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JBL Eon 515XT First Impressions: IT'S NOT LOUD ENOUGH!!!


Nu2Keys

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It's really not complicated at all. Get a small mixer and you can adjust the gain to the EON and you're done.

 

I use my NE2 with a Mackie SRM450 and a mixer all the time and there's plenty of volume.

 

Yeah, I mean, I understand how to do it (I think) but I just wanted to avoid having to have a separate mixer. I thought the Eon's built-in mixer would do that. I probably would have been better off if I had just gotten a powered PA head and used my EV speakers, but, that would have meant carrying two speakers and the head, three pieces, when the Eon by itself would do the job (I thought)!

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Actually, a small-format mixer and a powered speaker is a better choice than a powered mixer and a passive speaker. Most powered mixers sound like giant ass, tbh.

 

Absolutely!

 

You're on the right track Nu2Keys. It doesn't have to be much. Any small under $100 mixer and you're set. I wouldn't dream of gigging without a mixer. No matter what the system it's practically essential to be able to adjust EQ and levels at your kit.

 

I'd suggest not kludging together some cord to run out of the headphone jack. Just do this right. You will have a lot more fun this weekend

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What about using a DI into the mic input?

 

I've used a DI in order to use the mic input as a line in on an EON G2. It worked fine and gave me a third line in. The outboard mixer is another thing to carry and set up,but is a more flexible and sophisticated solution.

 

The G2 can get crazy loud. One former employer,a very loud guitarist,used to occasionally bellyache about my high volume. Now that's role reversal. A friend bought the next generation EON for his boards based on the performance of my G2 and was really let down by the lack of volume. Good luck in your quest.

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I wouldn't dream of gigging without a mixer.

 

Oh man, I've been dreaming of it for years. :) It was just a couple weeks ago that I stopped using a mixer with my K10, and it was liberating.

 

But your point is valid: I definitely feel more confident with a mixer. Especially when I need to be loud. But I'm going to look into that headphone-out solution to see if I could work it.

 

I have a dream of showing up to the gig with the Electro on my back, a K10 in one hand, and a stand in the other. Two power cables, an instrument cable, and a cable for the expression pedal, and its done! One trip and 4 cables: paradise!

:D

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Questions:

1. How is it that the NE2's output level isn't loud enough but the headphone output might be? Is that a design defect?

2. What is the Eon G2 that keeps being mentioned?

 

Headphones need a stronger signal (to power the headphones).

 

The Eon G2 is the second-generation Eon. The 515xt is the 4th generation. They were game-changers. I've used and abused a pair HARD for 8 years without a single problem.

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I wouldn't dream of gigging without a mixer.

 

Oh man, I've been dreaming of it for years. :) It was just a couple weeks ago that I stopped using a mixer with my K10, and it was liberating.

 

But your point is valid: I definitely feel more confident with a mixer. Especially when I need to be loud. But I'm going to look into that headphone-out solution to see if I could work it.

 

I have a dream of showing up to the gig with the Electro on my back, a K10 in one hand, and a stand in the other. Two power cables, an instrument cable, and a cable for the expression pedal, and its done! One trip and 4 cables: paradise!

:D

 

The less stuff you can carry and still do the gig the better IMO. I'm worst off now with a JBL Eon that I was playing thru a guitar or bass amp because apparently I'm going to have to have a mixer to power the #*%&^ thing!

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When I do use a mixer (esp if I happen to be carrying the EV SXA100's, which only have one line input), I have a very small Tapco mixer that has 1 mic and 2 stereo line level inputs - fits in the JBL speaker bag that I'm using now to carry small junk (pedals, power cables, signal cables, extension cord, GFI outlet and checker). So, it really isn't any large amount of extra stuff to carry. If I'm using my amps/speakers for FOH as well as monitoring, the little mixer means I've got level controls right beside me instead of having to go to the speaker/amp cabinets to make adjustments.

 

I wouldn't want to use that little mixer for recording, but its noise level is low enough that it works well for live performance.

 

Howard Grand|Hamm SK1-73|Kurz PC2|PC2X|PC3|PC3X|PC361; QSC K10's

HP DAW|Epi Les Paul & LP 5-str bass|iPad mini2

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Jim

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The less stuff you can carry and still do the gig the better IMO. I'm worst off now with a JBL Eon that I was playing thru a guitar or bass amp because apparently I'm going to have to have a mixer to power the #*%&^ thing!

 

Once you get the mixer, you'll have a much better sounding monitor than you had with the guitar or bass amp.

 

And, really, it's not the EON's fault - it's your keyboard outputting very low signal.

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The right kind of cable is an "insert" cable which has 1/4" TRS at one end and two 1/4" TS at the other. Use one TS and tape the other one out of harm's way with electrical tape. Use both if you ever get a stereo rig.
Excellent plan! BUT I'd say you have to plug both those TS cables into the EON, or you're missing half the sound! Stereo sounds like the Leslie Simulation won't get summed to mono.
I find that with most keyboards, either side alone sounds better than the two sides summed to gether. This is especially true for NE, and almost any Leslie sim. A counterexample is Rhodes stereo vibrato, but that still sounds odd summed to mono; don't use this effect when playing in mono.

 

It's too bad that this is true: more keyboards should use mid-side for stereo, so that when summed to mono the image just collapses. But the designers never listen to me! ;-)

 

Bottom line: do what sounds good for your gear and the patches you use, and be prepared to adjust the patches for whatever you end up using in any case.

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Most powered mixers sound like giant ass, tbh.
Totally agree! I wonder why that is. However, my Yamaha EMX5000 sounds great; nothing like the box-shaped powered mixers.

Questions:

1. How is it that the NE2's output level isn't loud enough but the headphone output might be? Is that a design defect?

The NE2 is -10dBV, the JBL is +4dBu. Different standards, that's all. Is it a design flaw that neither has a switch to operate using the alternate standard? No, it's just a feature that's not there.

 

If you don't want to carry a mixer, just use the headphone output. Feel free to plug both sides (left and right) of the adaptor cable into the JBL -- see whether you prefer both or just one. Remember that louder sounds better, so be sure to make equal-volume comparisons.

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Why that is, Jeff, is because the box-shaped mixers are giant amplifiers with a PCB's attached to the front for the mixer portion, where your Yammy is a mixer with a giant amplifier attached to the back.

 

Read: Your Yammy is a mixer first, amplifier second. Box PM's are amplifiers first, mixer second. Makes all the difference in the world. ;)

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I'd say you have 2 really simple options you can try without resorting to adding any kind of significant expense, complexity, or having to plug anything else in:

 

1) insert cable from headphone out...no different than what you're doing now, just a different cable plugged into a different jack.

 

2) DI into mic input. Ok, it adds one piece, a DI. But those can be had for cheap, are very small, and most keyboard players should be expected to bring one to a live gig anyway. This would be a clean solution and should deliver plenty of signal for a mic input.

 

 

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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His ZR76 will be louder, but not way louder; it still won't get the full volume out of the JBL because it's also -10dBV.

 

Why that is, Jeff, is because the box-shaped mixers are giant amplifiers with a PCB's attached to the front for the mixer portion, where your Yammy is a mixer with a giant amplifier attached to the back.

 

Read: Your Yammy is a mixer first, amplifier second. Box PM's are amplifiers first, mixer second. Makes all the difference in the world. ;)

I like that theory, though I have two contrasting data points.

 

1) the power amps in those boxes suck too

2) I had an EV-Tapco powered mixer (100M? something like that) which was a wedge mixer with a power amp attached at the back, nice massive heat sinks too. And it sucked! Noisy mixer, no headroom, grungy power, ick. I used it for 20 years, even. (lol) I'm kinda glad that it got stolen out of my van so I could replace it with the Yamaha. They also took my 30-yr-old EV FM12's, which aren't as good as the JBL JRX112M's I replaced them with, but I wish I still had them. Money well spent in that case!

 

But still, I think you have a point. And then there's my other theory. When designing them, the engineers know we expect them to suck, and they stick all the sucky stuff they can think of in there.

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Yes, to a lot I've read. No to some of it!

 

I just want to add my agreement, a small mixer is a nice solution... as said, it's not necessarily the speaker that is quiet, could be you just need to send more in to it...

 

And wattage tends to not mean much in terms of perceived volume. I discovered this when i could get way more out of my 30 watt vox valvetronix and than my 65 watt roland KC.

 

Unfortunately I'm not very scientific, so I try instead to imagine volume by how large the thing is, or going and hearing a speaker (or one similar to that speaker) with an ipod (because they have a pretty hot signal)

 

You could also get you're own DI, and have a send going to you're speaker. What you need is a gain level... as you get on the mixer, or some way to treat the signal from the keyboard like a mic on you're speaker... aka DI. It's a good way to go anyway

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Can' we get a recording of the sound, it's easy to find out if the 25 incher is already breaking up and bass port thingies are already nicely protesting with compressed air, and of course it is easy to hear if the digital amp is doing the equivalent of clipping, which would indicate maximum power in some sense has been reached.

 

Reardless of (mainly loudness and resonance) issues which can indeed make *major* difference in perceived power, 525 watts and a 100 watts of power specified by a serious manufacturer like JBL should be usable in one way or maybe even a number of ways to create quite a soundblast, so that standing right in front of it you should at least be able to hear yourself play...

 

I'm sure there are many ways to make the signal hot enough or even to get the amps to distort and therefore be sure you've hit the limit: I've regularly used a Lexicon Omega for such purpose, which nowadays is cheap and of good quality and can mono-sum and has balanced IO's. Might cost a serious gig profit margin but gives you a nice computer interface, too (For about 160 euros in Europe). Small mixers will without much doubt distort your signal and create harmonic distortion, which you may or may not .

want on your instrument.

 

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His ZR76 will be louder, but not way louder; it still won't get the full volume out of the JBL because it's also -10dBV.

 

Why that is, Jeff, is because the box-shaped mixers are giant amplifiers with a PCB's attached to the front for the mixer portion, where your Yammy is a mixer with a giant amplifier attached to the back.

 

Read: Your Yammy is a mixer first, amplifier second. Box PM's are amplifiers first, mixer second. Makes all the difference in the world. ;)

I like that theory, though I have two contrasting data points.

 

1) the power amps in those boxes suck too

2) I had an EV-Tapco powered mixer (100M? something like that) which was a wedge mixer with a power amp attached at the back, nice massive heat sinks too. And it sucked! Noisy mixer, no headroom, grungy power, ick. I used it for 20 years, even. (lol) I'm kinda glad that it got stolen out of my van so I could replace it with the Yamaha. They also took my 30-yr-old EV FM12's, which aren't as good as the JBL JRX112M's I replaced them with, but I wish I still had them. Money well spent in that case!

 

But still, I think you have a point. And then there's my other theory. When designing them, the engineers know we expect them to suck, and they stick all the sucky stuff they can think of in there.

 

I like that theory.... :D

 

That said, there's a reason why those boxes are known as "Bingo PA"... :D

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Bingo PA -- never heard that but I like it! er, the name, not the thing :laugh:

 

Plus, try another board besides the electro.
What difference does THIS make?
The electro is noted as having a relatively weak output signal, among -10dBV gear. I have to turn its gain up 3 to 6 dB higher on my mixer than my MR-76. I believe that's bhodaway's point, or possibly that there's something wrong/worse with this particular NE, which is also valid.

 

In any case, I think we've beaten this particular dead horse enough. We know what's going on and have a number of good solutions.

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Oops, one more beat on the dead horse.

 

Frogmonkey was RIGHT!

... there's a mic/line switch on the new Eon. Switch it to "mic" and it will be much more sensitive. Be careful, because it will be a LOT hotter. You might have to turn down the volume on the electro to keep it from clipping.

 

Based on what the user's guide says, it doesn't affect the input impedance; the input (for either mic or line) is always hi-Z, and the switch only changes the gain.

 

Definitely give that a try! Sounds like the best & simplest solution. But then go easy on the volume knob; you'll have to keep it quite low. Watch that red peak LED to know if you're overdoing it. Occasional flashes are fine, lots of red is bad.

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Oops, one more beat on the dead horse.

 

Frogmonkey was RIGHT!

... there's a mic/line switch on the new Eon. Switch it to "mic" and it will be much more sensitive. Be careful, because it will be a LOT hotter. You might have to turn down the volume on the electro to keep it from clipping.

 

Based on what the user's guide says, it doesn't affect the input impedance; the input (for either mic or line) is always hi-Z, and the switch only changes the gain.

 

Definitely give that a try! Sounds like the best & simplest solution. But then go easy on the volume knob; you'll have to keep it quite low. Watch that red peak LED to know if you're overdoing it. Occasional flashes are fine, lots of red is bad.

 

Well, if that solves the problem than I'm a happy guy. However, it doesn't seem intuitive to me to set an input to 'mic' setting when using a keyboard. I'm still learning...

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Based on what the user's guide says, it doesn't affect the input impedance; the input (for either mic or line) is always hi-Z, and the switch only changes the gain.

 

Definitely give that a try! Sounds like the best & simplest solution. But then go easy on the volume knob; you'll have to keep it quite low. Watch that red peak LED to know if you're overdoing it. Occasional flashes are fine, lots of red is bad.

 

Well, if that solves the problem than I'm a happy guy. However, it doesn't seem intuitive to me to set an input to 'mic' setting when using a keyboard. I'm still learning...

Normally, that's correct, you would not want to switch it to Mic if it changed impedance. In this case, it could be okay to do based on the above.

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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....Here's a possible solution for you. From the specs, it looks like there's a mic/line switch on the new Eon. Switch it to "mic" and it will be much more sensitive. Be careful, because it will be a LOT hotter. You might have to turn down the volume on the electro to keep it from clipping....

 

There is 'one' mic/line switch on the back of the Eon 515XT, located close to the third input. I assumed it was for the third input ONLY, but maybe it is global. If it is a global switch, then I guess it changes ALL of the inputs from mic to line? Seems odd to me.

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There is 'one' mic/line switch on the back of the Eon 515XT, located close to the third input. I assumed it was for the third input ONLY, but maybe it is global. If it is a global switch, then I guess it changes ALL of the inputs from mic to line? Seems odd to me.

 

With all due respect, have you even bothered to read the manual for this thing? :freak:

 

 

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Very informative thread!

 

This is way OT, but all the guitar references reminded me of the best guitarist I've ever played with. Not only was he the most talented in terms of musicianship, but he also had the best tone. He simply used a Marshall head (unsure of model, wattage, etc....it seemed fairly standard) and a cabinet containing four ten-inch speakers (I think...do they have cabinets with four 12" speakers? It was a rather large cabinet.). No effect pedals whatsoever. Anyhow, he would crank up that thing so loud....but here's the catch: he played with the cabinet facing backwards! So he was able to obtain this killer tone, and not blow any of us away. I miss that dude....

"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."

- George Bernard Shaw

 

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Very informative thread!

 

This is way OT, but all the guitar references reminded me of the best guitarist I've ever played with. Not only was he the most talented in terms of musicianship, but he also had the best tone. He simply used a Marshall head (unsure of model, wattage, etc....it seemed fairly standard) and a cabinet containing four ten-inch speakers (I think...do they have cabinets with four 12" speakers? It was a rather large cabinet.). No effect pedals whatsoever. Anyhow, he would crank up that thing so loud....but here's the catch: he played with the cabinet facing backwards! So he was able to obtain this killer tone, and not blow any of us away. I miss that dude....

 

It's a 4x12

 

Our guitar player uses a 2x12 combo amp (Marshall), but doesn't crank it all that loud and faces it sideways (firing across the stage, side to side) so the mics don't pick it up.

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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Seriously, unless you're playing a stadium, there's no need for that much racket.

 

I'm currently playing a 1x12 80-watt SS combo, and will be moving to an 8-watt 1x10 tube combo very soon. Why? Because all I need is enough volume to hear myself along with the rest of the band, and I can accomplish that with a small amp pointing up at me on an amp stand. Furthermore, I can crank an 8-watt tube amp right to that beautiful edge of breakup, get all the resonance I need out of it for sustain, and do it all without stomping all over the rest of my bandmates.

 

What good does it do me to have an amp screaming loud (which is what you have to do with those massive 100-watt tube amps that you plug into those 4x12 cabs in order to get what you REALLY want out of them, which is natural tube saturation) and dominating the stage mix if no one else can hear WTF they're playing and the band suffers as a result?

 

If it were the "Griffinator Blues Band", and I were an arrogant asshole that only cared about my guitar tone, it would make sense for me to play a 4x12 with a huge amp onstage.

 

Since I play in the "Local rock/blues/whatever band", all I'm doing is making more work for myself on load-in/load-out and giving the sound man a whole bunch of grief he doesn't need.

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