When it comes time to decide on a speaker system in your church, Nexo, our French ally in audio, brings to us a successful line of speakers called the PS series for a number of applications. The latest addition to the lineup is the PS8 loudspeaker, designed to be used as a PA speaker, a stage monitor, or a near-field fill speaker.
Working with Audio Visual & Film Group from Minneapolis, I recently had the chance to use a pair of the cabinets on a corporate event in Orlando and found several items worth noting for the church market. While I used these speakers for near-field monitors, they are also well-suited for use as monitor wedge, fill speaker for lobby and choir loft, PA for small sanctuary, or portable speaker for use at weddings or other events.
These speakers are small, approximately sixteen inches high, ten inches wide, and nine inches deep, weighing a back-saving sixteen and a half pounds. The speaker has an asymmetrical shape to the cabinet so you can use it as a PA speaker or a wedge monitor. The small size of the cabinet makes it perfect for hiding in the worship area behind plants or architectural pieces for fill in the audience or in a performance area.
The PS8 features an eight-inch Neodymium driver for frequencies below 2.5 kHz while a one-inch Neodymium driver fitted to an asymmetrical horn handles the high frequencies. I was amazed at the warmth of the speaker and the smooth transition through the crossover point. The PS8’s factory specifications rate the frequency response at 69 Hz to 19 kHz (± 3dB).
The unique features about this Lilliputian speaker are readily evident when you first open the packaging, while others are hidden away in the sealed, Baltic Birch cabinet. Right away I noticed the solid feel to the construction, with all of the cabinet joints sealed with resin and a gasket firmly enclosing the connector panel on the back of the cabinet. This makes for a tight-sounding, efficient speaker when louder SPL is required. The cabinet sits at the perfect angle on the floor when you want to use it as a stage monitor while comfortably resting on a standard speaker stand in the PA configuration. Positioned on the 90-degree side, the PS8 also makes a great audience warmer or front fill.
The perforated metal grill screen popped off easily to expose the transducers inside, necessary not only to replace speakers, but also to simply rotate the asymmetrical horn for use as a wedge or PA speaker. This horn rotates into four positions, and is used in different positions according to your application. The coverage angles are asymmetrical above and below the center axis of the horn to ensure maximum coverage in a particular area.
Used in the PA (upright) position, the horizontal (side to side) coverage is 55 degrees while the dispersion above horn axis is 25 degrees vertical by 50 degrees horizontal. Below the horn axis, dispersion widens to 30 degrees vertical by 100 degrees horizontal, enabling the PS8 to achieve wide coverage in the front area of the audience while focusing energy from the top of the cabinet in a narrower pattern for longer throw.
If you wanted to use it as a stage monitor, rotate the horn so the 100-degree angle faces up while keeping the narrow pattern on the floor side to provide tighter coverage when the singer moves away from the wedge. As the singer moves closer to the monitor, the pattern widens to the 100-degree side, helping the high frequencies reach the ears of the listener.
Mounted on speaker stands or flown as a PA speaker, the 100-degree side is pointed down to maximize the coverage for the front rows, while preventing sound from bouncing off of the ceiling area from the 50 degree side. Knowing how to configure the coverage pattern of your PA will help you achieve maximum gain before feedback, especially when using sensitive lavalier or headset microphones. The rule of thumb is to cover only where people listen, trying to keep reflections and reverberation from walls, ceiling, and floor to a minimum.
With each position, the cabinet performed well and I liked them for use not only for reference monitors but also for a stage fill in the monitor position. I could come very close to the front edge of the stage, almost over the top of the monitor, and still hear the high frequencies from the horn.
The PS8 can be mounted in any position using the variety of accessories manufactured for the cabinet. It fits onto the traditional speaker stand with a plastic mounting cup sunk into the bottom of the cabinet. In addition, the PS8 can mount to a wall, truss, or TV spigot using the Nexo brackets which allow you to tilt or angle the speaker wherever needed. I see the advantage of the wedge shape configuration if you want to hide the cabinet in the soffit of a low ceiling or vertically place it in the corner of the room.
Another unique feature in the components of this cabinet is the low magnetic emissions from the transducers. When placed next to video monitors, the shielded drivers prevent interference compared to normal drivers which can cause video distortion. Since there was a video monitor directly behind me at FOH, this easy test proved the shielded rejection works with not a lick of interference in the monitor, even with the speaker sitting on top of it.
The Nexo components are proprietary and are not off-the-shelf transducers found in other speaker cabinets, with the result a reliable and consistent product in each cabinet.
The PS8 follows the Nexo tradition of passive crossover design, with the eight-ohm cabinet connected with Neutrik NL4 plugs to a single amplifier channel. Recommended power is 200 to 500 watts for one PS8, while two speakers ganged together in a four-ohm load needs 400 to 1000 watts per channel. I used the Crest 7001 amplifier with 550 watts per channel for the eight-ohm speaker load.
The passive design also requires a PS8 TD Controller in the signal chain to optimize the sonic quality of the cabinet. This processor provides amplifier sense inputs, protection limiting, crossover for the matching LS400 subwoofer, and system equalization for the PS8 speakers. The amplifier sense inputs connect the output of your amplifier to the processor to provide protection in the form of speaker displacement (excursion) and temperature as well as peak limiting in the signal chain. When I hooked up the speakers without the processor, the sonic quality was significantly reduced and the protection for the speakers was lost.
On the front panel of the processor is a switch for subwoofer activation, which activates the crossover between the PS8s and the LS400 subwoofer. This brings the crossover point up to 120 Hz for the PS8s and lets the sub output take care of the low frequencies.
In addition, there is a subwoofer gain control knob next to the switch for dialing in the amount of sub you want in the mix. Even though I did not have a subwoofer with my system, the low-end warmth was not missed in the PS8 speakers.
While at the NSCA convention in March, Nexo showed me the PS8 Amplifier for use with this system. This is an integrated amplifier that includes three channels of amplification as well as the processor and sensing of the TD Controller in one threerack space unit. While I did not have the chance to hear the amplifier, I liked that everything was in one simple package. On the other hand, some people like to have separate processing in case an amplifier fails and you have to switch to a spare amp.
If you desire more DSP control over your processing, Nexo also makes the NX241 Digital Controller, a fully configurable processor made for use with all Nexo products.
I really liked the sound of these cabinets and they performed very well as a low profile speaker. The warmth and brightness of these speakers made music, dynamic vocal microphones, and lavalier mics sound natural. I was happy to use them as reference monitors for the live mix during the show and often found myself turning them on just to sweeten up my own personal mix.
