My band has used two Yamaha S115V for PA speakers for a few years (w/ a Mackie 16-channel board and a Behringer europower ep2500). I just got my Ultra about a week ago to replace the Vetta II head that I had been using, and I'm trying to just get used to the tonal differences. But I know I always have to bump the highs up and the lows down on the mixer's guitar channel more than a bit with the Vetta to get it to sound right though our PA.
Anyway tonight I tried hooking my Axe up directly to the PA amp to hear what i sounded like going to those speakers. I was definitely underwhelmed. I was only using a bunch of factory presets that I seem to be gravitating towards since I don't have a great FRFR solution yet to build my own (I was hoping these might be the answer). But they all sounded muddy and, for lack of a better term, bleeeech. The Mark IV lead preset was OK-ish, but the Dual Rack Preamps (the brit pre & usa lead 2 pre), the basic orange recto 1, the EVH amp preset (think its called Fat solo 2 or something) and a few other similar ones were all pretty horrible, very muffled. I didn't run through the mixer board so I didn't have a chance to set an eq like my Vetta's, but I suspect I would have had to do the same thing again (boost the High knob and turn down the Low knob)
Has anyone else used these speakers with their Axe? Are they just a bad match for the Axe (and Vetta, for that matter), or do those presets just sound somewhat muddy out of the box and without some EQ the 15" speakers exacerbate that?
Just for kicks I plugged the Axe into my home stereo and these same presets sounded a hell of a lot better that way (Yes, I know, this isn't ideal, but I do have a pretty nice and well balanced setup) and some of them sound pretty damn amazing using my Sony MDR 7506 'studio monitor' headphones off the stereo). So I think maybe the Yamahas are not so good for my Axe. This is disappointing given there are a ton of great reviews for these speakers on all the sites you can buy them. I guess I don't believe some of those reviews though, since they claim they sound great for DJing without a subwoofer, yet their freq response only goes to 55Hz (which is also a little suprising given the 15" speaker), which makes me think they know don't know what their own program material is supposed to sound like, and maybe Yamaha is boosting some of the lower freqs to make up for the lack of sub bottom.
I'm also worried a little if a lot of clubs use 15" speakers like these for their FOH? Has anyone heard their rig at a club from the audience side of things and seen what the sound guy did with the EQ on his end?
Anyway tonight I tried hooking my Axe up directly to the PA amp to hear what i sounded like going to those speakers. I was definitely underwhelmed. I was only using a bunch of factory presets that I seem to be gravitating towards since I don't have a great FRFR solution yet to build my own (I was hoping these might be the answer). But they all sounded muddy and, for lack of a better term, bleeeech. The Mark IV lead preset was OK-ish, but the Dual Rack Preamps (the brit pre & usa lead 2 pre), the basic orange recto 1, the EVH amp preset (think its called Fat solo 2 or something) and a few other similar ones were all pretty horrible, very muffled. I didn't run through the mixer board so I didn't have a chance to set an eq like my Vetta's, but I suspect I would have had to do the same thing again (boost the High knob and turn down the Low knob)
Has anyone else used these speakers with their Axe? Are they just a bad match for the Axe (and Vetta, for that matter), or do those presets just sound somewhat muddy out of the box and without some EQ the 15" speakers exacerbate that?
Just for kicks I plugged the Axe into my home stereo and these same presets sounded a hell of a lot better that way (Yes, I know, this isn't ideal, but I do have a pretty nice and well balanced setup) and some of them sound pretty damn amazing using my Sony MDR 7506 'studio monitor' headphones off the stereo). So I think maybe the Yamahas are not so good for my Axe. This is disappointing given there are a ton of great reviews for these speakers on all the sites you can buy them. I guess I don't believe some of those reviews though, since they claim they sound great for DJing without a subwoofer, yet their freq response only goes to 55Hz (which is also a little suprising given the 15" speaker), which makes me think they know don't know what their own program material is supposed to sound like, and maybe Yamaha is boosting some of the lower freqs to make up for the lack of sub bottom.
I'm also worried a little if a lot of clubs use 15" speakers like these for their FOH? Has anyone heard their rig at a club from the audience side of things and seen what the sound guy did with the EQ on his end?
