DR290 First Impression!

[Connif Boudoin]

Hey Everyone, Sorry I haven't written in a while but I didn't have anything to report. The first cabinet has been built and I have to say that I am pleasantly surprised at what I have heard so far. When you come to a website and you hear people talk about there experiences it hard to tell if they are being exagerated or not. Please don't anyone take that personally but if we believed everything we heard on the internet we all be in trouble.

Now with that said here are my preliminary findings. After we fired up the first cab the volume of this thing was almost unbelievable. We had a little trouble with the High Frequency horns but we got it worked out. I presently own 6 Mackie SR1530s. These cabinets work really well and I have done some small festivals with them. Night before last I had a dance revue in a 1200 seat theater and decided to try out the first cab compared to the Mackies. Now, Bill said that they would be twice as loud. I want to say that he was wrong. These cabinets were more than twice as loud. If we turned the Mackies on you could even hear them next to the DR290. The cabinet was a little on the harsh side but we tamed it some with the small 12 band EQ I had on the Mackie board I was using. The next cabinet should be done in a week or so and we'll try the arraying when it is done. I will take the time to do a good write up when done but this is all I have time for today. Thanks to everyone for the support including Bill for the design, David Perry for his review and write up, and my two friends who are building th cabs for me, Marty and Billy, and thanks to DJ Ronn for letting me hear his DR250.
Thanks Connif Boudoin
T-N-C Productions

[Les Webb]

Ha Ha now you'll have to spend the 30 bucks and try one of the piezo arrays. Won't be nearly as harsh

[DJ Big Ronn]

Hey Everyone, Sorry I haven't written in a while but I didn't have anything to report. The first cabinet has been built and I have to say that I am pleasantly surprised at what I have heard so far. When you come to a website and you hear people talk about there experiences it hard to tell if they are being exagerated or not. Please don't anyone take that personally but if we believed everything we heard on the internet we all be in trouble.

Now with that said here are my preliminary findings. After we fired up the first cab the volume of this thing was almost unbelievable. We had a little trouble with the High Frequency horns but we got it worked out. I presently own 6 Mackie SR1530s. These cabinets work really well and I have done some small festivals with them. Night before last I had a dance revue in a 1200 seat theater and decided to try out the first cab compared to the Mackies. Now, Bill said that they would be twice as loud. I want to say that he was wrong. These cabinets were more than twice as loud. If we turned the Mackies on you could even hear them next to the DR290. The cabinet was a little on the harsh side but we tamed it some with the small 12 band EQ I had on the Mackie board I was using. The next cabinet should be done in a week or so and we'll try the arraying when it is done. I will take the time to do a good write up when done but this is all I have time for today. Thanks to everyone for the support including Bill for the design, David Perry for his review and write up, and my two friends who are building th cabs for me, Marty and Billy, and thanks to DJ Ronn for letting me hear his DR250.
Thanks Connif Boudoin
T-N-C Productions

It's good to hear from you Connif. I'm glad that you like the DR's. I think that they are goinq to work real well for you. Since I've never listened to those Mackies, how may Dr's do you think, that it will take to replace them?

[Tim A]

Since I've never listened to those Mackies, how may Dr's do you think, that it will take to replace them?

Two.

Connif, get a real EQ. Those cabinets will come alive with proper equalization.

[Connif Boudoin]

Ronn we had our present system setup with 2 Mackie SR1530's per side with a pair of single 18 sonic Scoops per side. The Scoops have Peavey Low Rider 18's with QSC 2402's bridged to 2 cabinets. So we have 1200 watts per driver. A step up from the original drivers that were in the cabs. We can use more power and the low riders produce a better sounding and louder bass. With this setup we were kind of lacking on the tops. Another words we could get more SPL from the subs than the tops.

Now that we have built one of the DR290's we were able to try it out against the Mackie. Bill stated that it would be twice as loud as the Mackie's. When we fired up the one it was over powering the 2 Mackies. If I had to guess It was more than 2 Mackie SR1530's could put out. Not sure if it was more than 3 but either way the Mackie is not designed to be arrayed 3 wide. Even 2 puts coverage at 180 degrees. That is the reason I wanted the DR 290 because of the array capability. I figured if we needed more volume we would build more cabinets. The DR290 was even giving the subs a fit. We had 2 18" subs that was barely keeping up with 1 top. The second cabinet will be finished on Wednesday and we'll try the arraying then. There is no comparison in volume between the Mackie SR1530 and the DR290. The DR 290 would just take whatever we put to it in power. I had a 2402 powering the cab in Biamp. one channel to highs at 16ohms and one channel to mids at 8 ohms. So power should have been around 200 watts for horns and 375 watts for mids. We didn't have the diffusser mounted yet so coverage wasn't as good as the Mackie. We will have the diffuser we we test the pair. We are just in the early stages of getting them up and running. I am ordering stuff everyday to get them finished up. I need speakons for the box and new speaker cable to biamp. I'll try to get it all going in the next couple of weeks. My plans are to build 3 per side. Not sure what I will have to put for subs to keep up. Will definately consider the Titans.

Bill if we have a sonic scoop at 131-132 Max SPL per cab what kind of increase can we expect from the Titans. I can see that I won't have enough sub to keep up with even 2 of the DR290's and we are planning a build of 3 per side. Also I spoke to you about power and your suggestions were 300 for mids and 200 for highs. Is this still right?
Thanks

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Bill if we have a sonic scoop at 131-132 Max SPL per cab what kind of increase can we expect from the Titans.

At least as much as the DRs compared to the Mackies. Not only are scoops inefficient they also don't go low, and they have the high distortion characteristic of all direct radators. BTW, you aren't getting 131dB from them. 125dB would be a realistic estimate.

[Connif Boudoin]

Bill I was basing that on the math. Cab says 101 at 1 meter. I am putting 1200 watts per cab.

1@A101
10@110
100@121
1000@131

Am I doing this wrong. Or do you think their specs wrong?

What is the Max SPL for both the DR290 and the Titan 48 with recommended drivers and power?

[WB]

1000@131

Am I doing this wrong.

Not taking into account power compression.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Bill I was basing that on the math. Cab says 101 at 1 meter.

At one peak frequency, maybe. Figure about 98dB on average.

I am putting 1200 watts per cab.

Anything over 500 watts is primarily being burned off as heat, so don't count on any addtional output beyond that. The polite term that best describes 'calculated maximum SPL' is hogwash. There are less polite terms that are more accurate.

[Dave Non-Zero]

Its not like you to use 'polite' over 'accurate' Bill!

[Strapping Young Stu]

To try and give you a comparison chart in the same place, heres a plot of a decent real 18" scoop which may or may not be similar to the one you are using (I dont know about sonic scoops!). Horn length is in the region of 2.4 meters. This plot is probably absolute best case scenareo. With a 2.4 meter horn, the box would likely be significantly bigger than a titan, my estimate would be somewhere in the region of double the size for that kind or response plot.



and now of a titan 48 in a standard 24 inch width 48"x24"x24"



Stu

[Tom Smit]

I just happened to notice this

Not sure if it was more than 3 but either way the Mackie is not designed to be arrayed 3 wide. Even 2 puts coverage at 180 degrees. That is the reason I wanted the DR 290 because of the array capability. I figured if we needed more volume we would build more cabinets.

With BF speakers, the ideal way(and only way) to add more speakers is to stack (array) one on the other, not to splay them when adding more speakers.

TomS

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

I just happened to notice this

Not sure if it was more than 3 but either way the Mackie is not designed to be arrayed 3 wide. Even 2 puts coverage at 180 degrees. That is the reason I wanted the DR 290 because of the array capability. I figured if we needed more volume we would build more cabinets.

With BF speakers, the ideal way(and only way) to add more speakers is to stack (array) one on the other, not to splay them when adding more speakers.

TomS

No speakers should be splayed outward, ever. That practice should have never been encouraged by the loudspeaker industry by building trapezoid cabs, but instead of politely telling customers 'that's not right, vertically or cross-firing is how speakers should be stacked' they built what the uneducated public wanted and took their money.

[Tim A]

http://billfitzmaurice.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1293

[Connif Boudoin]

Ok the second cab is finished and we have our Jack plates installed with speakons. We are using all 4 poles in the speak-on for bi-amping. We coated the cabs with the Duratex that is in the instructions. This is some really nice stuff. Appears to dry to a plastic like finish seems very durable.

We set our crossover at 84hz and 1.5khz on the mid and 1.5khz to 20khz on the highs. My subs are crossed over at 35hz HPF and 84hz LPF. We hooked 2 subs and two tops up and started setting the levels on the mids and highs. Got it souding as good as we could with the levels and EQs flat. After that we dialed in the delay settings that Dave Perry had in his write-up. We installed wedges on the bottom of the cabs so they would sit flat on the subs. We stacked the 2 subs side by side and the tops vertically. The stack was 8 feet tall to the top with the 4 foot subs and the 2, 2 foot tops. Nice looking stack. Now we were ready to do some listening.

Again the volume was unreal. We tried playing with one and two cabs. When we went to 2 cabs the highs would get brighter and the mids got stronger and gave you a better midbass tap. I like the way they sounded arrayed although I would be fine with one on each side. Now we were only playing with one stack so the volume will increase dramatically again. We played for about an hour and a half looking at how to stack them and array them.

I think we are going to build a small riser to get the first top up to about 5'6" to the bottom of the first cab. This will put the stack up pretty high if we use 2 cabs per side. May be tough to play some clubs with that kind of height but if we don't get them up I feel like we are wasting the foirst cab because it will only be blocked by the first rows of people.

Any way we are ready to try them out this weekend for another dance revue I am doing in that same 1200 seat theater. I know the DR's are up to it. I have played here many times with the 2 Mackie SR1530's and had no problems so the DR's ought to breeze through this. I still have an amp rack on order to stack all my amps for the tops and subs. Should be in in a couple of weeks. Then I need to make my jack plates for speakers and input cable to make things simple. We are trying to get these setup to see if we can do some of the larger venues in our area.

Bill how would the DR290's compare in volume to a NEXO Alpha rig. Say 2 stacks a side. I have heard this rig several times and I have really liked it. Lots of money though and I'm not sure I will ever be able to afford that PA. The specs claim 140db from these cabs. They are a trap design like the EAW 35' x 35' with a separate midbass 15" box. How many DR's would we have to build to keep up with that kind of output. Thanks again for all the great advice.
Thanks