Using PA Speakers In A Home "Audiophile" Application!

It depends on the speaker just like home audio. Some are trash and same are amazing. 
 

When I look at a speaker like the JBL VTX’s (huge and expensive) drivers and layout I have to believe they are exceptional. The drivers are pretty similar to the JBL M2 but probably have some changes in the motor (more mass) for heat control. But it is a PA speaker with controlled directivity in mind. pretty amazing engineering and not just a shiny box. Not sure they could fit in a typical home lol….
 

quote from website. 
“VTX V25 is fitted with JBL’s precision-engineered 3rd generation HF waveguide technology producing a properly time-aligned, coherent high frequency wavefront that maximizes the combined output of three D2 Dual Drivers. While producing a wavefront that is sufficiently flat to couple properly at extreme high frequencies, the active radiating surface area extends to the edge of the enclosure, thereby ensuring optimized vertical coupling even when enclosures are tightly-wrapped at 10 degrees.”

I confess to being one of those “reverse guys” :…with Wharfdale Heritage Lintons and an REL T5i , streaming WiFi through an ESS Sabre DAC, connected with Mogami cables, but I love my high current mid-80s Crown PS-200 amps. They’ve been serviced at AE Techron after early careers in commercial PA sittings, one in a small theater and the other in a church in Virginia. Bought them both on EBay for peanuts. Barely have $1k in them total.

The expertise shared here has been invaluable in refining my home listening enjoyment and taming these amps, but to my ears it’s hard to beat the great damping factor, wide dynamic range and high overhead of these legendary pro-audio workhorses. My Lintons can dip to 3 ohms and the Crowns push 133 wpc into 4 ohms.

This group helped create my sound stage with key advice. The ideal line-in level for older amps is lower than the hot modern DACs generate and once I added an unpowered Shiit preamp to tamp down the gain from my streamer, the Crown delivered amazing imaging.

Not a sound pro, but an event marketing person who spends time on the stage deck at existing events like DefFest and have dealt with stage manager details, production specs and road crews for 35 years. The input in this thread about the engineering and reliability requirements in touring level pro audio is on the money.

But the hobby history side of all this is fascinating to me…especially the early days when the Dead and the Allmans used early Macintosh and Crown solid state amps get get the combination of volume and reliability they needed on tour.

Our home audio hobby has many flavors and I really got a kick out of building a couple of stereos powered by same amp architecture as the Allmans used at the Fillmore :) Paul at PS Audio is a teller of truth, and he’s probably right saying that these early Crowns have a high end that sounds like breaking glass to his educated ears but I’ve enjoyed creating an Input chain and speaker level output hardware that tames it.

I have a full Carvin PA in my garage that I use for vocals in a live band I also put a Cdplayer thru this 9000 watt system using my old Cal Audio Labs Icon . Basically  have a club system and it pumps 2 sub woofers , 4 mains and three monitors

Not audiophile but not supposed to be .....my  Mac system in my house is for vinyl 

@ellajeanelle wrote:

... When you want "raw power" and high sound pressure levels there is no substitute, but if you want refinement, hi fi speakers are the way to go. You have to decide what you are after. Just my humble opinion...

In my humble opinion, one doesn’t necessarily have to exclude the other. PA speakers have many good offerings for domestic use - some options have already been mentioned.

More to the point though, much if not most of the bias against PA/pro speakers for home use comes from prejudice and "listening" with the eyes. If there’s any real experience to speak of it’s from concerts blasting away with serious SPL’s and gear closer to its limits than not, and how’s that an indication for use in a home setting? Try hanging up a bunch of Wilson’s or other hifi speakers in large clusters, just for sports, and have them perform at concerts at the end of their ropes. There’d be mostly smoke, I might add, other than the fact it wouldn’t sound anything like it would at home. Alright, as an outset either segment of speakers are built for their specific purpose, but one of them will do better in both scenarios, and it isn’t the hifi speakers.

Seriously, how many audiophiles have tried speakers from the pro segment in the home setups, and who even cares to? Ramble on this, ramble on that. Moreover, PA is just one segment of the pro sector; there are pro cinema speakers as well, that is to say large high efficiency speakers that can take loads of power, and they’re often better suited for home audio reproduction.

I’m not claiming hifi and pro segment speakers sound the same in a home setting, but where they differ it’s no necessarily at a disadvantage for pro speakers. For starters, blanket statements about how pro speakers can’t sound refined, is bollocks. Claims about their lack of imaging capabilities aren’t well founded either, I find. That being said it’s important to know all pro segment speakers aren’t the same, and while some of them may be less suited for home environments from a refinement and imaging point-of-view, others are downright great.

For those who have gone to great lengths finding and optimizing their particular hifi speakers in their homes, well-implemented pro segment speakers mayn’t be their cup of tea, certainly not at first (and once preconceptions may have worn off). I’m not saying that implying all such people would find pro speakers to sound bad by comparison, but merely that there would be differences in the presentation that might trigger them into believing that initially. Preferences and all, and not least habitual exposition.

Bear in mind that one can optimize pro speakers in one’s home as well; it’s not exclusive to hifi speakers. And whereas most hifi speakers are passively configured, many pro speakers are configured actively, outboardly as well, and the latter in particular offers some distinct advantages over passive speakers optimizing them into their specific acoustic environment even more thoroughly.

Why would pro speakers sound different to hifi dittos? Look at the physics and design of things, and then compare them to the segment of hifi speakers that are high efficiency and capable of fairly high power handling as well. As such some hifi speakers could also be labeled pro-ish segment, but they’re just neatly wrapped in veneers or lacquer, not to mention oftentimes being very expensive. By comparison pro speakers intended for the pro sector are typically larger and more rugged looking, but more importantly they’re designed to actually meet a design goal and application from a basis of raw functionality, whereas hifi iterations of this segment of speakers are typically compromised by size limitations to cater to domestic demands, with all that entails as to their functionality.

The question could be raised whether the design goals for a pro application make sense for use in a home setting, but to me the most important takeaway is whether there are any obvious impediments to stand in the way for proper integration here. Designing a product more strictly from the basis of functionality to me is both meaningful and beneficial in a home setting, not to mention honest and "what you see is what you get." Lastly and not least: if it sounds great, it sounds great - irrespective of whatever the hell.