Too Many Mids & Highs?

[SoCaLBaMF]

When its overwhelming, all I think is the Euro rides with 2 12" woofers, 40 6" mids and 80 supertweeters thrown in with horns everywhere.

[TheMonolith2001]

This is exactly why I hate supertweeters. They are usually loudest mostly where your ears are most sensitive way up into ranges you can't even hear. There is no need for that other than PA applications and it is very difficult if not impossible to make that sound musical.

[Kevin M]

I love my ID horns and 12" full ranges. They balance really well with the 3 18" I do want more though. As long as you eq it properly with the right xover points I say go ham. I personally like the visceral impact from PA Speakers and would happily take tonality over imaging any day but that's just me. Tracks like dead leaves and the dirty ground by the white stripes or family system by chevelle let me know I made the right choice. Like everything else it comes down to preference.

[boom50cal]

ProAudio setups give me a head ache from hell. No alingment, sounds coming from all over the place, confuses your senses... To me, two pairs of nice components on clean power is more than enough for daily listening.

To anyone that has heard JP's tahoe, I know you know what I mean when I saw this: It is the most annoying fucking thing at shows. WAYY to many supertweeters. I swear I could hear it playing annoying ass songs over and over while I was getting demo's of bighoss and OBI's rides at Turkey Drag. Walk across the show to the carshow side, still hear JP's annoying ass ride.

On the same note, OBI has the nicest PA setup I've heard to date, which isn't saying much...

(note, I mean not saying much because I haven't heard too many different PA setups lolol)

[TheMonolith2001]

I love my ID horns and 12" full ranges. They balance really well with the 3 18" I do want more though. As long as you eq it properly with the right xover points I say go ham. I personally like the visceral impact from PA Speakers and would happily take tonality over imaging any day but that's just me. Tracks like dead leaves and the dirty ground by the white stripes or family system by chevelle let me know I made the right choice. Like everything else it comes down to preference.

What I read from this is that the sound you prefer is that "Live Rock Venue" type sound over the "Studio" type sound. Both of those tracks are recorded that way and you are using the same speakers you would use at a live venue to play them back. It makese sense for what you listen to. While for more dynamic/spacial sounding music not so much. I bet listening to Black Sabbath sounds pretty incredible on your setup.

[TRTC360]

Generally pro audio setups sound like shit because people don't tune them properly. Not because the drivers themselves sound bad.

[rockFord_Expedition]

For me personally, such a situation is possible, however I perceive it as not enough bass instead of adequate bass and too much of everything else.

[Kevin M]

I love my ID horns and 12" full ranges. They balance really well with the 3 18" I do want more though. As long as you eq it properly with the right xover points I say go ham. I personally like the visceral impact from PA Speakers and would happily take tonality over imaging any day but that's just me. Tracks like dead leaves and the dirty ground by the white stripes or family system by chevelle let me know I made the right choice. Like everything else it comes down to preference.

What I read from this is that the sound you prefer is that "Live Rock Venue" type sound over the "Studio" type sound. Both of those tracks are recorded that way and you are using the same speakers you would use at a live venue to play them back. It makese sense for what you listen to. While for more dynamic/spacial sounding music not so much. I bet listening to Black Sabbath sounds pretty incredible on your setup.

Yeah sabbath is pretty awesome. I definitely like the live sound much more. The horns do crossfire pretty hard and create a strong center image but the full range n the doors skew that a little. No biggie though. To be honest I wish I had more midbass. If I don't put another wall in the car this summer I may pull the trigger on some 15” peavey black widows to mount under the IB sub's. Well see... Talk about impact. My poor kidneys. Lol

[focused313]

It can but probably not for the reasons you think. Your hearing is not flat. You might have what you think is very little power/cone area compared to your sub but because your ears are more sensitive to that range it sounds like it is overpowering while maybe even on a meter not so much.

Research Fletcher-Munson Curve, Equal Loudness Curve, or Equal Loudness Contour. Make sure you read them carefully though because they read a bit differently than the typical graph. (There are many other curves as well that deal with this subject, but this is a good start)

This is another reason why you don't always want to tune completley flat. You might be putting out flat, but you wont be hearing flat. It is better to tune to one of these curves. If you want to get really specific you can tune to your specific hearing. I'm considering having my hearing mapped out and doing that.

Snowdrifter, What you want to look up is both what I mentioned before in combination with Listener Fatigue. A good tuning should be able to get really loud while not hurting your ears at all*. Sometimes its not even about loud though. I have used some headphones that sounded so terrible that it would make your ears hurt eventually just from the shitty response curve at any volume. Most likely they where loudest where my ears where most sensitive, but there are other factors that go into it as well, high distortion probably being one of them in that case. These where the cheap shitty 5-10 dollar types.

*By really loud I mean up to the threshold of pain, which is lower than you think. This system very well could have been just too damn loud. The threashold of pain is obviously where sound starts to hurt, and you start really fucking up your hearing in permanent ways. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_pain I know no one wants to admit it, but a lot of us on here are doing very serious damage to our hearing that will effect us for the rest of our lives. How much fun will it been when you can no longer hear bass (or much else) and only feel it? Be careful guys.

I hate that you're right. I've gone about 5 months without subs (weather) and I just put some in. I'm probably pushing 1500-1600w on my best day and I can still tell after playing it loudly for 30-60 minutes straight, I can't hear as well. I can't imagine how you guys are driving around with 3k+ watts rms, song after song, strong electrical, not doing deaf in a week.

[TheMonolith2001]

It's no joke. It's one of the main ways I keep talking myself out of going bigger and bigger. I don't want to destroy my ability to enjoy music. I already have a hearing disablity (It's like ear ADD, my ears focus on one thing and tune out everything else, it is both an advantage and a disadvantage. They don't always tune into what I want them to without concentrating really hard. It is really hard to get good imaging for me as well, I can ALWAYS tell where the speakers are) Have a look at what OSHA says about being in noisy environments:

https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=standards&p_id=9735

Yeah. If you are in an environment 115db or louder they don't want you exposed to it for more than FIFTEEN MINUTES A DAY. Now think about how EASY it is to hit 115db. It also says they don't want you exposed to anything above 140db EVER. That still isn't that hard to hit. I think that is probably a little bit overkill and I understand they have to cover their asses because they are supposed to be protecting people from harmful work environments, but how much do you really think you can stretch that out? Half hour a day? Hour a day? You can see how fast you damage your hearing. Think about all the older folks you know. They probably all have terrible hearing right? Did they ever have a 1kw+ sound system to listen to every day? I seriously doubt it.