Hi, cheers for the reply. Can you give me any pointers about where I can learn what I need to know about which amps will drive the speakers for the desired loudness ?. I’m prepaired to have a go at building the cabinets for the speaker drivers. But I don’t know about if I need seperate amps for the bass, midrange etc. Also does the system need to be designed around the kind of music that’s going to be played on it. I’ve seen a short bit on TV about the ‘Valve’ soundsystem that has exclusively valve amps for that warm sound that suits drum and bass….how much do I need to know about this kind of stuff ???….:question_
Hi mate. I’ll try and keep this post jargon free.
I’d start small and learn that small rig inside out. Study techniques and tricks used by everyone else and be prepared to keep learning new things constantly.
Some of this stuff might be a little over your head at the moment (don’t worry, you’kll soon pick it up if you are keen) but have a look at the following sites and forums:
http://www.speakerplans.com << check the forum and learn what you can, plus look at the quality plans if you are thinking of building your own.
http://www.squatjuice.com << most of this site isn't very helpful but the soundsystem help and advice forum has some good people who are willing to help
http://www.prosoundweb.com << visit the study hall here and read everything that you can. Some of it only applies to multi piece bands and vocals but a lot of it is very helpful although maybe a little daunting for a new starter.
There is so much to understand, learn and take in that it is difficult to explain where/how to start.
My best advice is to educate yourself on the different types of speaker enclosure and their benefits/drawbacks and which type of speaker will suit your needs. Once you have a plan in your head then you can think about what drivers are ideal for those cabinets (if you are building them yourself then the plans should have a suggested list of drivers that are best suited to that cab) and which amps you need to power them.
It depends on how your system is set up as to whether you will need seperate amps to power each type of cabinet.
As you may already know the full range signal splits up in to 3 main frequencies when it is fed through a rig. (it can be split up in to more but we’ll forget about that for the meantime).
The gadget that does this is called a crossover. There are two types: Active and passive. A passive crossover has a fixed crossover point and sits inside a speaker cabinet. So if you have a full range cabinet (bass,mid,treble) with a passive crossover in it then you will just feed one signal in to it and the crossover will do the rest. This means just one amp is needed.
The other type is an active crossover. This is a unit that sits seperately from the cabinets and distributes the different frequencies. This is manualy set up by you to your desired crossover points. They have other features and digital LMS (loudspeaker management systems) incorporate many other features as well as a crossover function. – such as signal delay and eq and the ability to save and recall settings from memory.
So if you have 2, 3 or more different types of speaker without passive crossovers then you will use an active crossover to feed the desired signal to them. In this case you will need a different set of amps to power each cabinet.
There are instances where you may have bass cabs and top cabs and the top cabs have a passive crossover in them that splits the mid and high frequencies. In this case you will need an active crossover to split the full range signal in to two signals to feed the seperate speaker types and then the passive crossover will take over from there when it reaches the top cab.
Although it may be a little bit more confusing at first it is best to run everything with an active crossover or LMS as this gives your more flexibilty with your system.
Don’t believe everything you read/hear about dillinja’s valve system. It’s very hyped up and is a bit of a marketing ploy which has worked well for him. For starters he does not use valve amps to run his system. I’m not entirely sure what he uses but he refers to the older type of analog power supply amps. These are the amps used by a lot of rigs out there and can be argued that they give a warmer sound to the bass although the are large and HEAVY compared to the newer switch mode power supplies. The system is very loud but lacking a little in quality. It sounds a bit muddy and that level of sound pressure can be produced far more efficiently and with more clarity by other types of cabinet.
Like I say. Plenty more to learn but I’ve tried to keep it simple for starters. Hope it helps.
