Martin WSX - my thoughts
Printed From: Speakerplans.com
Category: General
Forum Name: Feedback Forum
Forum Description: How Your Projects Perform
URL: https://forum.speakerplans.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=24844
Printed Date: 26 March 2026 at 10:56pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.08 - https://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Martin WSX - my thoughts
Posted By: davey t
Subject: Martin WSX - my thoughts
Date Posted: 11 March 2009 at 9:12pm
|
rubbish Never liked these, but particularly last night. There were 6 running off two MA 2.8s last night at a dubstep night I was helping engineer for last night, 3 a side. Run with the default settings in the club they honked and kick a lot but had no sub, softness or warmth to them. I had to cut a lot of upper bass on the eq (and bring the tops down too sh*t loads) to get them to sound half decent. Even then the crossover would limit before we could acheive which I would consider adequate bass for dubstep. You could stand infront of the stack, tell that they were on but just no real air moving. It wasn't a big room, only about 50 people in it! Davey T was not very impressed. Its a shame because the Martin Wavefront tops sound pretty good. Its the same every time I hear them, for they're size I expect a lot more, I mean a lab sub isn't that much bigger but is a hell of a lot louder! Maybe they were just not getting enough power, but it seems like they're average at best. Whole load of front loaded 18's would have probably done a better job. Rant over I'm in search of a plot to back up my thoughts - anyone know where one is? ------------- Minirig portable soundsystem movement |
Replies:
Posted By: Mark James
Date Posted: 11 March 2009 at 10:16pm
|
original drivers????? not sl*gging them off just curous! ------------- insert silly sentence here |
Posted By: kiriiz
Date Posted: 11 March 2009 at 11:26pm
| I heard many times that WSX are the worst horn cab for indoor use. If there was small area in the club, so it is true. For outdoor it is the best. May be. |
Posted By: S DeXter
Date Posted: 12 March 2009 at 12:01am
|
I think they have to be used in at least fours, plus the original drivers are not as fruity as some drop ins... I've heard a couple of stacks of 4 either side of a stage fill out a large club (probably about 1500 capacity) with lots of nice sub. They had dedicated kick bins on top as well... I suppose they were crossed over quite high? Labs are used always with a kick bin and this takes a bit of the strain off to give more sub... Although labs are just better for sub.. |
Posted By: SteveAATW
Date Posted: 12 March 2009 at 12:34am
| The lab gruppen based amp isn't going to help the situation either, wouldn't put one anywhere near a long horn 18 let alone with 3 a side hung off it |
Posted By: levyte357
Date Posted: 12 March 2009 at 1:42am
Oh no, that's torn it.  In 500 person hall (no stage), have heard 4x V18-1000 loaded WSX, 2x per channel of a CA18, in a single stack, with 4x 2x12+1" passive reflex on top (driven by QSC 4050HD), WSX run from 40-90hz. Was immense. Sub was every where in the venue. Vocal and tops crystal, clean. Even women commented how nice it sounded. ------------- "Who am I? I'm the guy who does his job.. You must be the other guy". |
SteveAATW wrote:Posted By: djstefanos
Date Posted: 12 March 2009 at 2:27am
|
mmmm, easy one here, Heard 4 per side (LR) stacked in Belgium a while back. Very punchy in middle of stage and in front of them. Not much low but the punch from 50ish meters far sounded very satisfying. |
Posted By: davey t
Date Posted: 12 March 2009 at 4:44am
|
no there was two MA 2.8s. Two a side from one, and one a side from the other. Its always impossible to tell on the MAs how close they are to clipping. I don't doubt that they were the original martin drivers. The company seems to be the NZ martin distributor/installer/hire. It was a fairly small room, had a sticking out wall and some length to it mind. Weird acoustics in the room could be a factor. Its interesting though that the people who've had fun/success with these bins are the people who DON'T use the martin drivers or amps! ------------- Minirig portable soundsystem movement |
Posted By: mykey
Date Posted: 12 March 2009 at 5:36am
WSX another cab that keeps getting sold on ------------- ......just all them hanging there like giant bananas. |
Posted By: tallmike
Date Posted: 12 March 2009 at 9:05am
You did say the crossover was limiting them though... sounds like a standard limited club setup!
|
Posted By: chilli
Date Posted: 12 March 2009 at 11:52am
|
i can personally vouch that 6 wsx produce plenty of bass, outside i've not heard anything to touch them. did a festy a few years back with a stack of 4 and the council came over to ask me to "lose a few db from the bottom end" apparently the woompf from the stack was stamping over all the rigs on site. was one of the smallest systems there too.
------------- Money can't buy you happiness, but it can allow you to be miserable in comfort. |
Posted By: levyte357
Date Posted: 12 March 2009 at 1:07pm
 ------------- "Who am I? I'm the guy who does his job.. You must be the other guy". |
Posted By: nickyburnell
Date Posted: 12 March 2009 at 1:41pm
|
SOmewhere on here last year was a build of lots of WSX? Really nice build, eight or so? Later the bloke complained about no bass. Seems they are fussy? ------------- It's everything, not everythink! |
Posted By: mykey
Date Posted: 12 March 2009 at 1:58pm
|
it was twinneysteve and twinneypaul nick
they ended up with XXL's ; )) ------------- ......just all them hanging there like giant bananas. |
Posted By: levyte357
Date Posted: 12 March 2009 at 2:10pm
Basically they do their thing best loaded with V18-1000, driven by decent amps, and outside. Indoor venues with these can be a bit of a dice roll. ------------- "Who am I? I'm the guy who does his job.. You must be the other guy". |
Posted By: chilli
Date Posted: 12 March 2009 at 3:00pm
|
the 8 which were on here were tda audio's i believe, not sure which driver they were loaded with. twiiny paul and steve tried first with l18s800 (wrong driver) then changed to celestion ftr1000's and were impressed with the results ------------- Money can't buy you happiness, but it can allow you to be miserable in comfort. |
Posted By: mykey
Date Posted: 12 March 2009 at 3:02pm
------------- ......just all them hanging there like giant bananas. |
Posted By: levyte357
Date Posted: 12 March 2009 at 4:26pm
Yep he told me that. And would be good earners for summer, @ £100 for each driver.  ------------- "Who am I? I'm the guy who does his job.. You must be the other guy". |
Posted By: Wrighty
Date Posted: 12 March 2009 at 4:45pm
Could that be the problem? In my mind, I've always thought that every bass bin in a cluster needs to be driven in exactly the same way, ie. same amps, same amount of power, in order for the cones to all be doing the same thing so that they all couple together properly. I haven't looked at the spec for that amp but I can't imagine that it would put out exactly double the power into a 4 ohm load to what it does into an 8 ohm load. The other aspect could be room shape/size and/or speaker positioning, causing cancellations at just the wrong frequencies. Just my two penneth... ------------- ALL YOUR BASS ARE BELONG TO US. |
Posted By: toastyghost
Date Posted: 12 March 2009 at 5:10pm
| I own an MA 2.8s and I wouldn't consider using it for heavy sub duty unless bridged to be honest. It's only rated at 1500w at 4 ohms, or there abouts. |
Posted By: twinypaul
Date Posted: 12 March 2009 at 5:57pm
|
i would use wxs again great bins ------------- paul |
Posted By: DJkg
Date Posted: 28 March 2009 at 1:26am
| I love the WSX, it's one of my favorite bins out on the market today. I've never heard a bad one inside or outside. |
Posted By: davey t
Date Posted: 28 March 2009 at 5:44am
|
yea, i'm not saying that they're bad. Just that they're very average in terms of performance and when used in a small room where you should be using reflex boxes, they sounded bad. ------------- Minirig portable soundsystem movement |
Posted By: Contour
Date Posted: 29 March 2009 at 11:41am
|
It is difficult to get good results with basshorns in small rooms. I tried it a few times when testing the Punisher design. But I think if the rooms are really small, basreflex might be the better choice.
Best regards,
Walt
|
Posted By: cnics
Date Posted: 31 March 2009 at 12:32pm
|
I too believe that the issue here is the small room. We know there is no such thing as throw, but the energy close up on a horn like the wsx is spread over a larger area. They're not designed for stuff this close up. A pile of decent reflex subs would do a better job 9 times out of 10 in this situation. If you're using the W8C with them in this small room, unless they're flown they're going to sound pretty shocking close up too. Rob ------------- Rob Beech - Technical Director - Cnics Audio |
Posted By: Lyndon A
Date Posted: 31 March 2009 at 7:04pm
Are these WSX? They did quite a good job at the Exit festival main stage last year. ------------- FSV Sounds |
Posted By: malina
Date Posted: 31 March 2009 at 7:17pm
|
Looks like WSX, but very old ones without grilles or maybe copies even. How did they sound? I wish I could have that many and amps to power them. How many people was there? |
Posted By: Lyndon A
Date Posted: 31 March 2009 at 7:21pm
|
I have a feeling they are copies, could be wrong. They had JBL Line array, the whole lot sounded good, may have been the fact there didnt appear to be any noise restrictions at all and the atmosphere was better than most festivals I've been to. Perhaps 30-40 thousand at main stage, there were 36 of those bins I think.
------------- FSV Sounds |
Posted By: Marko
Date Posted: 02 April 2009 at 6:01pm
|
Yes, they are copies, supposedly loaded with JBL drivers. The company that own them is Studio Berar and they also have a lot of VerTec cabinets. They are leading rental company in Serbia. |
Posted By: demanddeepbass
Date Posted: 07 April 2009 at 12:45pm
|
I hesitate to question those with the levels of experience here (!) but did you check phases? There seem to be such polar opposite opinions that it feels like something may be wrong? ------------- "These amps go up to 11" |
Posted By: dubgoat
Date Posted: 16 July 2009 at 6:56pm
|
heard 3 a side in a small club (400 peeps) and was impressed how they were doing around 45-50hz. not to keen on the actual sound of the cab though, at times they were quite honky. would be interested to hear them outside in a big stack though to see how they really work |
Posted By: chrismca07
Date Posted: 08 August 2009 at 7:52pm
| WSX are normally pretty good for low bass outside, dont know about inside though.. |
Posted By: ychole audio
Date Posted: 16 June 2012 at 12:38am
|
More reviews please,planning to build 4 boxes.Thank you! ------------- I am ZERIEL'S dad!!! |
Posted By: mstep77
Date Posted: 24 September 2012 at 11:08pm
|
Never heard them, but on paper look good for 40hz plus at high spl in stack of four. Maybe not in a 50 ppl cap room though ??!! They are pretty big and heavy though, definitely require crew |
Posted By: ychole audio
Date Posted: 03 October 2012 at 6:39pm
|
Built 4 pieces this summer and they're freakin awesome,kickdrum and bass guitar is sooo nice.Sensitivity is amazing and sounded clean too but a bit bulky and heavy when loading/unloading.Were using them on live bands. ------------- I am ZERIEL'S dad!!! |
Posted By: djeddie
Date Posted: 03 October 2012 at 6:51pm
Which drivers did you load them with? ------------- Chas n Dave : it's like Drum and Bass but with beards. E=mc² ±3dB |
Posted By: ychole audio
Date Posted: 03 October 2012 at 9:59pm
Loaded them with 18TBX100 and they sounded lovely,i just dont know how long will they last on this boxes.
------------- I am ZERIEL'S dad!!! |
Posted By: chilli
Date Posted: 04 October 2012 at 11:39am
|
Should last fine iirc that's the current oem driver from martin ------------- Money can't buy you happiness, but it can allow you to be miserable in comfort. |
Posted By: ychole audio
Date Posted: 05 October 2012 at 3:50pm
|
Thank you for the info,i never knew that. ------------- I am ZERIEL'S dad!!! |