Hey there.
Thanks for the reminder. (Yes, I'd forgotten!) Excuses time ... we have been really busy. The wedding season has given us just about as much work as we can handle.
In a word, the RCF rig is AMAZING! The speakers overall range and superb quality of the sound which comes from these speakers is so good, I find myself wanting to compare them to hi-fi speakers. Audiophiles here will tell me this cannot possibly be true and I understand completely. PA/disco speakers are not hi-fi speakers, but the clarity and richness of the sound with a flat EQ is little short of stunning.
I am not the right person to give a technical review and I will do my best to describe the overall sound of these speakers as simply as I can, but expect a fair bit of waffle. (We DJs are good at that!)
We've had this rig on the road a few times now - and we've still taken out the Evolution rig for smaller venues, so we've had plenty of opportunity to familiarise ourselves with these beauties and make rough comparisons with the Evolutions. As with any size or brand, the acoustics of a venue can mess up ANY speaker system. We found this in no uncertain terms at a large hall near Newark recently which had a high ceiling and no acoustic damping whatsoever across what was a fairly large hall, i.e. paintings, curtains and drapes, etc. Lower frequencies managed to boooom quite unpleasantly in a few corners of this hall, but the RCF rig still sounded good when stood in front of them.
Where they have really come into their own is at outdoor venues such as marquees and in large open barns.
The higher end of the tops sound really nice and sweet. This is the part which spoke 'hi-fi' to my ears. These are only 12" tops but are VERY loud with their 131 dB rating. I find these tops don't deliver quite enough bass on their own, at least not for my liking, but they are competent and still give a good, solid sound by themselves. I would probably recommend the 15" tops if you aren't going to be using subs, not that I've heard the 15" tops, but I imagine they will deliver a fuller spectrum of sound.
To the bass bins: They really are OUTSTANDING! They deliver a superb and really tight low end (I'm talking 50-70 Hz) when it's present in the song. They don't seem to enhance or exaggerate anything. Having said that, I could contradict this and add that I have noticed some 120-150 Hz 'boom' on a few tracks where it probably shouldn't have existed, but I think venue acoustics were probably to blame for this.
The reason I say that the bass bins are outstanding is because I tried a few little experiments - and we're probably all guilty of doing this, but have you ever found a particular point in a track where there is a sudden burst of really low sub bass and wanted to crank up the volume a notch or two? As an example, The Shamen's Ebeneezer Goode has some very nice sub during the intro, which can be further enhanced by turning up the bass very briefly on the controller at the appropriate moments. With the rig has almost at full whack, I have find myself doing this, just to see how the cones would handled it, carefully to begin with, then somewhat more aggressively. I strongly expected the cones to start complaining, but they didn't even blink. The bass cones in he 15" subs are the 'long throw' type and so really shift the air. You can feel this at the venue. The tightness of the overall sound is very much apparent and you feel that 'shock' at times in certain songs. It makes you jump!
One very minor disappointment, but perhaps I am being too harsh here. I tend to use two tracks when setting up the gear, which give me an overall feel of the acoustics in each venue. The first song is Money's Too Tight To Mention. Love or hate Simply Red (I am not a fan) but it's a good, solid production and it's also a song I have heard many discos use as their setting-up track. I also use the 12" version of Billy Ocean's Get Outta My car as there is a particularly rich deep sub point at about 28-29 seconds into the song. I don't feel this being reproduced with any vigour in these subs, but it is just about there. An 18" sub would certainly deliver this faultlessly. As I say, maybe I am being too critical/unfair, as these subs really pack a punch apart from this.
We used the Evolution rig in a college the other week because I had injured my neck and didn't want to be lugging the RCF rig that night (They are MUCH heavier than the Evolutions.) Having got used to the RCF rig, I just couldn't drive the Evolutions in the same way. I still stand by what I have always said about the Evolutions. They are *amazing* value for money and a very proficient budget rig, which I am still happy to take out on the road, but they just do not cut it for outdoor venues.
That's a very long post but I can type at the speed of light! I hope it's of use.
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Originally Posted by John Faulkner
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