Forum Home » Sound Reinforcement » Product Reviews: Sound Reinforcement » EAW UX8800s
| EAW UX8800s [message #216485] |
Sun, 03 June 2007 16:40  |
Geri O'Neil
Messages: 2058
Registered: April 2004
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We've had the UX8800s for 3 weeks now and I'm really liking what they do for our speaker rigs. At the time we got them, we had a string of small KF-850z w/ SB-1000 gigs while the 760 rig didn't move for a couple of weekends, but this past weekend, we finally had our first show with the 760s and the 8800s. I've written about the 8800s at the EAW forums, but I wasn't sure if there would be any interest around here about them (it's not a sub shoot-out after all). However, I would like to post some thoughts about them since they were fairly well anticipated, more so than I originally thought.
I defnitely like what they do for these two speaker rigs. I like it a lot. All of the comments that were made about the NT series of speakers can certainly be applied to the KF-760s and the KF-850zs. Smooth, sweet-sounding, clean, detailed, in-your-face without hammering you with volume. Naturally, all of that depends on what you're mixing through them and I can say that they won't improve a lousy band or mix. In fact, whatever is being played through them will be more accurately reproduced, which may or may not be a good thing... 
The units appear very-well built, even some of the beefiest rack ears I've ever seen. The top and sides of the unit is perforated for ventilation and I'm hearing mixed recommendations on whether or not there should be a single space left above the units when rack-mounted. There's the usual IEC power cable and I've got to figure out a way to secure the cables as there's no external screws on the panel-mount IEC connector to attach a retainer to (Troy, gotta call Markertek and see if they have an alternative, all those retainers I ordered are useless...  )
As for operational details, there's a lot of things going on in the 8800. It has two modes of operation. The first mode is yer basic system processor mode with all of the usual processor features, as well as improvements on those features. First, the communication is Ethernet. Yippee. There's also EAW's communication protocol (right term?) called U-Net which allows for transfer of communications data as well as audio from the first unit to the next units. This feature wasn't up and running on the units we got, but a firmware update is on the way to implement this feature (I'm thinking they sent these basically-operational units on out to shut me up, I've really been on their case for the last year and they've been quite good about it...  ). Another cool thing is that there's 12 filters per input and output. And finally, I can say that the things sound really good, just listening to them pass audio. I do believe there's an audio quality improvement over the 8750s, but that's a very unscientific statement, so take it for what it's worth.
The second mode is Loudspeaker Mode, which is where the Gunness Focusing comes into play. This is the mode that used to implement the Gunness Focusing to the various loudspeaker models and there's a library of speaker models in the control program (Although the 8800s are equipped with a full control interface, I've used the control program, called Pilot, almost exclusively). There's many focused speaker models available and I understand that many more are on the way (kinda makes me want to send our older model EAW wedges up there for some custom settings, but I'd hate to see what that would cost, even if they did agree to it... ). And yes, the output settings are locked. However, there's many parameters available for tweaking, including input parametrics, temperature and humidity settings, amp limiter settings, and a feature that is basically a "distance contour" setting. That last one is a lot to get into and I hope one of the guys will come in and explain it better than I can, as well as any inaccuracies I've made here. Understand that all of my observations are under very harried conditions and gig schedules.
I do hope that EAW can release some promotional literature that outlines just what all these things will do because it is somewhat deeper than I anticipated. And I don't want to make it sound like we weren't happy with our EAW gear before we got the 8800s, we've always had great results with the rigs and our repeat business can be somewhat attributed to the rigs we use. But with this processor, they've really hit on something, just about as close to setting up a PA, turning it on, and doing a show with little or no work, other than proper aiming and sub alignment. Speaking of subs, there are focused settings for various subs, and they did their job well. I've been more concerned with how vocals and other instruments sounded, but if things go as planned this weekend (no breath held around here, though), I hope to do some work with sub alignment and tone.
That's about all I can say in a synopsis of this sort. EAW definitely has a winner with the UX8800s. They will be great additions to current EAW speaker rigs and should be considered a necessary part of a system purchase, as with the V-Dosc system and its specific processors. They will also make a great processor for any speaker system, although there's a lot of functions that won't apply to a non-EAW system.
Geri O
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