Unpowered KPA - DXR 10 or DXR 12?

  • Or maybe it's just true.. GASP!!
    The fact is, the speakers are capable of different things. Otherwise, what is the point of Yamaha making 3 different models? It's not a hard concept to grasp.


    And like I've said, maybe I'm playing under different conditions. Playing outdoors for a festival of 10,000+ people is not the same as playing inside a small club for 100.

  • What's with everyone trying to tell someone that he isn't hearing what he's hearing?

    I was wondering the same thing. I'm not disputing that the DXR10 is a great speaker. I've said it was and I own both. But I feel like they each have different qualities that make them work better in different situations. In my particular situation, the DXR10 isn't enough and the DXR15 is. Pretty simple.

  • I like the dxr 10. For my purpose they are more than loud enough. I even have not cranked them, but I can tell they can be really loud.


    I mean we play loud, but not as loud as OhG seems to play. For a small club up to 200-300 people they should be loud enough. I will have a chance to check that soon.


    But I can not see why you would have a stage sound loud as hell. That must be crazy levels. At bigger festivals everything is miked and send to FOH. The amps etc do not need to be cranked to max. At the last festival every band played through the same backline Marshall DSL 100 and Marshall JVM 410 and Ampeg SVT, everything was miked and we did not crank the amps to max nor did the other bands not even the punk band, who sounded like Green Day.


    Bbb

    It' s only Rock n Roll, but I like it :D:thumbup:<3

  • I'll always remember our drummer's reaction when we used our two DXR10 for the very first time. It was in a small club for our virtual soundcheck (DAW to X32). Just a few seconds after starting the playback he startet laughing and couldn't stop for a while' cause he was totally blown away by the incredible volume and clarity.
    He said over and over again: "What the hell... this is impossible... this is coming from these small things?"


    I have to mention that our drummer usually has IMHO totally insane levels for his monitor and he's also playing really loud. So if he thinks it's loud it really is loud.

  • I can relate to what OhG is saying.
    I have the dxr 10 and i`ve had it flub out on a couple of band rehearsals at loud volumes. Its a nice speaker, but when you are near max volume it can`t reproduce the frequensies as well and fart out in the lower mids. Will try the firehawk 1500 vs dxr 15 for my next purchase. I guess it has something with music genre and how loud the other bandmembers are to how the dxr 10 works for you.


    I play rythm guitar (drop c) in a fairly loud prog rock band and i feel like i need more punch than the dxr 10 is willing to give. It`s easier to dial down say a dxr 15 than to exeed limitations of the dxr 10

    Edited once, last by Xander ().

  • I use my dxr10 in a maiden tribute band and we are loud. My dxr volume dial is set insnely low and it is more than enough to blow my head off. I cannot fathom a situation where this wouldn't be loud enough for me.

  • As I've mentioned before, for me, it's not just about how "loud" it can get. It's how loud and how much "umpf" or balls it has. When I crank up the DXR10's, and dial in a nice full heavy sound (and I'm in standard tuning), it flubs out. An amp could technically be loud in terms of dB levels but still sound thin. It's not that I can't hear the guitar, it's that it doesn't produce the sound I want at higher volumes. The DXR15 can produce more of a full sound to me in terms of the balls it has, or the air it pushes back at you. It's a bigger speaker, so this is to be expected.


    Tell someone like Zakk Wylde that all he needs for one of his shows is a single 10" speaker. Haha. It might be all he needs, but it's not going to produce the type of environment on stage that gets him going.


    This has nothing to do with the Kemper and really comes down to personal taste. I'd say we've beaten this topic to death. People just need to try different speakers and go with whatever sounds good to them. It's all subjective.

  • @OhG you are right, the DXR10 is not able to create "umpf" like e.g. a 4x12" can. No single 10" speaker will be able to do this at higher levels. For high levels at low frequencies there is no other way than using larger or more speakers (-> larger surface).


    For playing on very large stages or open air a larger monitor as the DXR15 might be the better solution in fact, in large rooms / outdoors low frequencies easily are lost...


    For our quite loud metal band switching from guitar cabs (two guitar players with each two Engl 2x12") to two DXR10 (one for each) greatly improved the band's overall sound, especially because the guitar's low frequencies are less present. We even set high pass (100 Hz) and low pass (7 kHz) for the guitars.


    Sure, the guitars alone don't have that "umpf" any more, but in the full band's context this was counterproductive anyway. With less guitar's "upmf" there is more space at the low frequencies for e.g. bass guitar and kick drums. We could play even louder than before switching to the DXR10 while the overall sound would stay totally transparent. The bass guitar and kick drums kick b*tt anyway.


    We use the DRX10 as monitors for the guitars only, one DXR10 for each guitar directly connected to the Kemper / GSP1101. In the rehearsal room we mike the kick drums and send them to the PA: two Yamaha 15" speakers (some old passive ones, I don't know the exact series' name) with a strong Yamaha amplifier. We have two Yorkville ES808 18" subwoofers in spare, but never use them for rehearsals 'cause this would be way too much ;)



    With this setup our sound is totally awesome, both in the rehearsal room and on stage, it's like listening to a very well mixed CD at really high volume levels.

  • I'm using my DXR10 in "Line-Level-Position" with the sensivity-knob slightly set above the half. It's set to Monitor-Mode and placed just in front of me, let me say 2 meters apart from the Pickups of my guitar.
    My KPA-output-volume is set to -12dB and my loudest Gain-Preset sometimes causes accustic-feedback so that I have to crank the main noise gate nearly full-clockwise to avoid this (I'm also the singer, so I have to stand stand in front of the Microphone-Stand).


    I cannot imagine, that higher volumes are really playable for the guitar-man .
    For large stages when volumes really get all high (esp. when the bass-bins are positioned just under the stage) I'd recommend a side-fill-P.A. with an additional front monitor.
    even better is to use IEM.

  • This highlights another reason I like the DXR15. I have my main signal that is sent to FOH set up so that it's EQ'd to not interfere with the bass player's area of the EQ spectrum. But I then use the DXR15's larger speaker to my advantage by EQ'ing that signal to include a little more low end to give me the umph I'm looking for on stage. I'm in single guitar bands, so I don't need to worry about sharing my side of the stage and drowning out another guitarist or bassist's signal on stage. So out front, our mix sits perfectly. On stage, I get the rumbling floor that I'm looking for when I hit a big chord.


    I can't remember who originally said it, but there is a quote out there that says something like "when you hit a chord so loudly that you can lean back and the sound holds you up", that describes what I'm looking for.


    The real irony in all of this is that I use nothing but in-ears for 90% of my gigs now. But occasionally, I just like to let it rip, and that's when the DXR15 comes out. I bring my DXR10 to gigs when I'm using my in-ears and use the 10 for a little supplemental sound for those who are too close to the stage to hear the guitar through the mains.


    I also like the 15 because when I'm playing without in-ears at smaller places, it's capable of having everything run through it (my guitar, vocals, drums, etc) and serves as a great all-in-one monitor.


    I like the extra boom it can provide. But for those who don't, all you've got to do is hit the high pass filter on the back. I'll always opt for the ability to have more than I need and then dial it down if needed, rather than go for what I think will be good enough only to find out that in certain scenarios it isn't enough.