Hello everyone,
Currently our church's activity center PA system consists of arrays of 3 JBL VRX928LAs on each LR and stereo Martin Audio subs all controlled by DriveRack PA2. The PA2 works well for our needs, but we're thinking of relegating it to 2nd duty on a mobile PA rack running Bose F1s and couple SA subs and upgrade the DSP for the main system. We're debating between BBS FDS366T, Ashly Protea 3.6SP or miniDSP DDRC-88A all on the used market (trying to save the church some $$). What are your thoughts on which we should go with? What are the pros and cons? I've done some initial research on these, but would appreciate your advice and first-hand experiences with these units. Also tips on best places to find them would help too. I'm mainly looking at ebay and Reverb. I saw that a diyAudio member here may have a DDRC-88A on sale, but since I'm new, I'm blocked from contacting him atm.
TiA
Currently our church's activity center PA system consists of arrays of 3 JBL VRX928LAs on each LR and stereo Martin Audio subs all controlled by DriveRack PA2. The PA2 works well for our needs, but we're thinking of relegating it to 2nd duty on a mobile PA rack running Bose F1s and couple SA subs and upgrade the DSP for the main system. We're debating between BBS FDS366T, Ashly Protea 3.6SP or miniDSP DDRC-88A all on the used market (trying to save the church some $$). What are your thoughts on which we should go with? What are the pros and cons? I've done some initial research on these, but would appreciate your advice and first-hand experiences with these units. Also tips on best places to find them would help too. I'm mainly looking at ebay and Reverb. I saw that a diyAudio member here may have a DDRC-88A on sale, but since I'm new, I'm blocked from contacting him atm.
TiA
A PA processor is mostly redundant with powered speakers, how are you using the one you have? That said the VRX932 can use some additional EQ to tame the icepick to the forehead sound they have but that can be done on the mixbus feeding the speakers too... assuming a modern digital mixer is at FOH.
The JBL are being driven by a Crown XTi hooked to PA2's High output. The Martins are hooked to the Lo output. The profile is a custom one since VRX are listed (since theyre Harman products) but the Martins aren't listed. Room EQ was derived from the Auto EQ with the included mic. I like the icepick analogy and you're not wrong 
I read up and learnt to set the Amplitude Configuration Selector switch on each cabinet to tame the HF of each. That helped and the PA2 eq helped too I bet, but I just feel that there are better controllers out there. Considering the space is a gym with wooden floor and cinderblock wall, which thankfully they recently walled over with metal studs and drywall, and added dampening panels from Amazon. Still I think further improvement can be made in term of room correction. That's why I'm looking at the miniDSP stuffs with their Dirac Live. The FOH is a Soundcraft Impact Si 32. currently I don't think any EQ is on the mixbus since we're letting the PA2 handle that with its AutoEQ.
I read up and learnt to set the Amplitude Configuration Selector switch on each cabinet to tame the HF of each. That helped and the PA2 eq helped too I bet, but I just feel that there are better controllers out there. Considering the space is a gym with wooden floor and cinderblock wall, which thankfully they recently walled over with metal studs and drywall, and added dampening panels from Amazon. Still I think further improvement can be made in term of room correction. That's why I'm looking at the miniDSP stuffs with their Dirac Live. The FOH is a Soundcraft Impact Si 32. currently I don't think any EQ is on the mixbus since we're letting the PA2 handle that with its AutoEQ.There are but in terms of sound quality you're getting into fractional percentages of significance similar to the percieved differences between preamps.. which is to say most people wouldn't hear any difference. But that said there may be some functional improvements you may benefit from such as remote control, the DBX Venu 360 is better in this regard.
Did you take multiple measurements around the room and average out the correction? Auto EQ can be a somewhat useful tool but it's dumb in that is can't differentiate between direct and reflected energy, so the user has to know that some coverage problems cannot be fixed with EQ. For example nodes(peaks and nulls) in the response are a result of speaker-room interaction both in terms of reflected mid-high energy and constructive/destructive interference at lower frequencies. The former can be tamed with sound absorbing materials but the latter can only be altered by physically repositioning subs or by adding additional subs in other locations.
I appreciated the input. As far as measurements go, I took measurements called out by the PA2 setup Wizard. It is surprisingly short and un-scientific, which gave me doubts about it. I'm in the process of learning REW, how that will help me remains to be seen, but I heard great things about it. There is a lot to learn now that I dove into this.