Hands on equipment reviews.

Speakers

Microphones

Amps

Mixers

Speakers

Wharfedale VSX Speakers. I recently came upon this company who has been making audiophile speakers for quite some time.

Based on my experience they should have not ventured into the live realm. The cabinets look quite impressive real nice angles and very light.

They are built from thin particle board, and have a nasty resonance to them when rapped by the knuckle. The knuckle test is the quickest way to detect a shitty cabinet. And these are as bad as I have ever encountered. Why is this important? Try to remember this fact, If you have a good cabinet you can always replace bad components with better ones. Ok , I have determined these speakers are slightly more sturdy than a wet cardboard box (and they also share the same acoustic properties I might ad). But how do they sound.?  they share the same properties as every other speaker I have heard in this range. The highs sound like ass.  I am only guessing but they sound like they are crossed over around 2k, and the frequency is way to present I suppose their (going deaf) engineers did this to get them to cut through and they will for sure just like nails on a chalk board.  There is a fine line between cutting through and annoying, and these have highs that are grating to my senses.  One redeeming quality about these speakers is the interaction with the highs on the mixer. I expected the highs to become even more annoying when I raised them on the mixer but low and behold the opposite happened, turning up the highs actually smoothed out the annoying frequencies.

Overall: Real nice looking speaker , light,  but sounds like shit. There are a bout a dozen or so speakers in this price range. Close your eyes and point to a catalog and buy whatever your finger lands upon.

JBL JRX/Sound factor

Here is my one line summery, Friends don't let friends buy JRX cabinets.  For those who do not know, JBL the once great American speaker company ceased to exist years ago. Harmon  International bought them (and several other names) and still manufactures speakers under the JBL moniker. They are made out of a thicker particle board and  are kind of heavy. This is their JBLs' entry level cab and sounds accordingly. As with all speakers I have tested in this range of product the highs suck. And in the case of this series they have terrible projection. At 35-40 feet out the highs just disappear. They are a  fairly robust cab though. I have had to mix on a med size pa of these for a few years. The coverings are starting to peel away and they are delaminating some too. They live in a trailer and are regularly moved by lakies so they haven't always been treated with kid gloves. Oddly enough the name on the cab still gets approval even if they do sound like shit.  Unlike the Wharfedales the highs on these speakers do not interact well with the mixer. The highs lust become louder and more annoying.  These speakers are and will remain until replaced the weakest link in an otherwise nice pa.

Yamaha BA-Club Series Cabs:

 Another yawner accept produced by Yamaha. While the BR-and Club IV are not technically the same there is not enough audible difference between the 2 to justify a separate review. Overall the cabinets are flatter than the other s reviewed but still have that really bad sounding high frequency driver. The br series are light and very portable. Both are made in the USA by Yamaha.