EV ETX Speakers and EKX

[joe40]

I'm new to the forum and new to PA and DJ equipment. I'm looking into buying a PA system for personal use (karaoke, Music playback) primarly in my backyard patio ( i have a huge lot, nearest neighbor is about 40 yards away) and sometimes at a friends house who lives out on a ranch. Some of neighbors already have loudspeakers and I hear them once and a while during the weekends when they party, so I'm sure they won't get upset if I play them once and a while. I'm not searching for the loudest system but something that has GREAT sound at moderate to lower volumes. I went to my local DJ equipment store and listened to the K12, DAS Avant 15, and EV ETX 15p, I was most impressed with the sound quality of the EV ETX. The sales guy mentioned EV made another line the EKX but he didn't have them in stock for me to listen. I was about to pull the trigger on the ETX but decided to hold off until I researched the EKX line. I have a few questions that maybe you can help answer.

1. Is there a sound quality difference between the EKX and ETX lines (keep in mind I don't think I would ever push them close to the limits)?

2. Would 2 ETX 12p inch tops be ideal for clean vocals and music playback?

3. Should I also include 1 sub or 2? ETX 15 ? (Keep in mind this will be outside covering a large patio)

4. Any other brand I should be looking at?

5. In your opinion should I be looking at another type of system? Is EV ETX or EKX overkill for what I need?

Equipment I had in mind purchasing:

2 - ETX 12p (for tops with stands)
1 - ETX 15 sub (maybe 2)
1 - Allen and Heath ZED 60-10FX Mixer
2 - Shure mics (thinking Beta 87C )

[conanski]

Yes the ETX series are noticable cleaner and clearer sounding than the EKX in the midrange vocal area due to the slightly larger compression driver, but at relatively low volumes I don't know if that would be as obvious as it is at higher drive levels. The most compact and best sounding system from these two lines would be ETX-10p tops with a single EKX-15p sub.

But given the fact you probably won't explore maximum output capabilities of either of these lines have a look at the much more compact EV ZXa1 series with 8+1 tops and a 12" sub.

As for the rest of the gear I won't question the mixer as that is a very nice unit but the mics are another story. The Beta 87c is a nice mic but you can have much the same performance for half the price with the Audio Technica AT2010. But do you need condensers? They are more sensitive and therefore more forgiving for shy vocalists who can't stay right on the mic, but that same sensitivity means they pickup more of everything else around them so they can be more feedback prone and require more EQ to isolate the vocalist in noisy environments. So as nice as they are sometimes a standard dynamic mic works better and for that I like the Sennheiser E835 over the "industry standard" SM58 simply because the Sennys are more hi-fi sounding and cost less.

[BillESC]

As Paul said, the ZXA1s paired with the ZXA1-Subs will impress you, be easier to use and save you considerable money.

+1 on the Audio Technica mic.

[joe40]

Thank you for the information. I went to my local DJ store and they the EKX 12 and ETX 15 and I heard both of them at low volumes, the ETX sounded much better to me, more musical, very clean.