Saw this on reddit: customer asking advice on sound quality

[andymunro]

https://www.reddit.com/r/DJs/comment...und_equipment/

I'm not sure if he's getting good advice back in the responses, but its the first time I've seen a past on there of a wedding customer asking DJs which sound system will be the better quality between 2 wedding DJs with 5 star ratings

[wapples]

Iam sorry I cant dignify that post (reddit one)

[not yours Andy i appreciate a good topic ]. I mean its up to all those variables i have some locations where I need to slightly EQ the system other times not. No matter what brand of PA Iam on of course i want it to sound great. What sort of question is it. That reminds me of a client i have at the moment wanting to see a video of me MC? Iam too busy and always go solo when I DJ so how am I suppose to record myself and besides every event is different. There are some tricky ones out there. I even had one that wanted to ensure all my music was at 320 bit rate? Not easy when most of their songs were from the 50's lol. Agggh you have to have a laugh i guess.
OPOAT

[andymunro]

Haha no worries wapples i know what you meant! That's why I thought I'd post it here to get some of your views on it, because in my opinion just the speakers might be technically better (I don't know that they are myself), but how would he know that the DJ can set them up properly for the room?

[prof_fate]

Video camera on a tripod with a remote..not hard to get yourself doing announcement. But yeah, i've had the same issues and am working on fixing it.

You can understand they want to see what' they're gonna get, but there's no way to have them crash a wedding to see you work (and that's how I explain it).

I've never had anyone ask about gear, bit rate, etc - i'm sure they're out there and i"m sure i'll get questioned at some point.

Iam sorry I cant dignify that post (reddit one)

[not yours Andy i appreciate a good topic ]. I mean its up to all those variables i have some locations where I need to slightly EQ the system other times not. No matter what brand of PA Iam on of course i want it to sound great. What sort of question is it. That reminds me of a client i have at the moment wanting to see a video of me MC? Iam too busy and always go solo when I DJ so how am I suppose to record myself and besides every event is different. There are some tricky ones out there. I even had one that wanted to ensure all my music was at 320 bit rate? Not easy when most of their songs were from the 50's lol. Agggh you have to have a laugh i guess.
OPOAT

[prof_fate]

I got some peavey PR12's after hearing a DJ use them - I like them, and for what they are they can't be beat. A local soccer league has had 2 PR10's OUTSIDE for 7 years and they still sound great (they are not exterior rated speakers).
Was at an event and the DJ had PR15's and they sounded like crap..worse than that actually. Not the speakers..it's him.

it's like watts - is more better or just hype? My old passive system is 250w, my newest active is 2200w for the same size speakers..more spl/DB from the new system? nope, and certainly not 9 or 10x louder for all those extra watts.

Haha no worries wapples i know what you meant! That's why I thought I'd post it here to get some of your views on it, because in my opinion just the speakers might be technically better (I don't know that they are myself), but how would he know that the DJ can set them up properly for the room?

[andymunro]

Ah prof I remember getting a ghetto blaster one year and a hi-fi system another for christmas, and I went purely off the watts listed in the argos catalogue, more meant louder which of course means better

[Windows 95]

Ah prof I remember getting a ghetto blaster one year and a hi-fi system another for christmas, and I went purely off the watts listed in the argos catalogue, more meant louder which of course means better

Marketing has trends on what they focus on. In the 1970s not much attention was focused on watts. (Most stuff was about 100 watts RMS.) Speakers focused on their frequency response. And other equipment focused on their THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) rating.

[monomer]

I got some peavey PR12's after hearing a DJ use them - I like them, and for what they are they can't be beat. A local soccer league has had 2 PR10's OUTSIDE for 7 years and they still sound great (they are not exterior rated speakers).
Was at an event and the DJ had PR15's and they sounded like crap..worse than that actually. Not the speakers..it's him.

it's like watts - is more better or just hype? My old passive system is 250w, my newest active is 2200w for the same size speakers..more spl/DB from the new system? nope, and certainly not 9 or 10x louder for all those extra watts.

It takes 10x the power to double perceived loudness.


"Watts" are a terrible way to rate a speakers output. Without proper spl vs frequency plots, at 1 watt rms/meter it's meaningless. It's only a power rating: and not what the box/driver is capable of doing with the given input throughout it's bandpass.