Quality for Your Digital Accordion?

[KeysFla]

I found this interesting. 3 way Sound system. Thoughts and has anyone tried this?

K Column Overview | Powered | Loudspeakers | QSC

Building on the legacy of the K Family, the KC12 "K Column" is a 3-way, 3000-watt loudspeaker system that combines a column aesthetic with the acoustic performance of traditional "box" systems. Easy to transport, deploy and use, it’s ideal for musicians and bands, DJs and mobile entertainers...

www.qscaudio.com

 

[John M]

I have not tried this. But I have a Bose LiPro8 and it is fantastic with my FR-8X. I never play my 8X with the internal speakers -- even at home. I am not familiar with this particular model. However, a "Bass Speaker" with a treble "Line Array" is the way to go.
I learned this a long time ago from "debra" on this forum.

 

[KeysFla]

I have not tried this. But I have a Bose LiPro8 and it is fantastic with my FR-8X. I never play my 8X with the internal speakers -- even at home. I am not familiar with this particular model. However, a "Bass Speaker" with a treble "Line Array" is the way to go.
I learned this a long time ago from "debra" on this forum.

Only thing that is interesting, it is 3 way. I too have Bose L16pro16, but in an outdoor concert
environment this QSC may project more? But do not need that projected power anymore.
Even if we tried this in a Music store, not the same till you take it out on a gig. Like you, I will stay with my Bose L1 Pro.

 

[debra]

I briefly looked at that announcement/site and the claim of a 3000-watt system is just ridiculous. Bose is much more honest about the power output of their units and frankly, even in large venues I played in (like a big church) I never needed a 3000-watt system. (I have played in a huge venue where that was needed but the organizers arranged for the system to enable a 10.000 people audience to hear what I was playing and to have it without feedback problems.)
I have played solo with a harmony (wind) orchestra that generates a lot of volume, and my Bose L1 model 2 (the older equivalent to the Bose L1 pro32) generated plenty of volume for me to be heard well, both in indoor and outdoor venues. I now use the Bose L1 pro8 in small venues with small ensembles and it works very well and is much more compact. (There is one niggle with that though: you have to make sure the line array is pressed down firmly for it to make contact with the base unit.)

 

[jozz]

not tried it
in the spec sheet it's all 'peak' power and 'peak' SPL...
still, QSC have nice dsp so it would probably do a decent job for what it is
need to try it to hear it - if the unusual config of the MF drivers works?

 

[JerryPH]

Only thing that is interesting, it is 3 way. I too have Bose L16pro16, but in an outdoor concert
environment this QSC may project more? But do not need that projected power anymore.
Even if we tried this in a Music store, not the same till you take it out on a gig. Like you, I will stay with my Bose L1 Pro.

3-way does not always been "better" than what you have. I don't think that in this case, the QSC would give you anything over the Bose setup you have now.

 

[dak]

I briefly looked at that announcement/site and the claim of a 3000-watt system is just ridiculous. Bose is much more honest about the power output of their units and frankly, even in large venues I played in (like a big church) I never needed a 3000-watt system.

It is not as much ridiculous as it is dependent on other components. 98dB/W is a typical sensitivity value for high-quality 18" instrument speakers. 87dB/W or lower is not unusual for HiFi systems. To produce the same loudness, the second speaker will require more than 12 times the power than the first.

I have a 100W instrument amp. You cannot really compare its output with the loudness of a 100W HiFi system. But of course it colors the sound more. The kind of compact PA systems from Bose and its ilk are somewhere in the middle to lower end of this sensitivity range. For bass speaker efficiency, you just need big membranes moving large amounts of air efficiently. "Compact", "bass", "efficient" just don't go together very well, with "faithful" causing yet another problem (you can increase efficiency by using ported speakers that have the membrane working against a resonance-enhanced mechanical resistance, but resonance at bass frequencies requires sizable airways and causes significant phase delays).

 

[debra]

It is not as much ridiculous as it is dependent on other components. 98dB/W is a typical sensitivity value for high-quality 18" instrument speakers. 87dB/W or lower is not unusual for HiFi systems. To produce the same loudness, the second speaker will require more than 12 times the power than the first.
...

I know the issues of sensitivity. In my younger years my brother bought very nice Wharfdale speakers, not knowing that they only gave something like 84dB/W and I ended up learning how to build power amplifiers to get any reasonable number of decibels out of these speakers.
The main problem I have with claiming that the depicted speaker has 3000W is that this can only be a wildly inflated number. Some manufacturers list an honest number of watts RMS and others list a peak wattage that the system may be able to do for a few milliseconds. Such inflates numbers are useless. If I play a loud chord for 5 seconds and this results in the wires in the speakers melting, that's no good. I need to know RMS power.

 

[dak]

I know the issues of sensitivity. In my younger years my brother bought very nice Wharfdale speakers, not knowing that they only gave something like 84dB/W and I ended up learning how to build power amplifiers to get any reasonable number of decibels out of these speakers.
The main problem I have with claiming that the depicted speaker has 3000W is that this can only be a wildly inflated number. Some manufacturers list an honest number of watts RMS and others list a peak wattage that the system may be able to do for a few milliseconds. Such inflates numbers are useless. If I play a loud chord for 5 seconds and this results in the wires in the speakers melting, that's no good. I need to know RMS power.

RMS tells you what power you can pump through the speakers on a continuing basis for 15 minutes. It is a nice upper limit but not all that representative. It turns out that most speaker drivers aren't even specified in RMS but in "music power". The reason is that by and large music output can be modeled with the same power per octave, so tweeters (let's say 3 octaves, 3kHz to 24kHz) that can survive 100W RMS power are sensibly matched to woofers (20Hz-3kHz would be about 7 octaves) that can survive more than double the RMS power. It is typical for bi-amped speakers to have power like 50W+10W (in addition to the lower acoustic power needs, tweeters can be built with higher sensitivities more easily).

That is the reason why hard clipping can smoke tweeters that are specced quite larger than the amp in theory: clipping makes the high frequency power content go way above what pink noise (constant power per octave) would deliver.

 

[debra]

RMS tells you what power you can pump through the speakers on a continuing basis for 15 minutes. It is a nice upper limit but not all that representative. It turns out that most speaker drivers aren't even specified in RMS but in "music power". The reason is that by and large music output can be modeled with the same power per octave, so tweeters (let's say 3 octaves, 3kHz to 24kHz) that can survive 100W RMS power are sensibly matched to woofers (20Hz-3kHz would be about 7 octaves) that can survive more than double the RMS power. It is typical for bi-amped speakers to have power like 50W+10W (in addition to the lower acoustic power needs, tweeters can be built with higher sensitivities more easily).

That is the reason why hard clipping can smoke tweeters that are specced quite larger than the amp in theory: clipping makes the high frequency power content go way above what pink noise (constant power per octave) would deliver.

I know all this, and in the past I have had tweeters with wires that burned through because I had an FM radio that didn't suppress the 19kHz tone enough. Essentially the power of a speaker set is what the woofer can handle. The midrange speakers and tweeters have negligible power compared to the woofer. But the bass unit of the KC12 "K Column" is way too small to handle 3000 Watts, even for a short time, unless it has very very low sensitivity. From the looks of the KC12 I think it's more like 300 Watts than 3000.

 

[dak]

But the bass unit of the KC12 "K Column" is way too small to handle 3000 Watts, even for a short time, unless it has very very low sensitivity.

Low sensitivity does not help at all. All but the most sensitive speakers (good high frequency horn speakers) burn off essentially all electrical energy going in in the form of heat right in the driver coils. Most speakers turn less than 2% of the electrical energy they receive into sound and the rest into heat. That heat needs to get dissipated. The speaker action itself creates ventilation, and again low efficiency means lower ventilation and is bad news. A typical high-powered hair drier has about 1000W. A 3000W RMS speaker would need to vent three times the heat that a hair drier does.

So that "unless it has very very low sensitivity" does not help at all. What could help would be "unless its actual impedance is very very much higher than what it is rated for", meaning that it actually consumes way less electric power than the amp could deliver. Piezo tweeters go in that direction, and they also consume more apparent power than actual power, meaning that a significant part of the power the amp needs to handle is actually pumped back and forth between the tweeter and the amp and not consumed.

 

[Thomas N]

I have had a QSC K10 for a decade now. I love that speaker and it's what I use for my FR-8X. I can't remember, it's either 1000 or 2000 watts but you're all correct - it's fuzzy math. All I know is it's plenty loud and very portable and has been rock solid for me. I know they've had some issues with their newer K10.2 or K12.2 where it goes into protection mode and just shuts itself off!

I've always been very interested in the Bose system since it came out but the pricing was always a deterrent. Almost universally people that use it are very happy with it, however.

 

[KeysFla]

Seems Many of the new systems are designed for DJ usage. As we accordion players are just a small market. Since I got my Line Array Bose a couple years ago, I never get volume complaints. As more customers sit in the front row. It is more about sound dispersion which the Bose provides well.

 

[KeysFla]

This is why I went with the line array 16. Less reflection on the ceiling with the tight vertical top.

 

[JerryPH]

I have had a QSC K10 for a decade now.

I would say that the QSC K10 is a far better sounding product than the K-Column. It might not "disperse" as wide but then again, it has a cleaner sound, stronger bass.

Think of the K10 as a kind of mini Bose S1 Pro... lol
Close to the same level of sound quality (edge going to the QSC), less max power and you likely paid less for your K10 too (around $850CAD locally for me plus taxes).

Don't forget the small rule... double the power output, you get only a 3db sound increase, that is audible, but barely.

 

[debra]

This is why I went with the line array 16. Less reflection on the ceiling with the tight vertical top.

I would probably have bought the L1 Pro16 instead of the L1 Pro8 had I not already owned the L1 model 2 which is older but similar to the L1 Pro32. I play in a large accordion orchestra where the L1 model 2 is needed for the bass accordion. With a quintet I use the Pro8 and it's more than enough.

 

[Thomas N]

Good to know! I always thought I was missing out on something! No wonder I've been really happy with my K10. I have a small Yamaha mixer I use that seems to provide the sound I want to hear from the BK-7M and FR-8X.

 

[KeysFla]

Roland had 60 watt power amp in the 70s which I used for several years with a band I had. It was very clean…

 

[John M]

I have had a QSC K10 for a decade now. I love that speaker and it's what I use for my FR-8X. I can't remember, it's either 1000 or 2000 watts but you're all correct - it's fuzzy math. All I know is it's plenty loud and very portable and has been rock solid for me. I know they've had some issues with their newer K10.2 or K12.2 where it goes into protection mode and just shuts itself off!

I've always been very interested in the Bose system since it came out but the pricing was always a deterrent. Almost universally people that use it are very happy with it, however.

Price is always a pain when you buy (anything that is good quality). Funny, how after you have it and are very happy with it, you forget the price.
However, if you "get a good deal on price" and it is a piece of junk (the QSC K10 is not what I am talking about here), you never forget that. At least that's me.

 

[John M]

. . . (There is one niggle with that though: you have to make sure the line array is pressed down firmly for it to make contact with the base unit.)

If I push straight down, it is difficult. However, if I just get it into position and then "rock it" back and forth slightly, with a little pressure on top, it settles right down and makes contact every time.