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Road Tests

Road Tests

      
QSC HPR-Powered Loudspeakers 
By Jamie Rio 

When my fearless leader and editor Bill Evans called me to review the new QSC HPR powered series loud speakers, I was pretty excited. When he told me I had to test the hell out of them and have the piece done in a little more than a week, my excitement began to wane. However, the first real amplifier I ever bought was a QSC, and to this day I have a great deal of respect for the company. I honestly don’t know how long they have been building amps, but I think Noah had a rack of them on the ark. In other words, this company is an icon in this biz and I expected to field test some high-quality gear. 

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L-ACOUSTICS, Yamaha, Future Sonics

L-ACOUSTICS P Series Powered Speakers
Jamie Rio

I have written many times in the past about the joys of a small sound system — especially one that sounds great and can reach a lot of people. Of course, the whole concept of “small” is very relative. However, if your mains are the size of your grade school lunch box and your subs are the size of a milk crate, we would definitely call that small.

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Crown Audio XTi Series

Put yourself into Crown Audio’s product managers’ shoes: You have the renowned touring audio power amplifier line called the I-Tech, and you have the task to create a smaller mass music market version that sells for a competitive price but still has the features and power ratings this market wants. In this pursuit, I believe Crown has succeeded very well with the XTi line of amplifiers.

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AKG Perception 200

I don’t know about you, but I have noticed a trend with “affordable” condenser mics sounding “clunky” and requiring a lot of help in the EQ dept. Why bother making it affordable if it sucks? Add that with the reputation for delicacy — especially in some large diaphragm models more suited for the studio — and many of us avoid using them live. But these mics came to me in a very cool quasi-flight-looking case. For the price I was sur-prised AKG made the effort! The mics are very retro studio looking, and are extremely rugged (more on that in a minute).

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Presonus Digimax FS

Presonus has made some great live stuff over the years. I can’t even count the number of their 8-channel comps and gates I have seen in racks. I remember an EQ that had a special secret weapon — a button that killed 60-cycle hum. Loved that. But over the past decade the company has been going more and more in a digital/studio/recording direction and we have had little to talk about in regards to their gear. So when I got the call about the Digimax FS, it was a pleasant surprise.

But the alarm bells went off when he uttered The Phrase. “It was designed for the studio but we are seeing a lot of them used live."

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