XiTone or EV PXM (I know, another FRFR post)

Mark Wein said:
Late to the party but I've gigged the Ev PXM for about year, first with an FM3 and now with my FM98. Even used it with Helix, Iridium and HX Stomp at different times. I'm very happy with it.
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Glad to get another positive review. Are you using them as floor monitors with separate FOH, as backline, or something else?
 
TheloniusJ said:
Glad to get another positive review. Are you using them as floor monitors with separate FOH, as backline, or something else?
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Usually behind me on the floor like a "normal" amp for onstage monitoring. Sometimes I play really small gigs where it's my only amplification and sometimes it's just my onstage monitoring in addition to the PA and in ears. In this video I have it pointed back at me like a regular monitor edge. I think that is my least favorite way to use it but I didn't want to have a problem with the FOH sound.

 
Mark Wein said:
Usually behind me on the floor like a "normal" amp for onstage monitoring. Sometimes I play really small gigs where it's my only amplification and sometimes it's just my onstage monitoring in addition to the PA and in ears. In this video I have it pointed back at me like a regular monitor edge. I think that is my least favorite way to use it but I didn't want to have a problem with the FOH sound.

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Thanks. Very nice tone and playing!
 
Mine just arrived today....didn't A/B it with my CLR yet, but preliminary testing shows it's very similar...and LOUD!!!
I freaked when I saw the box from UPS...look at this thing!
I took pictures before opening...luckily all the damage was on the empty side of the box with all the padding.
Not a scratch and works perfect.
20230217_135212(1).jpg
 
RLD said:
Mine just arrived today....didn't A/B it with my CLR yet, but preliminary testing shows it's very similar...and LOUD!!!
I freaked when I saw the box from UPS...look at this thing!
I took pictures before opening...luckily all the damage was on the empty side of the box with all the padding.
Not a scratch and works perfect.
View attachment 116331
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Would be interested in your thoughts how they compare to the clr’s
Thanks
 
Doesn't matter at this point since you've decided and got one, but I'm very happy with a pair of PXMs.
Sound great, plenty loud for me, very reasonable physical package, available, support was great when there was a production problem with earlier units (before my time with them).
 
Dave Merrill said:
Doesn't matter at this point since you've decided and got one, but I'm very happy with a pair of PXMs.
Sound great, plenty loud for me, very reasonable physical package, available, support was great when there was a production problem with earlier units (before my time with them).
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I still appreciate you piping in with your perspective. Nice to have further confirmation, but if anyone else still has any negative opinions about them, I'd be open to hearing that as well.

In any event, I'm looking forward to getting mine. I'll probably pipe in with my own assessment after I play with them for a while.
 
TheloniusJ said:
I still appreciate you piping in with your perspective. Nice to have further confirmation, but if anyone else still has any negative opinions about them, I'd be open to hearing that as well.

In any event, I'm looking forward to getting mine. I'll probably pipe in with my own assessment after I play with them for a while.
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If you haven't seen it, there's a pretty big thread on these cabs and I'm not sure a recall anything negative posted there, aside from the previously mentioned issue that quite a few people had but which EV handled very well.

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/electro-voice-pxm-12mp-report.167310/

There's also this one:

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/ev-pxm-12mp-comparision-review-with-pics.180576/

To be honest, my only real complaint is that when you have them on the floor in wedge position, it's a pain to adjust the settings and see the display.
 
dieter said:
Would be interested in your thoughts how they compare to the clr’s
Thanks
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My buddy has one and I had the CLR , there are definitely some similarities IMO and based on how difficult it is to get support if your CLR craps out the EV seems like the better choice at this time
IMO the top 3 to look at would be Redsound Elis or MF and the EV
If you dig the CLR the EV is probably the closest thing readily available that gets very close to the sound and dispersion , in fact the EV range might even have a slightly wider dispersion
 
unix-guy said:
If you haven't seen it, there's a pretty big thread on these cabs and I'm not sure a recall anything negative posted there, aside from the previously mentioned issue that quite a few people had but which EV handled very well.

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/electro-voice-pxm-12mp-report.167310/

There's also this one:

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/ev-pxm-12mp-comparision-review-with-pics.180576/

To be honest, my only real complaint is that when you have them on the floor in wedge position, it's a pain to adjust the settings and see the display.
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I had read isolated posts during my initial forum searching prior to posting this thread (where I mostly wanted the XiTone comparison). I just read through the full thing, which was really useful, so thanks for recommending.

Here are my main takeaways from the thread:
  • Most people seemed very impressed with the quality and performance of the PXMs.
  • There was an issue with digital distortion that was verified by EV and they repaired any units experiencing it. They have since fixed this issue and any production units should no longer demonstrate the distortion.
  • Some people were doing some custom EQ adjustments, but it sounds like the consensus is that the Monitor 2 is pretty flat and is pretty usable as is. Some people seemed to prefer the Monitor 1 setting. I did see one post of someone using the GuitarCab mode with the cab block off and they seemed to like it.
  • Several people did apparently use these as in a backline application. At least a one other had used one of the "non wedge" orientations @Greg Ferguson described in this thread.
  • Prices have gone WAY up in the last two years. Glad I was able top get a deal by reaching out to my SW rep.

Bottom line: I'm pretty happy with my decision to go with these and now the waiting begins (I replied to the SW rep's quote that I want to move forward, but the order hasn't actually gone through yet. SW does appear to have stock).
 
TheloniusJ said:
I had read isolated posts during my initial forum searching prior to posting this thread (where I mostly wanted the XiTone comparison). I just read through the full thing, which was really useful, so thanks for recommending.

Here are my main takeaways from the thread:
  • Most people seemed very impressed with the quality and performance of the PXMs.
  • There was an issue with digital distortion that was verified by EV and they repaired any units experiencing it. They have since fixed this issue and any production units should no longer demonstrate the distortion.
  • Some people were doing some custom EQ adjustments, but it sounds like the consensus is that the Monitor 2 is pretty flat and is pretty usable as is. Some people seemed to prefer the Monitor 1 setting. I did see one post of someone using the GuitarCab mode with the cab block off and they seemed to like it.
  • Several people did apparently use these as in a backline application. At least a one other had used one of the "non wedge" orientations @Greg Ferguson described in this thread.
  • Prices have gone WAY up in the last two years. Glad I was able top get a deal by reaching out to my SW rep.

Bottom line: I'm pretty happy with my decision to go with these and now the waiting begins (I replied to the SW rep's quote that I want to move forward, but the order hasn't actually gone through yet. SW does appear to have stock).
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That's pretty much what I remembered.

Sucks about the price. I got mine on Amazon for $749 and I had about $1k in Amazon gift cards so my out of pocket was low. I was surprised to see the current prices.
 
Well I got my PXMs on Saturday (got delayed due to the weather). Last night I was able to get them up to volume while my wife was out of the house. So far I'm pretty impressed. They really keep together at high volume. Really tight low end, unlike the sloppy boominess of the HR 108s.

As others have mentioned, I am finding you really do need to tweak the tone at performance volume. The IRs that I originally selected with headphones and higher volume, were not my first choice at volume, which I found interesting. I bought the York Audio Friedman 4x12 bundle and those are working pretty well for my high gain stuff.

I'll be rehearsing with the loud band using them tomorrow night, so I'll report in when I give them the run through in that scenario.
 
Reflections after first application as a loud backline in a live rehearsal.

Set-Up:

I used both PXMs behind me in standard wedge orientation. This band is a hard rock/popular metal (80s/90s). The drummer is really loud, there are two guitar players and a keyboard player. We run to a mixing console, but are mostly using that for vocals and dispersing guitar and keys (much lower volume than the amps). I have previously used the FM3 into a PS200 driving a 4x12 with cab on the FM3 bypassed in out2 (enabled in out1 going to the mixer). Before this rehearsal, I reconstructed my main presets to be fully FRFR (cabs normally employed) and built both stereo (including an enhancer block and panned cabs) and mono versions. I recently purchased the York Audio Friedman 4x12 bundle which I used in the reconstructed presets. Playing around at home I decide to go with Monitor 2 settings on the PXMs. I sent Out2 to the PXMs and Out1 to the mixer. No EQ adjustments were used in the outputs.

Impressions/observations:
  • Doing a rough sound check, I decided to set the PXM master at -5dB and adjust the Out2 knob during rehearsal. For the most part about 75% (3 O'clock) seemed to give me the right levels. This was at least as loud as the PS200 at 50% going into the 4x12.
  • Before rehearsal I noticed that the low end was WAY more pronounced than expected. I ended up trying to dial the bass on the amp down and added a bit more low cut in the cab block. I started to mess with the Out2 EQ, but didn't want to go down that rabbit hole during rehearsal.
  • My tone had quite a bit more presence in the band context than I would have expected. It was much brighter (almost too bright) and was popping through in certain parts more than I wanted.
    • I did a little tone tweaking on the amp during rehearsal, but decided to live with it. This morning I did a bit more, mostly rolling the bright cap back to 60ish pF, but also creeping up the mids a bit (I did this going back and forth with some factory presets for comparison). This seemed to tame the highs a bit, but I'll know more during our next rehearsal.
  • I had decided to use the YA blended cabs (M25 and V30s) with 57 and 121 mic mixes. However, I tried the FRED mixes (described as the Fredman mic'ing technique with two 57s) and found I liked those much better for this application.
  • I ran into a super weird issue with my lead boost channel that I'm still grappling with. I'm not totally sure what was going on and may be totally unrelated to the monitors, so I won't go into details.
Anyway, the bottom line is that two PXMs seemed more than loud enough for this kind of backline application and thought they kept together really well at high volume. Definitely some more tweaking to do, but I generally liked using them more than I like using the PS200 and 4x12 "real" cab approach.
 
Hey thanks for detailed first impressions/observations with the band! It's kinda crazy how the low end can be more than expected with a 1x12 speaker compared to the 4x12 cab that you were used to using. I find the same results, which is a good thing and can be dialed out as need. I have the XiTone M-Britt 1x12 and it will definitely cut through and have the volume in my band situation as well. When I'm not using my standard 4x12 JCM800 setup with the Fractal FX8 (which is a killer setup) and going with a more simple and smaller setup, I have been using my FM3 into my DSL40 combo fx return that has a Creamback M65 speaker. I've got a couple go to Brit 800 presets that sound excellent with the DSL40, out 2 with no cab block of course. Sometimes I'll run out 1 with cab block to the XiTone and out 2 no cab block to the DSL40 and compare them. The Xitone sounds fuller and definitely has more low end, but sometimes I prefer the DSL combo. I'll tweak the preset to work best with one of them and name it appropriately and just use whichever setup I feel like using that day. Best of both worlds I actually like running both at the same time and that sounds really good lol. The DSL combo has more of the high end typical Marshall sound, especially with the CB M65 speaker that sounds excellent with that amp and the XiTone fills out the sound and has it's own character.
Not sure how much all of this goes with your post, but thought I would share.
And bottom line is I agree with that the FRFR backline setup can work really well.
 
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