Obviously i wanted to use the opportunity to have a real good play with these bins especially as they would be outdoors and we were on site a couple of days before the punters arrived. Luckily though we had a couple of events the following weekend where they could be used so i have a couple of pictures of them for you. Sadly due to working at other events, i didn't actually get to spend much time with them, and it was my colleague who did most of the work setting them up at the events. Although i did spend a very brief amount of time with them in our lock up with Smaart, just so i could measure the horn length and see where the peaks and troughs were. From this very brief time spent with them i do have a couple of thoughts to share. 

Essentially the Bin is a 2x18 USB style cab which is pretty much the same size as an F218. It was loaded with a pair of 1000w 8ohm drivers (I did peek inside but couldn't tell what they were from the front, Robin?) giving each driver a total of 2000 watts (AES) at 4 ohms. We were also kindly lent a pair of MF7ks in which to power these with. In all instances, they were use with our EV TX2152 cabs as the mid/hi section. (I'm not the biggest fan of these, however i have got them to sound very nice and smooth, despite the terrible and cheap construction.)

From what i did heard/ observed and gathered from Smaart, a single cab will drop to about 50hz and all four in a mono block meant they would drop to about 45. I found they need a bit of a boost at 50-45 to get a more rounded sound and to stop them from starting to drop off higher. If you had a Sub underneath these then you wouldn't need to do that. I started off with them crossed over at 90 as the 15s in the tops i was using happily handle the kick upwards from that. When doing this i found they peaked a bit at 70hz which i then flattened off. Realistically, you'd be wanting to use these bins to play higher than 90, so i then tried (and stuck to) crossing them over at 160Hz.  They sounded a bit better when doing this and i think this opened up some more potential and needless to say made them kick a lot harder, I did notice the 70hz boost they had shift up to around 80 as well, which some people may like to keep in, but I flattened it off. In terms of EQ, that was all i felt was really needed and Smaart seemed to agree that they were fairly flat within the frequency band i was running them at. 

Generally i would say that they were incredibly smooth sound, Far less 'one note' sounding compared with an F218, but maybe not as much punch. (one be really good to properly a/b the two sometime) That said i never got to run them very hard in the lock up, as even during some low volume tests i had an angry man run over to me telling me it was like 'trying to live in an earthquake in his house' and that i had 'unsettled his cat'. (Take that as a complement Matrix)

Appearance wise i think that they look good, the routed logos are pretty cool as is the bracing. Generally they also seem to have been built pretty solidly. The handles are good as is having the input panel at one end, making it look very neat. (also god knows how or where the cable going to the driver at the opposite end has been hidden) 

My only niggles are that the paint seemed to come off, and become marked and scratched very easily. I understand that it was Warnex though and PU or two part paint would probably be a better option if these are going to used on the road or as hire stock. There were a few small gaps between the cabs and the access panels, the cabs were still sealed but it didnt look that professional. Also the curves in the centre of the cabs at the end of the throats are made of polystyrene which isnt great for the sake of durability. This is not really noticeable though, and there is going to be a grille covering the end of the throat just in front of these, similar to the ones available on the similar F1 bins. These are the first 4 of these bins to be made so i'm sure all these will be ironed out in the very near future. Generally though its a big thumbs up from me though. Heres a couple of pics. 

Here's two of them when i gave them a quick go  in our very cramped lock up. 

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A rubbish phone pic of all four of them in  local venue for a drum and bass night. We have put a huge variety of cabs in this venue for this client, and he said that it was the best it had sounded with these.

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A pair being used at Cardiff Arms Rugby Stadium for a small Welsh Rugby Union event. - Again some very positive feedback about the sound quality here. We have already have more events lined up with WRU just from that. 

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Hopefully at least some of you found this interesting, and hopefully i'll get more time to play with them sometime soon! Nice one and a massive thanks to Robin and everyone else at Matrix for letting us borrow and test these out in the first place. I've no doubt you'll do well with them! 

From what i could tell. It certainly isnt wood. 

If anyone wants to see these for themselves i believe they will be at BPM in September. 

Ah Wicked. Post up what you think of them, would be good to have another opinion. 

 

oooh SNAP!!! haha 

IIRC we have exported to about 19 countries all over the world so far. From Canada to Australia, Kenya, Indonesia, Vietnam, India, Greece ..... So yeah there are a few users here and there :-) 

Oh... you were thinking that UK is the center of the audio business? So wrong. there are far more lucrative markets out there.

And yeah i do have some boxes in Birmingham too :-)

whereabouts? would like to have a listen if its walking distance :) 

I have no idea. J-twins is the name of the company that got 4 single 21inch subs last year.

Please send 100K uk pounds to Robin.

If that's the kind of money on the table, send £90K to me and i'll get my pencil out...

 

Damn those ankle biters. Always dragging the market down :-)