FRFR with coaxial drivers. What are the options?

J

joegold

Fractal Fanatic
Besides the FBT Verve 12ma (or 12m) and the Boogafunk custom made cabs with the Beyma coaxial drivers what are the other options for an FRFR system with coaxial driver, either powered or passive?

My experience thus far with FRFR systems tells me that I probably would have a harder time getting used to typical 2-way systems.
I guess that when I play I'm usually pretty close to my speaker(s) and with speakers like the QSC K10 or K12 (or anything else I've tried) when I hear the highs coming out of a different source spatially than the rest of the signal it sounds unnatural to me.

So I'd like to try some coaxial systems.
But none of them appear to be readily available here in Toronto.
 
Using the FBT Verve 12ma since 5 months as an in front monitor I got the same experiences as you.

The coax speaker sounds pretty homogen in nearfield compared to a classic two way speaker like the RCF 310a, which I used before the FBT.

I'm looking for a better coax monitor speaker than the FBT and I got recommendations from a stage sound professional for the passive Tannoy V12.

Think I will give it a try in the next few weeks.
 
joegold said:
Besides the FBT Verve 12ma (or 12m) and the Boogafunk custom made cabs with the Beyma coaxial drivers what are the other options for an FRFR system with coaxial driver, either powered or passive?

My experience thus far with FRFR systems tells me that I probably would have a harder time getting used to typical 2-way systems.
I guess that when I play I'm usually pretty close to my speaker(s) and with speakers like the QSC K10 or K12 (or anything else I've tried) when I hear the highs coming out of a different source spatially than the rest of the signal it sounds unnatural to me.

So I'd like to try some coaxial systems.
But none of them appear to be readily available here in Toronto.
Click to expand...

You can try Acclaim Sound and Lighting in Sudbury, they are the closest dealers of FBT products to Toronto that I know of.

Dan
 
burningyen said:
My amp tech mounted a Beyma 12GA50 in my Tech 21 Power Engine. It's worked out great for me so far.
Click to expand...

Something like that would definitely be a very cost effective solution.
I.e. Just stick one of those Beymas in any old closed back cab.
I have thought about doing that too.
B&C makes the coaxial drivers that are used in the FBT Verve12m and ma which is another option.
But it looks like they don't include a crossover, so if I used one of these I'd have to bi-amp each cab which isn't the way I'd want to go.

But I guess I want a bit more hi-fi engineered into whatever system, cabinet-wise, I go for.
I really want my Presets to translate between my on-stage speakers, FOH on gigs, and any direct recording I do, without having to re-EQ if possible.
 
joegold said:
But I guess I want a bit more hi-fi engineered into whatever system, cabinet-wise, I go for.
I really want my Presets to translate between my on-stage speakers, FOH on gigs, and any direct recording I do, without having to re-EQ if possible.
Click to expand...
Well that's the rub, isn't it? Anyone can cut a 12" hole in the side of a box and mount a coaxial speaker, but I don't know anybody with enough speaker engineering knowledge to make it flat. All the design software I've seen (both free and commercial) assumes you're going for a 2-4 way box, and I'm not in a position to get experimental with speaker design.
 
setzinger said:
I'm looking for a better coax monitor speaker than the FBT and I got recommendations from a stage sound professional for the passive Tannoy V12.
Click to expand...
I have an old pair of Tannoy Berkley's, a home stereo using their 12" coaxial driver. For all intents and purposes they sound the same as my Dynaudio BM5a's (e.g. awesome). After some frustrated testing with a few portable FRFR solutions that were quite non-linear, I hooked these up out of curiosity and they were a breath of fresh air. Now if they weren't so big I would use them live.

I looked into the PowerV8 and PowerV12. The PowerV8 seemed a bit underpowered but the weight was right (~35lbs). The PowerV12 was too heavy for me (~50lbs) but it had the necessary power.

The V12 looks like an interesting option. 44lbs is more than I want to move but it's probably manageable. What power amp did the stage sound professional recommend?

Another option for me is to have a smaller cabinet built and then pull one of my existing Tannoy drivers. I imagine it would be difficult to have that done and done right, however.

I'm very interested in hearing how your Tannoy test goes setzinger.

joegold. . . glad you've brought this topic up again. I'm back to looking for a better FRFR solution that like you, will match with my studio monitors. It will be very interesting to see what you come up with.

Terry.
 
Sixstring said:
Other options are Radian and Carvin but nether of those are powered.
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Thanks for the tips.
The Carvin looks promising.
I'll search this forum to see if anybody here is using them and what they think of them.
 
Joey, Tannoy has a Canadian facility for both distributing and manufacturing of Tannoy products for North America, contact info is:

335 Gage Ave Suite 1
Kitchener ON, N2M 5E1

Phone #: 519-745-1158
Fax #: 519-745-2364

Website: www.tannoy.com
Email: inquiries@tannoyna.com

I don't know who retails the pro monitors, but you could check with them if you care to. Be advised the stuff is not cheap.

But neither is anything else that's genuinely good.

An alternative might be one of the older, passive System 1000's on the used market (10" woofer) or a System 1200 (12" woofer), if you don't mind an external amp. This would be a much less costly alternative, if you can find one. They come up from time to time.

If nothing else, a passive monitor gets you around the sound quality limitations of most of the new-gen Class D amplifiers (of course this depends on what you power it with!).
 
joegold said:
Sixstring said:
Other options are Radian and Carvin but nether of those are powered.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tips.
The Carvin looks promising.
I'll search this forum to see if anybody here is using them and what they think of them.
Click to expand...

I tried the Carvin and thought it sounded like Crap. YMMV. Mine sounded so bad it may have been a bad sample.
 
I personally wasn't a big fan of the Tannoy stuff. Didn't translate as well as I would have liked from my Genelecs. Also didn't have the "in the room" presence I was looking for. You can get a separate horn and woofer to act like one sound source if it's designed properly. I had my FRFR custom designed and built. There is absolutely no separation between the horn and woofer in the near-field. The first separation I can hear is at about 1in and even then it's hard to hear. Going full custom may not be a desirable way to go for some people, but in my case it turned out cheaper and much higher quality than going with what is commercially available. My FRFR is more in the range of top end HiFi or studio monitor sound. My patches transfer perfectly from my Genelecs.

Not knocking the coax FR's, but it's definitely not required to get a homogenous sound. In fact I first looked at the B&C coaxials, but the acoustic engineers said that by design they couldn't get as flat as I was looking for.

IMHO, YMMV and all the rest.
 
The plot sickens and the path to the goal gets muddier and muddier.

Oh well.

Thanks to all who contribute(d) to this thread btw.
 
What makes this especially difficult for me is not having access to any of the higher end solutions to test. Relying on the perceptions of others is somewhat risky. Buying and selling product just to try, especially on the higher end, gets expensive.

onemoreguitar. . . . any chance you might be comfortable sharing the components you chose and who you had pull it all together for you?

Terry.
 
Tone Seeker said:
onemoreguitar. . . . any chance you might be comfortable sharing the components you chose and who you had pull it all together for you?
Click to expand...

I could tell you model number by model number, but it wouldn't do you a lot of good. Unless the box that it's in is built to the exact specs, it won't sound the same. Just a warning that my system is built to my criteria. It's not very heavy, but it's also not small. If you're interested, I can put you in contact with the builder.

joegold said:
The plot sickens and the path to the goal gets muddier and muddier.

Oh well.
Click to expand...

I think the real problem is there isn't a cut and dry solution. Just getting a monitor with coaxials is no guarantee that you'll be happy with it.
 
joegold said:
The plot sickens and the path to the goal gets muddier and muddier.

Oh well.
Click to expand...

onemoreguitar said:
I think the real problem is there isn't a cut and dry solution. Just getting a monitor with coaxials is no guarantee that you'll be happy with it.
Click to expand...

I never expected a guarantee like that.
I just happen to have a feeling, based on my limited experience with non-coaxial systems that I'm going to be happy with a coaxial system.
But there are so few of them that are accessible for me to check out.
That's all.
 
Radian Apex 1200

http://www.radianaudio.com/index.ph...n=com_virtuemart&Itemid=40&vmcchk=1&Itemid=40

e36cf0c17a92ac72254a6ea92d38a2f1.png
 
joegold said:
I just happen to have a feeling, based on my limited experience with non-coaxial systems that I'm going to be happy with a coaxial system.
But there are so few of them that are accessible for me to check out.
That's all.
Click to expand...

Fair enough. Another option if you're just looking at coaxials, is to look for some of the old Tannoy boxes on ebay. The old ones are much smoother with a more even response than the new batch of stuff they've got coming out. The boxes themselves are pretty bulletproof as well. They come up for reasonable money from time to time. Tannoy pretty much made their name with coaxials so it's harder to go wrong. As Tone Seeker said, they can be pretty big and quite heavy, but the sound is exceptional.

The new Tannoys I found to be a bit better than the 12ma. They had a bit more low end thump and slightly more clarity and smoothness in the top end.

Just IMO, YMMV.
 
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