficiency. At all.
If low bass is not an issue, and you want to get evicted from where you live, PA is the way to go. Even the smaller, cheaper Eminence drivers can be good. I have used the Alpha 8 (which is called a midrange driver) and it has great midrange, but also can do reasonable bass in a fairly compact vented box. A good option for low-powered tube amps, like I am doing.
ostie01,
Are you actually going to be using this for PA applications? That may help you in your search.
Personally, I made a compromise. I wanted something to use for PA and home use when needed. I also wanted it to be relatively low cost. So I built a system using Dayton Classic drivers. They don't have high power handling, but get quite loud in a multi driver configuration.
My setup includes two 2-way boxes w/ Dayton 10" classics and a 4x10 horn tweeter. The larger boxes are dual-12" Classic woofers and a Dayton silk tweeter in a TMM configuration. I chose the Dayton 12" because they have a higher sensitivity than the rest of the Classic line and give impressive bass...especially w/ 4 playing together in ported boxes.
No doubt, this would not be many people's choice for a PA system...but I DJ'd a wedding and reception this weeked with this setup and it was loud and clear with good range. About 6 hours of straight play w/o any problems. I'm sure they have limits, but they worked well for the size of rooms and groups I would normally play for.
Nice thing is that I can play this system in my house for just casual listening and still be satisfied. Something I normally didn't get from other PA speakers in my home.
But if you are leaning more toward true PA applications, I have used Emminence drivers before and with good results. Borrowed a guy's 15" two-ways and they were brutal. VERY loud.
Are you actually going to be using this for PA applications? That may help you in your search.
Personally, I made a compromise. I wanted something to use for PA and home use when needed. I also wanted it to be relatively low cost. So I built a system using Dayton Classic drivers. They don't have high power handling, but get quite loud in a multi driver configuration.
My setup includes two 2-way boxes w/ Dayton 10" classics and a 4x10 horn tweeter. The larger boxes are dual-12" Classic woofers and a Dayton silk tweeter in a TMM configuration. I chose the Dayton 12" because they have a higher sensitivity than the rest of the Classic line and give impressive bass...especially w/ 4 playing together in ported boxes.
No doubt, this would not be many people's choice for a PA system...but I DJ'd a wedding and reception this weeked with this setup and it was loud and clear with good range. About 6 hours of straight play w/o any problems. I'm sure they have limits, but they worked well for the size of rooms and groups I would normally play for.
Nice thing is that I can play this system in my house for just casual listening and still be satisfied. Something I normally didn't get from other PA speakers in my home.
But if you are leaning more toward true PA applications, I have used Emminence drivers before and with good results. Borrowed a guy's 15" two-ways and they were brutal. VERY loud.
Dick Olsher's Basszilla now uses the Eminence Magnum HO
Not too cheap but all the bells and whistles!and a pretty good deal compaired to similar drivers. They generally start rolling off at about 40 hz, but a bass reflex enclosure will get you low enough for almost all music, ie strong down to 35 hz.
If you look around on the forums you will see that many people like the sound of PA drivers. The efficiency allows you to use smaller amps, but also they just have a livlier sound in my opinion.
Not too cheap but all the bells and whistles!and a pretty good deal compaired to similar drivers. They generally start rolling off at about 40 hz, but a bass reflex enclosure will get you low enough for almost all music, ie strong down to 35 hz.
If you look around on the forums you will see that many people like the sound of PA drivers. The efficiency allows you to use smaller amps, but also they just have a livlier sound in my opinion.
plus, as weve found playing with the boxes in the foto above, the huge cone area means the drivers are hardly moving at normal levels- so you can put lots of EQ on the bottom end and what with the huge power handling they dont mind at all, and they certainly sound a lot lower than they model 🙂
HI, thanks for those replies, as I can understand, those who play PA woofer in home audio, got good results, What I like about pa woofer is that they're rated at high SPL, I have one Omega Pro at 98 dB and I think I will buy another one . Thanks
Hi all,
I need some advice with PRO drivers. I have some plans to make active sealed speakers, but with PRO drivers I haven't got good results (in simulations only) in bass, so I decided to use Linkwitz transform with very acceptable results. My plans are with 12" driver used as midwoofer, so I'm afraid if it will not hurt midrange. Does someone have some experience with that?
Thanks a lot
Regards, Robo
I need some advice with PRO drivers. I have some plans to make active sealed speakers, but with PRO drivers I haven't got good results (in simulations only) in bass, so I decided to use Linkwitz transform with very acceptable results. My plans are with 12" driver used as midwoofer, so I'm afraid if it will not hurt midrange. Does someone have some experience with that?
Thanks a lot
Regards, Robo
What frequency do you want to use it to? I am planning to use a Magnum 12HO up to 1.5KHZ with some dispersion modifications in an open baffle.
I think it should do pretty well. Open baffle will make it very open and transparent anyway then it is hardly going to be distorting at those levels and frequencies. It should be very very clean but I will find out soon enough. If not, then I'll give the Supravox 285GMF a go, but I'm afraid that won't go loud enough.
I think it should do pretty well. Open baffle will make it very open and transparent anyway then it is hardly going to be distorting at those levels and frequencies. It should be very very clean but I will find out soon enough. If not, then I'll give the Supravox 285GMF a go, but I'm afraid that won't go loud enough.
Tenson said:
I'd like to cross over at 2kHz, but it depends on tweeter which I haven't choosen yet. Linkwitz transform will extend FR to 40Hz -3dB (about 12dB correction).
You will definitely need to do something about dispersion. Beaming kicks in around 1KHz on a 12" woofer. 30degrees off-axis it will probably be about -5dB down at 1.5KHz and all but gone at 2KHz and up. Put a sheet of wood with jagged ‘V’ shapes along the edge, either side of the woofer covering the front with a gap 17cm wide between them for the sound to get out. It should help the dispersion around 2KHz. Experiment with the exact gap size. The JBL 2206 would also probably sound good.
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