JBL took a leaf out of Yamaha Stagepas’s book by having a portable PA system with a detachable mixer at the rear of one of the speakers. To be honest, I have never seen these in use by anyone before but from what I can see, it looks like a pretty hot contender. OK. Comparisons with the Yamaha is that it uses a 300 watt (150 watts per channel) Crown Class-D amplifier versus a 500 watt (250 watts per channel) Stagepas 500. The Yamaha has a 10-channel mixer and this one has an 8-channel one.The speaker designs are the same as the Stagepas, with a 10″ woofer and a 1″ horn. Like the Stagepas, this has digital effects built-in (5 effects to choose from) and has Phantom Power for powering things like active DI boxes and condenser microphones
The only thing I do not like about this is that Channel 7/8 on this is a stereo mini-jack. It does not make it versatile at all because you need to look for special cables like RCA to stereo mini-jacks. JBL says that the mixer is made by Soundcraft (another member of the Harman Group) but the design and features of the mixer could be better and more flexible. Besides, it is less powerful than the Yamaha Stagepas 500 and more expensive too.You can read more specifications here about this system here.
So if you ask me, If I had to make a choice between this EON 210p and the Yamaha Stagepas 500, I would take the Stagepas 500 over this anyday.
I have been using this in the club these past two weeks. They are used in tandem with the JBL EON 515s. I must say that I love the sound of these babies, especially when they handle the low frequencies. They are active speakers but they are hefty, heavy buggers. They weigh about 30 kilograms. There is a live band in the club and these subwoofers handle the band with ease. Pretty good pair of subwoofers I must admit!
I am actually using these speakers as I type into this blog. They are not too bad and they actually sound pretty good. They are hooked up to optional JBL powered bass-bins (active ones at that) and they do a good job of handling the lower frequencies. These speakers are pretty pricey, that I will admit. But they are pretty well-built and they look like they can take a pounding. However, there re many other powered speakers out there in the market than can give these JBLs a run for their money, and for a cheaper price too. But I must admit, I kind of like them!
Back in the 80s, one of the more popular clubs in Singapore at the Hyatt Hotel was the Chinoiserie. People came from far and wide to see and be seen. I could never be bothered with being seen in a club but what I was interested in was the speakers they were using. They flew 4 of these JBL 4612b cabinets on the ceiling and had two base bins to deal with the bass. These JBL speakers sounded sweet and they tuned the place very well. You have got to hand it to the JBL speakers of old. They really knew how to make great product. Till today, I still wax lyrical about these speakers. These speakers were the yardstick, club-wise, by which all others were judged.
I had to do a double-take when i heard that horn speakers were invading hi-fi. Sure, there have been instances in the past like in the JBL 4430 speakers and such but must hi-fi “purists” slam horn-loaded enclosures. But here we have Ferguson Hill making such speakers for their FH009 system
According to this article here on cNET:
“The FH009 is a 2.1-channel audio system. It comes with a pair of horn speakers–that can be wall-mounted or placed on stands–and a dual-driver subwoofer unit that houses the integrated amplifier. This 2.1-channel setup is rated to deliver 128W RMS of power, with 64W split between the two horns and the other 64W dedicated to the sub”
Pretty pricey this thing is but you know hi-fi buffs. Admittedly, they do look pretty cool but you won’t see me buying anything like this for my house
I said in a previous post that I once worked in a recording studio, and these were the main speakers in there. I do not have pictures of the studio but I managed to get this picture of the Internet. These JBL 4430 speakers were clear as day, and we always used them when we wanted to hear what a mix would sound like over big hi-fi speakers or in a club. I remember mastering many a disco and techno track using these speakers, and used them in comparison with the Yamaha NS-10M speakers. Lovely speakers…great sounding too!
This shows the typical innards of an active speaker, something very popular among many professional audio brands today. In this case, it is a JBL PRX615M and I got this illustration from Midwest Pro Sound and Lighting. The designs among the various brands are very similar. The numbered components are:
1) The horn driver 2) The casing 3)The woofer 4) The built-in amplifier
The amplifier in this case was made for JBL by Crown. Nothing new really. Marantz used to have their amplifiers built by Philips back in the day. The thing is (and this is very smart thinking) why re-invent the wheel? Get some one who knows better about amplifiers and contract them to build the custom amplifier for you. Heck, in the 80s and 90s, JBL hired Urei to build their amplifiers for them. It is either that or they re-badged the Urei amplifiers. In any case, JBL and Crown are part of the same Harman Group so they are like sister companies.
So as you can see, it all seems very simple and it is, in a way. Your equipment racks are lighter because the amplifier is built in the speaker. You do not lose amplifier power over long speaker wire, which can be resistive. You can connect a low-impedence, balanced XLR cable to your active speaker from your mixer. Common Mode Rejection or CMR will take care of the static noise.
It almost seems that there are more pros than cons about using active speakers. One of the cons are that if the amplifier is shot, there goes the whole speaker, unless you have a bypass and can power it with external amplifier. Secondly, not all the active speakers have cooling fans like the big amplifiers, just huge heatsinks. So they can overheat. For me? I like active speakers but being a traditionalist, I would take the combination of speaker and amplifier anyday!
I was at a friend’s pub yesterday night and I noticed that he had a pair of these Electro-Voice QRX-series speakers installed. From where I was standing (which was pretty much under them) they sounded really loud, and pretty powerful. Maybe that is because they had dual 12″ loudspeakers. I found very little reviews on them on the Internet. Almost every review on the internet in which people asked questions about them, be it in forums or blogs, people did not have much to say about them. Instead, the people who asked for reviews on them were directed to get some equivalent JBLs. But honestly, these speakers are not cheap. For the money, I would go for JBLs but I was rather impressed after last night.
Back in the day (I do not know why I like to use this phrase so much. It has almost become a cliche of sorts) I had a friend that bought four of these JBL Control 1s for his house. Why he would buy them I do not know. They were small, inobstrusive and dare I mention, cute. They were s topic of conversation everytime he played his stereo. One problem was that his system lacked bass. I mean look at these pics. Can you see any sort of bass coming out of speakers like this? But I did and still do have a very high opinion of JBLs (Besides some people saying that JBL stands for Jazzy, Bassy and Loud) and these babies had clarity. But I was after something with a bit more kick and one day, I came across this:
The Control 12SR. God, how I wanted these. Imagine, the clarity of the JBL Control series, coupled with the robustness to handle sound reinforment. That is what the SR in these babies stood for. I was ready to plonk down a huge sum of money for it because I did heear that they cost a bomb. Just imagine, a pair of Control 1s back in the day cost about $300. These would have cost a pretty penny! But, they did not have these babies in in Singapore so I had to make do with cheaper Peavey 112H speakers.
I still dream of owning a good pair of speakers. Who knows, if JBL still make these, I will definitely get them
