Hello,

Anyone with good understanding of PA Active speakers which can work great with pipes? I have plan to buy 2 Active speakers, for live gigs - I will use them for Vocals, Guitars and in future also for Pipes! (together with good Condenser mike). I would like to find out, what is the optimal size of main driver (woofer) in Active speaker, to get the best sound reproduction of lower Pipes registers (bass drone ect.) Anyone who prefer 12" or 15" or you think that 10" driver would be more than enought? Thanks a lot AA,

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The best small compakt System i have heard so far is the AER AS Q8 -> http://www.aer-amps.com/
Sounds very clear and transparant.

Thomas

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sapere aude

Looks like the equipment mentioned in the last post will set you back £1300 to £1500

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....nobody said this would be easy......

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circumfrence of the speaker is only one parameter of the resulting sound. Size & weight of the magnet, compliance, impedance, channell crossover freq's, response curve & pickup pattern of the mic, not to mention the acoustic of the room,....all this has cumulative effect on reproducing the longer sound waves of bass drones.

which bagpipe bass drone do you intend to amplify? uilleann?
& also might help to look at the goal:
are you amping for small , medium, or olympic sized venues?
Solo, or with a group?

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Thanks for reply,

Yes, Uilleann pipes bass drone, Small to medium venues, Small acoustic group.

I was just curious if 12 or 15" main drivers are in need when we are talking of drones, or 10" are enought?

Thanks, AA

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Its probably much more important how you mic those drones than it is what size speaker you are driving. A clip on condenser such as the inexpensive Nady cm60


carefully positioned on the bass drone will flatten grass @100meters with proper eq & gain on even a 50Watt 10", "club-size" amp. I know its not quite the answer you are looking for, but there you have it.

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http://www.folkworld.eu/51/e/cds2.html#sylv
http://itunes.apple.com/album/sylvia-pl ... mpt=uo%3D1

Here's an answer to a question you are not asking, from the point of view of a piper who does sound reinforcement for 2 bands I play in.

ChasR is right, that there are lots of factors besides speaker size. If you are comparing competent speakers made by the same company with similar specs, then in practice 10" speakers tend to be quieter but more articulate (precise) if they are not being driven too hard, and larger speakers tend to be louder and less precise. The catch is that if you have lots of money, you can buy articulate speakers with larger cones, but they cost more because this is harder to achieve.

Another catch with smaller speakers is that if you increase the amplification to get more volume, then you tend to lose the nominal advantages of smaller cones because the speaker is over-driven, and starts distorting the sound. So the speaker size depends on what size venue you play in as well. The slogan is "enough rig for the gig".

I find that most of the mud the listener hears is in the bass. I think that most mixes of acoustic groups are improved by rolling off the bass frequencies, and therefore it isn't worth paying for lower bass range in speakers used only for acoustic groups. I don't understand the biology, but humans interpret overtones from low notes as being low, even though the fundamental isn't present. So my preference is for more clarity from smaller speakers, even if it "costs" bass you can feel at loud volumes.

I bought 12" speakers (ART 522) as a compromise between filling a hall full of dancers, and having a clean sound. For me this is the sweet spot, because the components aren't being pushed anywhere near their limits, and so sound better, and have all the bass I actually need.

I started with cheaper 12" speakers (Mackie 450) that played really loud, but they just didn't have the clarity needed for acoustic groups. Were fine for rock groups, but I wasn't happy with them, and ended up using the 10" monitors (Mackie 350) as mains when I could because they were clearer in small rooms.

Hugh

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It takes about a decade to sound like you've been playing for 10 years (source unknown).

Thanks a lot for all replies and ideas, which give me a bit more understanding.
Very helpfull, Thanks, AA

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