El Cheapo PA speakers

[spasticteapot]

I have a carton of NSBs - inexpensive 4" fullrange drivers good for about 90dB/1W and 10-15W of power handling. I'd like to build two line arrays of 16 per side, and use these for some inexpensive PA speakers. I've also got a carton of 200 Onkyo tweeters, though I'm not sure I'll use them - comb filtering is bad, but no tweeters greatly reduces the potential for clipping damage.

How low can I get away with using these before I really need a sub? Any thoughts on their use?

[killersoundz]

I have a carton of NSBs - inexpensive 4" fullrange drivers good for about 90dB/1W and 10-15W of power handling. I'd like to build two line arrays of 16 per side, and use these for some inexpensive PA speakers. I've also got a carton of 200 Onkyo tweeters, though I'm not sure I'll use them - comb filtering is bad, but no tweeters greatly reduces the potential for clipping damage.

How low can I get away with using these before I really need a sub? Any thoughts on their use?

Uhhhh....what is the application? You will never be able to pass those drivers off as a "PA" without a sub array. Those are not going to make the best PA speakers either. Might be OK in like a coffee shop or band rehearsal for vocals but I think that's as far as you'll get. The power handling just isn't there. Not trying to sound like a a-hole.

[dthomas]

I have a carton of NSBs - inexpensive 4" fullrange drivers good for about 90dB/1W and 10-15W of power handling. I'd like to build two line arrays of 16 per side, and use these for some inexpensive PA speakers. I've also got a carton of 200 Onkyo tweeters, though I'm not sure I'll use them - comb filtering is bad, but no tweeters greatly reduces the potential for clipping damage.

How low can I get away with using these before I really need a sub? Any thoughts on their use?

I have some experience with those drivers and while I don't disagree they are not going to be a real high output PA they will be ok for a small venue if you cross them to a sub at around 150Hz. Below 150Hz they will run out of steam way to easily.

I have some of those tweeters and am considering something similar my biggest concern is how those tweeters will handle feedback etc... I guess if you use enough of them they should handle it. But again it won't be a system that will take massive power but should work for light duty PA use.

As good as the bose sticks I would guess.

[spasticteapot]

I have some experience with those drivers and while I don't disagree they are not going to be a real high output PA they will be ok for a small venue if you cross them to a sub at around 150Hz. Below 150Hz they will run out of steam way to easily.

I have some of those tweeters and am considering something similar my biggest concern is how those tweeters will handle feedback etc... I guess if you use enough of them they should handle it. But again it won't be a system that will take massive power but should work for light duty PA use.

As good as the bose sticks I would guess.

I was figuring I'd use these in place of a single 2-way PA cabinet, along the lines of the fairly generic 12-15" speakers you see everywhere. I was hoping to get away with crossing them at 100hz and using a single sub.

[kduggan]

I made a pair of 16 Driver 4 sided, 4 drivers on all 4 sides of the box, using NSB's and the GM 4x6 closeouts and both are fine for background music and speech, I use them at a wakeboard event to spread the sound out evenly along the shore.
The NSB's have issues and are hard to get eq'd so i added some cheap tweeters I had here, kind like the goldwood mylars, but that didn't work well either. I ended up using piezo tweets and low passing the nsb's at around 5k second order and picking up the tweets around 7K if memory serves.
Neither can be used without a dedicated Eq especially indoors, but coverage area per $ they are hard to beat.