Best 3" hi-fi high efficiency full range driver for line array P.A.

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The Minirig isn't a Bose product and I wouldn't describe them in that way at all. Small British company, modest and grounded, that makes a couple of products and they're very open about their tech on the whole. (DIY community grown product, basically, but now quite a commercials success and a well deserved one imo)
I am sure they are, I think its possible those are also what B is using (first) and minirig is also using them. I admit I have no love for the B people.
 
P Audio are a talented OEM speaker driver factory, there's no doubt about that. Some of their budget drivers have specifications that match drivers from some of the most expensive brands in Europe, but for half the price.

I wouldn't rule out the possibility that the SN30 was custom specified by Minirigs, as a souped up version of the PA 20K/4 with a stronger magnet and a cast frame, (which is what it looks like to me), and that selling it separately to their arrangement wasn't meant to be part of the deal. The PA 20K/4 itself was virtually identical to a Monacor hifi driver. Monacor strikes me as the sort of company that has their components designed by OEMs, so it seems that history repeated itself!

They have a huge production facility in Thailand. 60,000 square metre complex, 2.5 mile long speaker production line.

They're OEM for a lot of people, and they produce massive volumes in an economically depressed country, (average income for industry/manufacturing jobs is 7,000 Baht per month which works out at $2,500 a year)

They also produce most of their parts in-house. They run a metal fabrication and processing business on the side, and it's possible (just speculating) that was their core business before branching out into speakers - probably they were supplying parts to other manufacturers and learnt the trade from there.

Their drivers mostly use stamped steel frames, which aren't optimal for performance, but it is cheap, and if you've got a highly optimised large scale steel stamping production facility to begin with it's dirt cheap. That along with the cheap labour and high volume gives them a major edge in budget high power PA drivers.
 
lol did Bose steal your firstborn child or something?

I've been thinking a lot about ethics in design recently, and to be honest there's something to be said for Bose in that regard, if you can put aside whatever misgivings you have about the price/performance ratio and marketing ********.

A lot of people love them, a lot of people use them a lot, a lot of people keep them for a long time and they don't have a high failure rate (as far as I know? My experience with them is limited to be fair). They also retain their value well.

The other good thing is they're a bit naff so they inspire multiple generations of people to make their own! If the biggest names in audio were practically perfect in every way, where would be the fun in that?

There was an interesting discussion on the other forum recently about a budget retailer/manufacturer, they've been going since the 50's in the UK under Carlsbro brand and now Bishopsound. It's cheap imported Chinese tat these days of course, but it's done with a fair eye for quality control and customer service.

A lot of people **** on them for their misleading (and sometimes outright false) marketing, and the quality of their product...but I had a good look look at their Trustpilot reviews, their eBay feedback, Facebook page etc, and it's wall to wall satisfied customers. 100% satisfaction from hundreds of people, lots of it glowing and detailed.

When I was a teen I bought one of their systems as it was literally 1/4 the price of similarly performing alternatives. Sound quality was shite by any measure of fidelity but it was loud, portable, had amps and batteries built in, in a time when the only affordable alternative to that sort of thing was a JVC boombox..and it was about as loud as 5 of them and battery went on all day. (20kg carpet covered wooden box on wheels, I think it was 200 quid and at the time the only alternatives were about 800)

I would never buy one of their products now because I know I can make so much better myself, but that's no reason to hate them.

Edit: I can still remember the joy of playing a bass heavy track through it now :) thinking about it, it must have been about a 30 litre box with a high efficiency 8" driver + whizzer cone, and a second 8" passive radiator, driven with 50w. So it was probably reaching 112dB peaks with response down to 60Hz if not lower. Something of an upgrade from my previous system which was a pair of 8cm cube speakers that looked like fluffy dice.
 
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lol did Bose steal your firstborn child or something?

I've been thinking a lot about ethics in design recently, and to be honest there's something to be said for Bose in that regard, if you can put aside whatever misgivings you have about the price/performance ratio and marketing ********.

A lot of people love them, a lot of people use them a lot, a lot of people keep them for a long time and they don't have a high failure rate (as far as I know? My experience with them is limited to be fair). They also retain their value well.

The other good thing is they're a bit naff so they inspire multiple generations of people to make their own! If the biggest names in audio were practically perfect in every way, where would be the fun in that?

There was an interesting discussion on the other forum recently about a budget retailer/manufacturer, they've been going since the 50's in the UK under Carlsbro brand and now Bishopsound. It's cheap imported Chinese tat these days of course, but it's done with a fair eye for quality control and customer service.

A lot of people **** on them for their misleading (and sometimes outright false) marketing, and the quality of their product...but I had a good look look at their Trustpilot reviews, their eBay feedback, Facebook page etc, and it's wall to wall satisfied customers. 100% satisfaction from hundreds of people, lots of it glowing and detailed.

When I was a teen I bought one of their systems as it was literally 1/4 the price of similarly performing alternatives. Sound quality was shite by any measure of fidelity but it was loud, portable, had amps and batteries built in, in a time when the only affordable alternative to that sort of thing was a JVC boombox..and it was about as loud as 5 of them and battery went on all day. (20kg carpet covered wooden box on wheels, I think it was 200 quid and at the time the only alternatives were about 800)

I would never buy one of their products now because I know I can make so much better myself, but that's no reason to hate them.

Edit: I can still remember the joy of playing a bass heavy track through it now :) thinking about it, it must have been about a 30 litre box with a high efficiency 8" driver + whizzer cone, and a second 8" passive radiator, driven with 50w. So it was probably reaching 112dB peaks with response down to 60Hz if not lower. Something of an upgrade from my previous system which was a pair of 8cm cube speakers that looked like fluffy dice.
Hey, Hemi. You are a very nice person. I have made a goid bit of my living by calling out dishonest marketing. I just don't see the point in not being honest with people about sound equipment. You can do as well with honest marketing as you can with b.s. When I was a kid I had little money. People said my Japanese guitars and cars etc. were crap. I knew they were not. It's not only Bose that has riled me, I can list Intel, Emu, Neumann, so many more makers that slowed down audio progress with b.s. I personally nailed a good many of them in the press. There is still a lot of snake oil and I still love calling it out. But you sir are a nice guy. I am a nice guy too, but not to liars😊😊😆😆😇
 
I sure wish the Hypex stuff was more reasonable. The tab is adding up, including all off my engineering waste.
�� But man oh man does this mini line array sound outstanding! I sure thank everyone for the input. Can'tw wait to get it all put together and dialed in. The full range unit is not too light but it is incredibly compact and I am blown away by the way it puts you in near field even at 12 feet away. Makes it very easy to sing, improves pitch reference tremendously, as if I had on earphones, really great I will never go back to point source for live monitoring. Really helps to have nothing but one speaker behind you, your mix is the audiences mix. The dymanics are better, the transient on my guitar are more defined, the piano is "bigger" sounds more wide like a piano. And this thing has outstanding dynamics as well. Can't wait to get the xover and eq dialed in a perfected, very exciting and I have been doing this an ummmmmmmm "while"..������ So easy to move, potentially so easy to set up. Can't wait to get the light weight xover Eq and sub done����������
 
Haha, fair enough, and cheers.

I definitely wish people would be more honest as well and I try to encourage it without taking a vendetta. I call it out ruthlessly but at the same time offer as much praise as I can muster for what I see as the good sides.

As for Bishopsound, for their sins, they've been cursed with the initials BS.

Talking of which, you can't spell BOSE without BS either.
 
Haha, fair enough, and cheers.

I definitely wish people would be more honest as well and I try to encourage it without taking a vendetta. I call it out ruthlessly but at the same time offer as much praise as I can muster for what I see as the good sides.
:cheers:

As for Bishopsound, for their sins, they've been cursed with the initials BS.

Talking of which, you can't spell BOSE without BS either.

:rofl:
 
Try to better a 802 for longevity. Many thousands playing in professional setups at high levels, day in, day out, year after year, decade after decade.

You see those 70's Peavy SP3's Sitting beside those B&W 801's in the pic I posted earlier? Those are contemporary witb the 802's you mentioned. With the original 22a drivers CTS Woofers and modern eq they are truly hifi and will play all day @ 103db! Seriously! And you talk about quality! Made to last several lifetimes. The EV engineers that Hartley Peavey hired outdid themselves on these original SP series speakers.

If you saw these disassembled next to an 802 you would see a difference! Even the old crossovers had huge caps made to last generations! Note they are sitting next to the B&W 801's. I have worked up the crossover in that DCX unit. Friends, they smoke the B&W reference speakers! I use them only as mastering references, those Peavey's coupled the EV TL-DW606 theatre subs are what I personally listen to. It's not without a great deal of torture that I accept a speaker for personal use. I suppose if one was to replace the Bose 802 driver with some of these Faital units you may get something nice and compact that didn't require the extraordinary eq that the Bose 802 / 901 type speakers did.

Then again I can't think of a worse arrangement of drivers than those v-shaped boxes. I think you could comb your hair with the (limited) highs of of those. The only good thing in my estimation is the compactness. You could get a set in your VW, but the amp required at the time would blow out a tire! And those amps were not all that clean yet either. Yes I did take a set of those on the road in the 80s. After replacing several drivers trying to use them in modestly sized venues, I bought some real (EV) horn speakers and used the 802s for (bad) monitors

To this day there is a Casino down here is still using 802's. I think the parameters that the sound engineer was given were "no one must be able to understand a word the musicians say in the Casino" For this they are perfect.

Two guesses what I am going to sneak in under a cloth pointing out front next time I play there and the sound person leaves after giving us a "monitor mix" and making certain that no one can actually hear us?
 
The PEQs are each band limited, 3 might be limiting, but that may be OK.

dave
Hopefully 3 will be enough for this unit you/we designed it superbly. Needs very little. Perhaps a small mid cut in a pretty narrow band is all. I think that little unit may have all most of us will ever need. Its very versatile and well thought out, a swiss army knife crossover in many ways. Think I should start a topic?
 
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