I've heard it a couple venues, couldn't figure out what the mystique was all about. It sounded like everything else.
The L'Acoustic was noticeably good, and maybe one of the best I've heard.
"The Palms" in Las Vegas has a ridiculously large JBL Vertec system. It sounded really nice, but I was there for a comedy show so I can't be sure how good it was below 500hz. But it seemed promising; I usually find that the midrange and the low treble is where prosound speakers sound harsh.
I'm a big basshead and I've never heard anything that's even in the same ballpark as the PK Sound setups. But I've never seen them tour with that rig outside of Canada.
I'm having a heck of a time finding a Danley system out here on the west coast. I rented one myself from a local company. They have SH50s and some tapped horns. I don't know who rents it out for shows though. Pure Groove Systems in Los Angeles has a pile of Danley gear, but I'm only aware of two shows in California that use it, and I frequently find out about the shows AFTER they've happened, when they post the pics of Facebook. I've even emailed them and asked if they'd post where their rig will be next, but got no reply.
Here's a set of Danley Jerichos at an Insomniac rave here in California : https://www.facebook.com/PureGrooveSystems/videos/vb.550678221694923/689673804462030/?type=3&theater
Here's a set of Danley SH69s at an Atlanta nightclub, permanently installed by Pure Groove Systems:
https://www.facebook.com/PureGrooveSystems/videos/vb.550678221694923/922320921197316/?type=3&theater
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Patrick,
There are a lot of F1 variants but the core is 5in cone loaded mid in the axehead horn. It allows one not to have to use a gritty spitty sounding compression driver until above 3.5k. Hence they can sound exceptionally clean.
After all these years building synergies we would expect you to have one keeper system you use everyday.
Why don't you just make something like SpeakerScott's nice 50deg cubes? You can even cheat and skip the passive xo and go with minidsp.
They are not that hard to make.
Or with all the dough you got for selling the Summa's put that towards a Synergy. $8k a pair is actually a fair price given we know how much goes into that design and how good it is.
There are a lot of F1 variants but the core is 5in cone loaded mid in the axehead horn. It allows one not to have to use a gritty spitty sounding compression driver until above 3.5k. Hence they can sound exceptionally clean.
After all these years building synergies we would expect you to have one keeper system you use everyday.
Why don't you just make something like SpeakerScott's nice 50deg cubes? You can even cheat and skip the passive xo and go with minidsp.
They are not that hard to make.
Or with all the dough you got for selling the Summa's put that towards a Synergy. $8k a pair is actually a fair price given we know how much goes into that design and how good it is.
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Oh I agree. I offered to buy the SH50s, they never replied.
It's hard for people to appreciate how hard it is to shoehorn an SH50 or a Summa into a home in San Diego. That's why I mostly focus on car audio.
My reference speakers are Vandersteen 2Cs btw.
If I'd purchased the SH50s I was going to install them in my vacation home, which is quite a bit bigger than my home in San Diego. (My vacation home is in Vegas, where you can buy a house for under $1000 a month easy. In San Diego, $1000 a month won't even get you a 1br.)
TLDR: to do horns right, you seriously need to think about getting a bigger house.
You should have just said you "lost them" they would charge you cost depreciated etc whatever contract says. 🙂
What about buy new?
What about buy new?
Multiple times but only at EDM shows so subtlety or dynamics aren't really easy to evaluate. Always sounds very clear and undistorted though.
The one PA system that really gave me the WOW factor was the new PK Trinity array. I've heard L-Acoustics arrays many times and never been particularly blown away, but especially at Paradiso festival's bass stage this year they just kept turning the PK system up slowly over the course of the day and it became more and more apparent that the sound quality was just something else.
USC events previously used a Funktion One system for their bass stages and it always sounded great, but they chose PK to do Paradiso and they've been using them since.
I'd consider it, but right now I'm leaning towards (finally) finishing my Synergy horns for my car, and then diving into a semi-identical set for the home. I think the Summas blend into the decor a lot better than the SH50s, so I'd be looking to build a set of Synergies that look like this:
or this :
Here's the Summas and SH50s side by side:
It's not just the sheer size of the Summas, a lot of the problem is the painted finish of the SH50s. Perfectly fine for a live venue, but not so great for a living room. In my Vegas home I'd planned on soffit fitting the SH50s, like that member in Australia did.
I've heard the SH50s, the Lambda Unitys, the Summas, etc. I've heard them side-by-side. And all of them sound different and have different strengths and weaknesses.
First place I ever heard a Unity horn was at a USC rave. The yearly ones they do in the summer. "USC 10" or somesuch.
Danley and PK Sound were slinging a lil' bit of mud last summer after the premier of Trinity at Electric Daisy Carnival. The system gobbled up so much power it blew the breakers. Danley made the point (on Facebook) that their gear isn't as power hungry as the PK gear.
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They've definitely come a long way since then. Especially due to the fact that electronic music "went mainstream" and going to raves is no longer a niche activity for people in JNCO jeans and covered in plastic beads.
They're playing with pretty big budgets now. Paradiso sells out the Gorge Ampitheater, and they really put a lot of effort into theming like Insomniac. Contrast with HARD who loves huge but very 2 dimensional stages.
They're playing with pretty big budgets now. Paradiso sells out the Gorge Ampitheater, and they really put a lot of effort into theming like Insomniac. Contrast with HARD who loves huge but very 2 dimensional stages.
I'm so damn old, I got in before JNCO existed, I remember buying pants that were 20" too big for me, dying them purple, and reducing the waist to fit. I used to bump into the Insomniac founder at Club What in Los Angeles, back when they'd simply break into an unoccupied building on skid row and set up a PA with gas powered generators. I actually dropped out of the scene because I nearly got arrested at one of those shows! (I wasn't doing anything illegal, they were just arresting everyone they ran across for breaking and entering.)
This frustrates me to no end. Coachella gets tons and tons of press, but the press seems to ignore the fact that the rock shows are DWARFED by the EDM shows. EDC is about 50% bigger than Coachella. I was at the first Coachella, way in the back, dancing to U-Ziq and The Chemical Brothers, back when the EDM tent was an afterthought.
When the program material has only 3 dB crest factor, having cabinets that are 6 dB more sensitive means only 1/4 the power, which is a big deal, 100 amps vs 400.
Since LED lighting has become more prevalent than incandescent, there are some sub heavy shows actually drawing near as much juice for sound as lighting, and popping 3 phase 400 amp fuses/breakers with sound is becoming more frequent.
I remember Danley's snarky post. I'm still skeptical that the subs are directly responsible for bringing the power down. I think it's one of those satisfying explanations that people and EDM blogs were eager to spread, but I don't remember reading any official explanation of what went wrong. Granted if they were using Danley subs it's possible it wouldn't have happened, but that's still just speculation.
Still, I do think it's funny that people seem to love to hate on PK Sound. I used to think they were a bunch of monkeys running around with truckloads of double 18s, but the results they've been delivering at the shows I've attended have been fantastic recently. Maybe it's because they're in an interesting position of being both a touring sound company and a manufacturer.
Still, I do think it's funny that people seem to love to hate on PK Sound. I used to think they were a bunch of monkeys running around with truckloads of double 18s, but the results they've been delivering at the shows I've attended have been fantastic recently. Maybe it's because they're in an interesting position of being both a touring sound company and a manufacturer.
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I heard the stories that PK Sound started out by selling Labsubs, but didn't read all the details until I read this:
Why did PSW copy PK's bass bin?
"I can provide some of the back story. I am out of the Calgary area(my company is HyperCube Productions), the same area that PK operates in. Myself and Jeremy Bridge were some of the early builders of the lab sub; In fact we were the ones that did the translations in to the metric/18mm drawings. We have long since gone our seprate ways due to disagreements about ethical business practices and are now competitors.
I have never met or conversed with Al Smith.
PK does, as far as I know, produce ths lab 12 (PK-CS212s) for sale and profit. We have come across a number of installs in the calgary area, were these subs were sold to bar owners, as new stock, and were claimed to have been custom designed and built by PK."
Why did PSW copy PK's bass bin?
"I can provide some of the back story. I am out of the Calgary area(my company is HyperCube Productions), the same area that PK operates in. Myself and Jeremy Bridge were some of the early builders of the lab sub; In fact we were the ones that did the translations in to the metric/18mm drawings. We have long since gone our seprate ways due to disagreements about ethical business practices and are now competitors.
I have never met or conversed with Al Smith.
PK does, as far as I know, produce ths lab 12 (PK-CS212s) for sale and profit. We have come across a number of installs in the calgary area, were these subs were sold to bar owners, as new stock, and were claimed to have been custom designed and built by PK."
This was Jeremy Bridge's "refutation".
As for whether it's ethical business is a bit grey. In another post he says it's like claiming EAW stole JBL's 218 design. Not sure that's an entirely fair comparison, but I think it's really a moot point now. PK doesn't even use horn subs anymore.
On an unrelated note, it's amazing how tiny a Labsub can make a 12" driver look
I imagine the changes (if they are as described) probably aim to fix the biggest weakness with the labsubs: they cook the drivers in those small rear chambers. I think they probably found that problem pretty quickly.
As for whether it's ethical business is a bit grey. In another post he says it's like claiming EAW stole JBL's 218 design. Not sure that's an entirely fair comparison, but I think it's really a moot point now. PK doesn't even use horn subs anymore.
On an unrelated note, it's amazing how tiny a Labsub can make a 12" driver look
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This is neat stuff. I'm learning a lot about how these companies got started:
Jeremy Bridge | Top 40 Under 40 | Avenue Calgary
I've consciously avoided trying to make money with the speakers I make, but it's kinda neat when people from similar backgrounds manage to make a job out of it. Heaven knows I'd rather be making sawdust then doing what I'm doing now... Writing a manual for installing software. (yawn)
Jeremy Bridge | Top 40 Under 40 | Avenue Calgary
I've consciously avoided trying to make money with the speakers I make, but it's kinda neat when people from similar backgrounds manage to make a job out of it. Heaven knows I'd rather be making sawdust then doing what I'm doing now... Writing a manual for installing software. (yawn)
What do you guys think of sound quality from PK Trinity? Narrow slot loaded comps sound harsh in my experience.
Heard Trinity at 4 shows so far:
Paradiso
Safe in Sound Seattle
Freaknight
Resolution
Never once thought it was harsh sounding. Especially far back in the crowd the clarity of the highs really stands out compared to other systems. They seem to do a really good job of fighting HF attenuation. I'm wondering if it might be that the variable geometry HF horn plays a big part in that.
They even talk about their Freaknight setup on their website
Paradiso
Safe in Sound Seattle
Freaknight
Resolution
Never once thought it was harsh sounding. Especially far back in the crowd the clarity of the highs really stands out compared to other systems. They seem to do a really good job of fighting HF attenuation. I'm wondering if it might be that the variable geometry HF horn plays a big part in that.
They even talk about their Freaknight setup on their website
If you didn't know, the HF horn is actually motorized so that you can physically adjust the coverage on the fly over the network. When I was up front you could clearly see they had the horns on the top of the array much narrower. Definitely sounded good even on the opposite side of the room where the bar was.
Skipping through reading the thread, back to the original post... Despacio is as much a "concept" as it is a system. It's a throwback to old club systems, with emphasis on sound than production
No doubt they'll have this system in a small tent playing obscure house and disco stuff... that's the whole point of it
There's been dissection of the system elsewhere - most pro guys agree it's nice romanticism but not the best. But at least it's a concept to get people appreciating sound system culture
No doubt they'll have this system in a small tent playing obscure house and disco stuff... that's the whole point of it
There's been dissection of the system elsewhere - most pro guys agree it's nice romanticism but not the best. But at least it's a concept to get people appreciating sound system culture
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