EV ZLX-12P First Day

zentman

zentman

Experienced
Got both boxes at noon or so. I ran home and opened one just to hook up as a quick floor. I blasted a few things and was meh.

Came home later and opened the other one for two floors. I did the little dsp thing (set to monitor) and played a bit in stereo. Still I was meh.

End of work day arrives and i get serious. I stacked them on their poles and set to "pole" as well as "live". Both are eq curves designed to affect mostly lows.

Now I'm getting some nice sound but too much low for me. I don't use much BTW as I am a live player and need to fit in mix not an 8 string chug dude.
I changed the setting to "monitor" but left it on the pole. That sucked the woof right out of there.

What was a left was a smooth, round, louder than God yodeling, tone. I was A/B ing with my KRK V6's and I was liking the fullness of the EVs much better.

I couldn't get any breakup at sound pressure levels you can feel like a diver at 500 feet. There are ways to make it even louder but I would have to be outdoors to even want to. I had the master on 0 but it goes to 10db. Each increment has an impact and by 10 you're blasting. That's without taking my axe output knob over 1/4. Half way would have exploded my room.


The drivers are the same as in the ELX series so I imagine they scrimped on the cab and the power amp somehow. It is made in China. That being said, very sweet and smooth highs. Clear and singing.

The physically time aligned drivers and new baffle are helping keep it clear in all spectrum IMHO.

At first I wanted my Altos back and was actually calling AMS for a RMA then decided to give them a try. I think I will at least give them the full 45 days if not longer.

I did find about 4 pro reviews out there that loved them and basically declared them a game changer at this price.


I thought I heard the power amp area rattle when I hooked the first one up as I hit a loud open E. When I came home again later, I had the wife crawl around and listen and she said it was the guitars on the wall or something and that it wasn't the speaker. Gonna keep an ear open anyway just in case.


Edit:

I did a little with the two monitor thing. If you set the dsp to monitor it sounds really good. The first part I posted above was in reference to me hurrying in the door, slamming it on the floor, playing a minute, than running back to work. Hence the meh. Later when I actually listened and set it right ( I think I had it in music mode but changed it to live) it was much better.
 
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Thanks for the review. I can't find anything about the dispersion angle. How do the high frequency drop off change as you move from center to outside?
Regards Jesper
 
It says 90 x 60 somewhere. In my 15x15 ft wide room with one in each corner the sound was the same everywhere pretty much. As a monitor you will get 60 from side to side. The CLR will do 90x90. I'm ok with that as I pretty much stay in my box when I play.
 
hi zentman

thanks for the review. Can you post a vid or mp3 just to try to "feel" how does it sounds ? do you find it stable in sound quality from clean to crunch to lead ? any ideas compared to the yamaha DXR12 ?
 
Ok, these do have some mojo. Tonight I am relaxing and just cranking tonez. I ended up with the "pole" dsp but a 3db cut on the low EQ. I have no idea what frequency it hits but it worked for me. It may be that my patches are very low end laden as I set them up on small studio monitors.

That being said, whatever is happening it's good. I really feel like it's back in the day when my stack was just humming behind me. I am getting big, powerful, well balanced tones. These are keepers. The DSP alone is worth the price of admission just cause it's cool and works so well.

I hit the lows hard tonight to see if I could break them up but I couldn't. I did not max the speakers but it was louder than I would need for a bar.

I'm not sure if it's due to the way they did the drivers ( go watch a vid to see what I mean here) or whatever but they are clear and have depth as well.

Some of these Axe tones like the Dumble, the ambient stuff, cleans, and that 2 amp Marc Sfogli (sp?) metal patch are just blowing me away in stereo on these speakers. Dang.


I don't know about "amp in the room" but I do know it's awesome just sitting here. :)
 
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Hi, Was the 3 DB cut a DSP speaker tweek ,in addition to the POLE DSP speaker setting OR a a global AXE FX tweek?
 
zentman said:
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I thought I heard the power amp area rattle when I hooked the first one up as I hit a loud open E. When I came home again later, I had the wife crawl around and listen and she said it was the guitars on the wall or something and that it wasn't the speaker. Gonna keep an ear open anyway just in case.

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Click to expand...

Not really interested in the EV's, but how the hell did you get your wife to crawl around on the floor listening close up to a monitor playing loud enough to make the guitars on the wall rattle ??
She must be very "house trained" and by now nearly deaf :)
 
The 3db was a quick DSP low EQ tweak. I played some canned music through them and cranked a bit. The canned music didn't need the low end cut so it must be my patches.
 
evidently, they thought the wire connecting the LED on the front was a little too long, and caused a vibration in the cab...

Zentman... how did they sound with full music ?
 
Hi, I just got a pair of EV ZLX -12P's to try. PROS - They go for $340 each(15 % off) about 1/3 the price of a Atomic CLR and are very loud and clear. Mine do not rattle or buzz. They are only 34.3 LBS. They are very versatile EQ-wise and the built -in mixing functions sound great. WHEN, they are mounted on poles and you have 2 of them. Cons - sounds really off axis or very limited sweet spot (60 degrees vertical hence the need for pole mounts), with just one, especially when in the horizontal monitor position when compared to my old FBT15MA powered coaxial monitor because they are NOT coaxial. BUT, I believe at this price point, mounted on pole or at least put sitting waist level vertically,(really helps to have 2 of them) they crank. I think they out perform the EV DXR12, on power, price, and weight! Here are the EQ PRESET curves I liked MODE-LIVE AND MONITOR (verses pole) . Monitor position sounded flat compared to pole with my presets(go figure)?EV ZLX 12P specs 001 HORZ.jpg Listening to canned music to break them in today. If the Atomic Clr's come in the next 2 weeks I will compare and post. I don't expect them to come close .
 
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klaushouz said:
Hi, I just got a pair of EV ZLX -12P's to try. PROS - They go for $340 each(15 % off) about 1/3 the price of a Atomic CLR and are very loud and clear. Mine do not rattle or buzz. They are only 34.3 LBS. They are very versatile EQ-wise and the built -in mixing functions sound great. WHEN, they are mounted on poles and you have 2 of them. Cons - sounds really off axis or very limited sweet spot (60 degrees), with just one, especially when in the horizontal monitor position when compared to my old FBT15MA powered coaxial monitor because they are NOT coaxial. BUT, I believe at this price point, mounted on pole or at least put sitting waist level vertically,(really helps to have 2 of them) they crank. I think they out perform the EV DXR12, on power, price, and weight! Here are the EQ PRESET curves I liked MODE-LIVE AND MONITOR (verses pole) . Monitor position sounded flat compared to pole with my presets(go figure)?View attachment 15797 Listening to canned music to break them in today. If the Atomic Clr's come in the next 2 weeks I will compare and post. I don't expect them to come close .
Click to expand...



About the rattle, crank them a bit and hit an open E. Listen to the back of the speaker. Please let me know as I did like them but thought it odd they both did the rattle thing. That's indicative of a design flaw rather than just one bad unit.

As to dispersion, you type 60 degrees but I read 90x60. 60 is the above and below figure. 90 is side to side when pole mounted.
 
Hi, Zentman, what was your master and individual vol settings when they rattled? What mode and position were you in? By the way where R U located?
 
I am in California. I had the master on zero and I had the vol almost to the clip indicator. It was in live/pole and live/monitor. It was not digital clipping. It was mechanical. You can clearly hear it in the vid I posted in my other thread here. Granted, I had it pretty loud but I expect stuff to hold together at volume. You would have never heard it in the house but I am just funny that way.
 
Howdy friends - first post here. Happy to join the Axe family.

I happened to order one of these between zentman's initial (happy) and eventual (sad) reviews. It came in today, and I thought I would throw in my .02 to help with anyone else thinking about picking these up.

My experience is somewhere between zentman and klaushouz; I'm getting a bit of rattle, but not nearly as pronounced as what zentman posted in his video. (If mine were doing that, I'd have them boxed up already) I'm getting it at very high volume levels - so high that I'm having to listen pretty carefully to hear it. I haven't tried the speaker on a pole yet, nor have I adjusted any EQ on it - simply trying to evaluate the construction. I'm going to spend some more time with it later today, but as long as it doesn't start buzzing at lower volume levels (where I'll be setting it 80% of the time) I'll likely hold onto them simply due to the overall quality of the sound at this price point.
 
Matched what you gave me for live/monitor. Using LES Paul with Burstbucker 3 on bridge pick up and PAF on rhythm ..No rattle from speakers. The rest of my apartment is rattling but not the speaker.
 
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