es18? Martin 215 mk2,mk3? mkb-230? 1850? 186? Arr!

Jay michali wrote: Hey Bob.  Its true I may have a preconceived viewpoint of the Yorkville sound.  The stuff is everywhere around here so it doesn't get me too excited haha.   I will stick with my opinion however, I think they work really well for live sound but I like how vocals sound out of mine better.  The Unity's will outrun mine power wise without doubt.

Jay michali wrote: thanks for the suggestion bob, that link doesn't work and if I google search manta ray horn diy audio I'm not seeing anything?

It's just the way the forum handles links, it should be
https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/subwoofers/270968-pa-mid-horn-ideas-help-2.html#post4251999

bob4 wrote: Jay michali wrote: Hey Bob4.   The Yorkville unity's are readily available in my city and we have used them here and there. I like them for live music but I prefer the sound from my RCF's.  For dance music they pack a lot of punch but are not very hifi sounding to me ears.  <span style="line-height: 1.4;">Personally I have never heard a U15 cab.</span> <span style="line-height: 1.4;">Very interesting to hear your opinion!</span><span style="line-height: 1.4;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.4;">To be honest it is a bit of a downer, since on paper the U15 should be superior to your current cabs from an engineering point of view, due to the Synergy loading (Yorkville licensed it from Tom Danley). Did you know that they have three 5" midrange transducers built inside the mid horn? I'm not arguing against your opinion, and don't want to sound disrespectful, but maybe you have had some kind of bias towards the cab….. it looks very unassumingly run-of-the-mill standard 15" two wayish. </span> It may be worth auditioning and evaluating it again, see if anything can be done with processing/eq. It might suit your bill (and budget!!) very well otherwise.   EDIT: they also array very well, with 60deg dispersion, you can put two per side for larger gigs.  For the bass end, I would recommend to just build a pack of single reflex 15" or 18" with capable modern drivers.  For example the bms 15s330 comes to mind. It would provide a scalable solution, since your smallest events are 75 people.  http://www.bmsspeakers.com/index.php?id=bms_15s330 I have heard a stack of four compact single reflex 15" subs loaded with this driver on a T amp proline3000 provide very nice sub.

Unity, not Synergy - which means it lacks the advanced crossover design and adjustment of positioning, plus porting of lows into the horn also. That might be why it seems less 'hifi'

A tapped horn like the XoC1 TH18 actually does 35Hz (albeit -6dB) in singles, not packs of four. Tapped horns have the same response with one box as they do in piles, really handy for scalability.

However to do the upper kick of psytrance you'll want a BIG Synergy or some other sort of kick box. Aligning the latter properly can be hard, and that's where most setups struggle.

However, I've done TONS of psytrance gigs (for my sins) in the past year, up to 10k capacity, and frankly, what people 'think' it needs is often wrong. Apart from 'effects' or breakdowns with samples, the vast majority of the rolling, kickdrum parts do very little below 45Hz, in many cases, nothing below 60Hz. What they do have is insanely fast, rolling, nonstop high RMS signal at those frequencies, which pushes many designs into power compression, and also distortion, which makes it 'feel' lower than it is.

That's also often a problem because the upper bass lacks and can't actually do enough 'kick' to make it feel upper bass heavy. The snappy kickdrums live almost always on or around 100Hz.

I know this is a cheap Behringer desk, but here's this weekends' RTA screenshot, one of many I've been monitoring over the many, many hours sat by a system doing stupidly high output trance:

Personally I would start with Martin 215 Mk3 and a whole bunch of them. They’re a classic punchy all round bass box, that will get you going and they go low enough for a bunch of the music. The Danley DBH218 is a similar type of design and that’s covered huge crowds. Doesn’t have lots of authority down low, but it gets there.

You could then add Othorns for more sub content as you feel the need to expand. Just keep them running below 60Hz and allow a little acoustic overlap in the crossover so you get really strong chug, but keep the kick clean.

I’m really not a fan of Cubo, any of them. For the size of a stack and weight I feel you can do better not just in output but in tone. The Cubo subs I’ve heard, 15s, 18s, extended and vanilla all sounded aggressive, choked and grunty, or loose and flabby. Not at all refined or smooth and certainly not deep or tight.

You’d be fine with them - until you heard them side by side with even a similar sized reflex cabinet with good drivers.

Try looking at some sims of Martin 215 Mk3 with modern drivers and see what you think. But also keep a good budget for tops that play to 100 or so with authority too, you’ll be let down if you have a weak low mid section and need the 215 to play up there because you’ll lose the upper snap of the kick harmonics that carries the impact.

Yes, cubo series is good overall bass cabinet but it has nothing where it really shines.. Being (almost) one way bass solution, I like cubo 15's when it comes to psytrance, house etc. Good compromise it is, goes mostly low enough and has really nice tight "punch" compared to standard reflex. And ofcourse it really is more sensitive overall. You barely see the cone moving while your pants are already shaking. Still no idea about theory which makes it so loud compared to reflex..because cubo seems to be kind of reflex anyway. For smaller gigs, I can somehow recommend cubos (loaded properly).  Tbh my only experience is from cubo 15 extended I have here, as many others but for psytrance it does something right which at least I like. Maybe it just hits exactly those correct notes beetween 50-100Hz needed for good psytrance bass.

Edited by Tonskulus - 23 January 2019 at 6:17am

I just randomly came across a guy with 6 original martin 115's about 2 hours from my place. Selling for peanuts.  Would this be a reasonable route to take for mid bass on top of my othorns?