Using PA Speakers In A Home "Audiophile" Application!

@deep_333,

In my opinion the Daniel Hertz M1 speaker is a copy of the JBL 4345 studio monitor. See link below:

Mike

https://www.lansingheritage.org/html/jbl/specs/pro-speakers/1981-4345.htm

@benanders. You touch on an important point, but particularly with regard to electric music. The use of compression in recording limits dynamic range relative to what you'd hear from a live band. In addition, not always, but a lot of the time, there are many more instrument tracks on a studio recording than a band will reproduce in a live setting. That leaves more dynamic space for each instrument being played live and makes it more of a visceral experience. 

As regards lower priced studio monitors - the answer is no. Price for price, the equivalent studio monitor to an affordable PA speaker will almost always be a two way desktop system with a bass-mid unit around six inches.

Good properly full range studio monitors don't come cheap.

@yoyoyaya ​​@benanders

I have used a fair amount of studio monitors at home over the years, nearfield and midfield (Neumann, Yamaha, Genelec, etc). They have never come anywhere close to what I recently experienced on this PA rig man. Some tracks from ’Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears’ were playing at this venue, an album I know all too well and have played many a time in my current high end rigs. It is a studio mastered album, of course, which would have gone through its fair share of "compression", as you all have noted above. But, what I heard at this venue was just visceral, raw and mind boggling. It felt like Ozzy and Zakk Wylde were piercing through the core of ya..."Moving air" (as Levinson notes in his video), is an understatement...

deep_333 OP

446 posts

01-11-2024 at 10:08am 

@yoyoyaya ​​@benanders

I have used a fair amount of studio monitors at home over the years, nearfield and midfield (Neumann, Yamaha, Genelec, etc). They have never come anywhere close to what I recently experienced on this PA rig man. Some tracks from ’Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears’ were playing at this venue, an album I know all too well and have played many a time in my current high end rigs. It is a studio mastered album, of course, which would have gone through its fair share of "compression", as you all have noted above. But, what I heard at this venue was just visceral, raw and mind boggling. It felt like Ozzy and Zakk Wylde were piercing through the core of ya..."Moving air" (as Levinson notes in his video), is an understatement...
 

@deep_333  - good points of clarification. Thank you.
Speakers x room? Size/potential of both (plus the power kit). I’m hazarding the guess that Ozzy playback venue was not much like a living room or bedroom. Most venues are unlike most dedicated listening rooms, too, as I cannot think of a commercial venue for live music built the same as a typical residence. Not just size - wall/floor/ceiling composition, furnishings, (audience?) etc.

If you can replicate those factors (speakers x room x extras) and the rest of the playback chain in your home, then maybe the answer is yes. If you cannot, then you’re wanting something different than what your OP queries.

If the real question is “How do I make music playback in my home like music playback I heard in a PA-equipped venue?” then you already know the ingredients. If you can’t change the room to match, though, then you might have to think about speaker x room parameters (among other things) much more extensively.

I took a less conventional approach in speakers x room based on similar interests to what you describe, and think it worked out. But I also don’t use PA kit and I don’t live in a studs/drywall residence, so YMMV 😅

It depends on the speaker just like home audio. Some are trash and same are amazing. 
 

When I look at a speaker like the JBL VTX’s (huge and expensive) drivers and layout I have to believe they are exceptional. The drivers are pretty similar to the JBL M2 but probably have some changes in the motor (more mass) for heat control. But it is a PA speaker with controlled directivity in mind. pretty amazing engineering and not just a shiny box. Not sure they could fit in a typical home lol….
 

quote from website. 
“VTX V25 is fitted with JBL’s precision-engineered 3rd generation HF waveguide technology producing a properly time-aligned, coherent high frequency wavefront that maximizes the combined output of three D2 Dual Drivers. While producing a wavefront that is sufficiently flat to couple properly at extreme high frequencies, the active radiating surface area extends to the edge of the enclosure, thereby ensuring optimized vertical coupling even when enclosures are tightly-wrapped at 10 degrees.”