Osse,
1) First time I'd heard of them.
2) Any of the three will work in the Keystone, none as well as the BC18SW115-4.
Art
The model of a 18NXB1600 in a Keystone, xmax near 900W. I like it, but as Art points out the Keystone was designed around the BC18SW115-4. Never heard of Oberton before either, but then again never heard of Danley or B&C until hanging around here. 
Art, think I will have issues using metal grille over the KS exit? Only grille cloth I have on hand left is from a Fender silverface makeover...
Art, think I will have issues using metal grille over the KS exit? Only grille cloth I have on hand left is from a Fender silverface makeover...
Attachments
The model of a 18NXB1600 in a Keystone, xmax near 900W. I like it, but as Art points out the Keystone was designed around the BC18SW115-4. Never heard of Oberton before either, but then again never heard of Danley or B&C until hanging around here.
Art, think I will have issues using metal grille over the KS exit? Only grille cloth I have on hand left is from a Fender silverface makeover...
Find a way to dampen the grill. When I first put grills on mine the air movement caused the grills to move back and forth at least a 1/2 inch.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
The Obertons are quite widely distributed and at least from UK good priced, almost half the price of the SW115 for the ferrite versions. I found another one from Bluearan,
18XB1600
Would these be worth it compared to B&C drivers with the price in consideration? Another driver I've got a pretty good price on is the B&C 18SW100, but not as good as the Obertons, would any of the Obertons be preferred over each other and would they be preferred over the sw100?
18XB1600
Would these be worth it compared to B&C drivers with the price in consideration? Another driver I've got a pretty good price on is the B&C 18SW100, but not as good as the Obertons, would any of the Obertons be preferred over each other and would they be preferred over the sw100?
Last edited:
The model of a 18NXB1600 in a Keystone, xmax near 900W. I like it, but as Art points out the Keystone was designed around the BC18SW115-4. Never heard of Oberton before either, but then again never heard of Danley or B&C until hanging around here.
Art, think I will have issues using metal grille over the KS exit? Only grille cloth I have on hand left is from a Fender silverface makeover...
Wow didn't see your graph, thanks for posting that and it looks impressive indeed! I've been comparing the parameters of the Oberton drivers with the 18sw115 and I also came to the conclusion that the NXB1600 were closest to the 18sw115, and by your numbers it looks to be playing very nice.
reaching xmax @ 900 W means that I won't neccessarily need as powerful amps as with the sw115 right? Do you know how many dB's I could expect to loose total compared to the SW115 (Given the driver delivers what it claims to do)?
Last edited:
I have never used metal grill except in one of my shop speakers, it didn't affect the sound, but it is a wire type grill.
Most of the metal grill designed for speaker application should not have much affect on the output, as long as the opening area percentage is high and you dampen it so it does not "ring".
Thanks guys. Originally I planned on rabbetting the panel for room to inset a metal grill over speaker foam to hide the KS shape but the look has grown on me. My brother and I think it lends a pro touring look to the cab and not something one gets from Guitar Center.
Osse, you can push 1kW with the 115 and get another 1.5db or so to xmax. BTW- It is quite bizarre how similar the 18NXB1600 models like the SW115 in hornresp. My personal opinion with driver substitution is that it CAN work but you're kinda on your own. I rolled the dice and am very happy with my choice but I am not sound company.
Osse, you can push 1kW with the 115 and get another 1.5db or so to xmax. BTW- It is quite bizarre how similar the 18NXB1600 models like the SW115 in hornresp. My personal opinion with driver substitution is that it CAN work but you're kinda on your own. I rolled the dice and am very happy with my choice but I am not sound company.
In another thread, I shared my cooking skills with a QSC PLX3402. We've got to remember that these AES numbers are close to double a typical RMS rating that some of us are used to. Compressed pink noise w/6dB crest factor vs sine wave w/3dB crest factor, IIRC.
Edit: so, that would give the TBW an RMS rating of around 750W.
Edit: so, that would give the TBW an RMS rating of around 750W.
That would be a fair assumption, I literally spent about 45 minutes running sine waves, switching back and forth between the amps and recording SPL levels with a cheapo Rat Shack meter. I was getting very similar numbers from the two amps, which at the time led me to believe that the amps were evenly matched, now I realise that just means that both amps are capable of putting a single driver into fairly substantial power compression.
The final death blow was a dubstep track by Rude Brat, I pushed the iTech into fairly heavy clipping. My intention was to do the same with the 5000VZ but never made it that far.
Rudebrat - Won't Stop - YouTube
Though the output was nearly the same, did either amp sound better than the other? Did you do any A/B listening comparisons? Are you happy with this driver in this enclosure?
P.S. that's more a Trap tune; not so Dubstep
Comparing the amps was difficult, the indicator light behavior on the 5000VZ is well noted for being confusing. In my final test I hoped to push the amps and try to find their "end-stops" so to speak, the speaker proved to be the weak link in that case.
The Macrotech sounded louder, myself and my helper both agreed on that, the SPL meter didn't register a large difference. I never got to do any serious listening with music, so I can't make any comments on sound quality.
Despite the blown driver, I have no reservations about the cabinet, I was simply pushing the driver way past what it should experience in day-to-day usage. There is no suspension damage to the driver, I will know more when I do the recone, but my guess is that the voice-coil is intact but deformed from excess heat. The driver makes a noise similar to a cow mooing when I play a sine sweep through it.
What I did learn is that I should be able to drive more than one cabinet per amp channel, which is pleasing from an economic stand point as I was originally planning on one amp per pair of cabinets.
The iTech vs Macrotech debate still rages on, for me anyways.
You're correct about this particular tune, the rest of the artists catalogue leans more towards dubstep.
Last edited:
Both amps were run in stereo, I had channel two of the iTech muted in SA, Macrotech channel two gain set to it's lowest position.
Hey Spenser, that's living large!
Coincidentally, I was just doing amplifier comparisons yesterday using my BC18SW115-4 loaded Keystones.
Did tests with full tilt pink noise (and +3 dB and +6dB past clip/limit light onset) and 35 Hz full power sine wave tests using a single channel of a Behringer NU-4000 driving one and two cabinets, (with the other three channels driving either 4 or 2 ohm loads), a bridged mono Crest CA9, and finally a bridged mono QSC PLX3600.
As Bonnie expressed her complaints regarding the noise (the speaker's LF output is loud enough to annoy anyone, but the noise of the flapping corrugated tin of the shop wall puts it way over the top) when she returned from work, I wrapped things up, but when emerging from the heated portion of the shop noticed the terrible smell of cooking epoxy surrounding the indoor (dummy load) and outdoor (SPL test) speakers.
I plan to get back to more amp testing now, hope my BC18SW115-4 are not also "mooing" like yours
.If they are, may to have to pay some air freight to get them reconed in time for the sale of my complete large system. Would be kind of ironic if, after years of use, I burnt them testing just days before the sale.
The NU-4000 handled full tilt 2 ohm 35 Hz sine wave testing, all 4 channels driven under load with no shutdowns for as long as I cared to leave the Keystone connected, about 10 seconds, then I continued to let it cook load resistors on the other 3 channels for another 30 seconds or so. Even after that, the output from the fans seemed barely warmer than the room, but I burnt my fingers testing one of the 2 ohm load resisters made from a brick wrapped with about 75 feet of baling wire
.The QSC PLX3600 on the other hand, drew about double the wall power, and put out heat like a hair dryer on "high".
If I have not roached the Keystones, I'll be testing the NU-4000 with a pair of channels bridged mono, after I understand how to wire the Speakon connectors for bridged operation.
So far the only things I'm not loving about the NU-4000 is it's lack of anything other than Speakon outputs (had to make a lot of adapters to hook up speakers and load resisters), and the fan noise, which is far louder than any other amps in the test, even at idle they are about twice as loud as the shop heater fan. Judging by the heat output, there is no reason they should be that loud, a Crest CC2800 (next in line for testing) has the same size fans and is almost inaudible (even with one of the fans missing two blades after a screwdriver mishap
) at idle.Art
Last edited:
NU-4000? Is that a new amp? I've heard of the NU-3000 and NU-6000, but no NU-4000 from Behringer...
You are correct, too many amp names and numbers floating around in my head, I wrote the name wrong.
The NU4-6000 so far has been a very pleasant surprise. It's definitely giving some of my older amps that cost far more, sound worse when clipped, and weigh more while producing more heat and drawing more wall power a run for the money.
My bet is Uli will release the same amp with a Midas badge with graphics that include dB increments, output screw terminals, and implement the 30 cent cost it would take to make the fans operate quietly at low power, and charge 30+% more for the product.
And I bet that pros around the world will buy the Midas "MA4-6000" (or whatever it will be called) faster than they have bought the Behringer X-32 re-badged as the Midas M-32 digital mixer, which has been selling faster than Behringer City can produce them
.Probably won't be long before there will be a Turbosound (another of Uli's acquisitions along with Midas & Klark Technic) Keystone, though it will probably be named something else to avoid paying me a license fee...
Art
Last edited:
I'm pretty happy with my iNuke 3000DSP as well. The DSP feature provides more than enough control to tame any "TH" type of system. See attached for example, which is the measured response of my POC3 with DSP applied.
