Using PA Speakers In A Home "Audiophile" Application!

@mrdecibel 

We are two peas in a pod. The ability to play cleanly at realistic levels is the mark of a great system. People do not realize how loud it is until they try to have a conversation. Getting the bass to feel right is the hardest part. We take different roads to get to the same destination. You are totally correct about the Lascalas. The enclosures are musical instruments and getting rid of all the resonance is not easy. It takes dedicated insanity. 

While I do have some Peavey speakers in my workshop, but I really think hifi speakers are designed to reproduce hifi sounds and PA speakers are designed to project sound, if that makes sense?

All the best.

I’m a pro concert sound "person" (!), and a long time pro musician. Most home listening areas won’t abide Clair Brothers boxes or even La Scalas, but I use a pair of original series Mackie 350s (10" woofer) with a 92 lb Mackie woofer in my music studio (along with other small near field things) and they’re great. Titanium horn loaded tweeters and a very strong woofer. Note that most well designed pro stuff is far more efficient and tougher than nearly any home audio items. Put an uncompressed kick drum through a PA speaker and it works...put it through some home audio speakers and they’ll explode. The pro stuff is generally far less expensive also. I run clean stereo recordings through live show systems before soundcheck and just sit in the middle and note how great it sounds.

This...this is what i experienced recently at a venue before the show started (before it got packed). The sound lady was kicking up a storm with the stuff she played. I could gather that it was all some model Yamaha PA speakers, but, couldn't be sure of the front end.

As previously mentioned, several brands like JBL, Klipsch & Altec ( in the past) offer both home & pro “PA” speakers which are very sensitive, dynamic & can play loudly while still sounding quite good without straining. Often the difference between their home & pro models was primarily the cabinet style & finish & terminals for connecting to an amp.

Volti Audio Rivals use Italian made pro drivers by Faital to similar effect and look and sound great in a home environment. You may want them out. Of course, it’s a matter of taste but Their big, open & effortless dynamics bring a realistic, live sound that not many high end speakers can match.

@jonwolfpell , I have always had TAD speakers (most time spent with their sound), which is essentially a Pro Audio company before and after Andrew Jones got his hands in the mix.

More recently, it looks like Levinson (DHertz) also went down the PA route for his flagship M1 speaker. Here he is.. getting into some of his design decisions and how his drivers got custom done by a PA company...interesting talk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EB5UQ-AOfA

Levinson may be onto something...Maybe, some of the conventional home audio hardcores are missing part of the secret sauce....

There is video on you tube of a guy who salvaged PA speakers from a venue.... The horns are massive, GE drivers (I think) and a structure to support the things. Totally impractical, but man, wouldn't it be grand... High school friend had black painted Altec Lansings which I think came from a movie theater, his dad was a Master Electrician. They could go louder than you could tolerate. Led Zep and Cream until his dad would go to the panel and pop the breaker...time to go home. Definitely high db focus, for us, at that time. They were perfect