Road Tests

For a long time the Radian MicroWedge (popularly referred to as the “Rat wedge” due to Dave Rat’s involvement with its development) was one of the “go-to” stage monitors for the live audio biz—especially for those of us who specialize in concert-type events. We could almost always be sure that the MicroWedge would be one of the rider-acceptable choices. The compact boxes put out plenty of clear SPL, and while everyone has their own personal favorites, few acts would turn down the MicroWedge when advancing the gig.

Most of my speaking gigs take place in houses of worship. I have found that a church congregation can be very critical when it comes to their ability to clearly hear the pastor, priest, preacher, rabbi etc.  The fact of the matter is that any speaking event is only successful if the speaker can get their message across clearly, and that is why we need good microphones.

Furman continues to be a leader in power conditioning units, due its features and ruggedness. Hardly an outboard rack can be seen without an ubiquitous Furman PL-Plus Power Conditioner or two providing both the power distribution and rack-face illumination from its light tubes.

The Electro-Voice Tour X series of loudspeakers sits in that middle ground of live sound reinforcement speaker—higher-end than most MI boxes, but not something you are going to find on tour riders either. In other words, great for clubs and bands in a van as well as local soundcos.

Proel is on of those nice Italian pro-audio companies that creates nice electronics and speakers, but gets very little notice in North America. So when I received a HPD3000 power amplifier for review, I had to hold my skeptic hat in my hands until I could see this quad channel power amplifier in action.

I don’t know what it is with me and my knack for finding the coolest and most obscure devices that actually work. Yes, I am flattering myself a little too much, seeing that this device has been around since the 1970s. The old timers (I’m not saying this as a jab but out of sincere respect for the wealth of knowledge that can only come with being old) are probably saying, “Silly youngster, I’ve been using one of those for years.”

Usually when I do a Road Test, the manufacturer ships the gear to me, I read the manuals, play with it a bit and take it out on a gig. With the KS Audio gear, the review process took on a slightly different scenario. I first got a call from my friend and editor Bill Evans, but instead of waiting for the gear, I was invited to a record release party where the KS Audio CPA self-powered compact line array was being used. Henry Strange (system engineer for KS Audio) and his crew had set up the line array and subs. I showed up a couple of hours before the show to check it out.

So, an affordable cardioid dynamic microphone with a step-up transformer that will give me all the benefits of a dynamic handheld, while delivering the detail and frequency range benefits of a condenser? We’ll see. A rugged offering from a well-respected name in professional audio that is tough enough to withstand the rigors of the road while equally adept and worthy in the best of studios? All while priced under $240? Let’s just say I had my doubts.

The dbx brand now offers the dB10 passive direct box and the dBb12 active direct box. While not compact at 5.82” x 5.44” x 2.20,” the direct boxes are similar in size to the higher quality direct box offerings and are fully featured for the variety of needs for both performers and sound people. I give kudos to dbx for using steel over aluminum to help block magnetic fields from penetration into the sensitive audio circuits. This is especially important as direct boxes are often mounted on instrument amplifiers, which have AC power transformers nearby.

(Ed. Note: We took a bit of a different approach on this one. Having fronted a horn band for more than 20 years, I am well-aware of the difficulty of making a good horn sound right in the system with the mics generally available on your typical house gig. It is why I carry my own horn mics on every gig where I am doing the muso thing. So, for this review, we put the mic in the hands of a top-notch sax player who knows his way around a console and then got some feedback from the sound guys on some of the gigs where he used it. Here is what they had to say.)

I first had a look at the IM8 at the 2008 winter NAMM show. John Schauer from Yamaha led me to the secret room where the not-yet-released board was waiting. Yamaha is not the only manufacturer that likes to keep their new products undercover until the moment of release. Just about every mixing console manufacturer conceals their new hardware until they are ready. Whatever the reasoning behind Yamaha's motives, John was definitely in secret-agent mode at NAMM. He told me that this console was designed with houses of worship in mind. It has enough bells and whistles to satisfy a variety of mixing demands and is still very simple to operate. However, as I looked over the board, I thought it would work well in an array of operations outside of worship.

The EV DC-One speaker processor is a long-awaited product that is huge in the value quotient (features and performance divided by cost to own). I took delivery of the DC-One and the first thing I noticed was the size of the unit. While it is the expected one-rackspace high, the 14 inches of depth is way beyond the usual amount for these processors. When I inquired about this, the designers uniformly said that customers complained about having to make patches to shallow depth processors when in a rack of full-size power amplifers. Given the go-ahead on depth the designers made good use of the space and concentrated on DSP features and budgets.