Just a quick note that I've run the Faital 10FH520 at 1KW peaks per driver, and they've held up fine. That's only another +3dB over what you have, though.
Might be time to move up from the 10"s, but if you only if:
- You were into the limiters for most of the gig
- You're planning on doing it again
NB - Occasional limiting is fine. A more aggressive compressor setting might've helped.
Chris
Thanks Chris. I was running them at to 1060rms (not peak) for a pair.
You are right it wasnt into the limiters most of the time. I could probably tweak the compressor on the mic to reduce its level a bit more without it affecting the sound. In fairness, the MCs were very loud, louder than they needed to be but that's what they seemed to want.
I just had one of these events with shouty DJ's. I had a bad feeling about the event before it started as the equipment they requested seemed woefully insufficient, but what I didn't know until arriving at the venue was that they had recently been fined for noise violations($16k 😵) so they had put hard limits on the PA equipment allowed in the building. And sure enough the DJ's had the speakers into almost constant limiting... get this... with dinner music!! Yup.. the party hadn't even started and we were all out of headroom.
So I talked to the DJ and explained the situation and he backed off the levels a bit, I had to remind the other DJs as well.. there were 3 or 4 of them over the span of the evening, but overall they seemed to understand and mostly kept the music under control. However the mic was a different story, one DJ in particular had every red light in the signal chain lit up when he took the mic but thankfully they were short bursts and he wasn't around the stage much so I let it ride. They had me sweating it the whole night because I didn't have the level of control/protection I would have liked, but nothing got blown so I have to say I have been once again pleasantly surprised at what modern powered speakers can stand up to. The DJ monitor speaker in particular.. an EV ZLX12p was run WFO... whatever it could suffer for a 45min to an hour at a time.. and it was no more that 6ft from the DJ at head level. What is the deal with the screaming loud DJ monitor? First time I have ever seen that.
So I talked to the DJ and explained the situation and he backed off the levels a bit, I had to remind the other DJs as well.. there were 3 or 4 of them over the span of the evening, but overall they seemed to understand and mostly kept the music under control. However the mic was a different story, one DJ in particular had every red light in the signal chain lit up when he took the mic but thankfully they were short bursts and he wasn't around the stage much so I let it ride. They had me sweating it the whole night because I didn't have the level of control/protection I would have liked, but nothing got blown so I have to say I have been once again pleasantly surprised at what modern powered speakers can stand up to. The DJ monitor speaker in particular.. an EV ZLX12p was run WFO... whatever it could suffer for a 45min to an hour at a time.. and it was no more that 6ft from the DJ at head level. What is the deal with the screaming loud DJ monitor? First time I have ever seen that.
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DJs love loud monitors. At a venue I used to work at, we gave them anything ranging from 2x SSE Betamax (there's a cool story behind those - look 'em up) up to a pair of stacks of Martin Blackline. H3+ & double-18" subwoofer per ear.
I don't know if they ever hit the limiters on the Martin stacks, but I know they liked having that much output on tap.
Chris
I don't know if they ever hit the limiters on the Martin stacks, but I know they liked having that much output on tap.
Chris
DJ’s love loud monitors because it lets them ignore the sound from the FOH which is delayed. The delayed sound is out of sync by more than enough to notice. Headphones are actually better.
I work with a lot of DJs but these guys are a different breed. They didn't really use the monitor for mixing it was just blasting the FOH signal all night. Everybody else I have seen uses the monitor/s for beatmatching tracks they are queing so it's loud at times but what it's playing is constantly changing... they don't really try to use it as thier own personal PA system.. which is what these guys did. Honestly I think it's an age thing, most of my DJs are older and are past thier clubbing days where faster/drunker/louder is always better, these guys were college age and just wanted to party.
The only reason I would even bother with monitors (or cans) is if I‘m trying to beat mix. One for the mix and one for the cue. I suppose one could use what you hear from the mains and mix off of it if you measured the latency+time of flight delay and applied it to the cue monitor to sync them back up. Usually off by just enough where the beat matching is obviously f****ed. When it’s not required, I just leave the monitors home.
