Growler Review by Adam Williamson
Posted on 10. Apr, 2008 by admin in Reviews
Friday night I set up sound at a place here in Philly. One QSC PL380 powered my EV T351’s and another PL380 powered 4 growlers centered between the tops. The guys running the room were “concerned” because my system was much smaller than what they have been using in the past. After a few minutes the two DJ’s and the venue manager greeted me with grins on their faces. They said that the room has NEVER sounded better and they wanted to know if they could book the system for multiple dates over the next year.
After a few hours sleep we loaded up the 4 remaining Growlers and headed for North Philly. There we loaded all 8 Growlers, the EV and EAW tops and all my amps into an old hand operated freight elevator destined for the 3rd floor. The room itself measures 95’ x 50’ with tall ceilings. The warehouse used to be used for some type of machining and there are still odd controls, motors, and rigging left over from times long past. One panel has a bunch of meters and rheostats that used to control overhead lifts. It’s a very cool space.
I center clustered the growlers horizontally right in front of the DJ booth. The EV’s were flown from the ceiling about 25’ apart. The EAW FR153z’s were placed 20’ back the same distance apart as the EV’s. All speakers were placed facing the back of the house. The objective was to extend the coverage area back about 2/3 of the length of the room. Processing was handled by a DCX2496. The crossover was set with a BW48 at 35Hz and a BW48 at 130Hz for the Growlers. The EV’s received 130Hz and up and the EAW’s received 150Hz and up. A 5.92ms delay on the front of house EV’s and 15.26ms for the EAW’s lined up the boxes perfectly. Juice was provided by a dedicated 60amp 240 circuit I ran for the distro. That was enough for me to run both PL380’s, the 4050HD and the 2350 without worrying that I was going to pop a breaker half way through the night. With the PL380’s running stereo, 2 growlers per channel, that gave us 10,000 watts for 8 bins.
The result was nothing less than amazing. Both bands and every DJ thanked me over and over for the best sound they’ve ever heard. The dance floor was packed from the moment we opened the doors till 5:30am when the cops burst in and shut us down. Over the evening we had about 1500 guests and our room never dropped below 400 people. Over and over throughout the night random people took the time to search me out and say “thank you”. You should have seen the look on guys faces when I would tell them that they were listening to 12” drivers.
The parties were a great success. I love the subs, thanks.
Adam
