Wharfedale Pro PMX-700 System
which isn’t surprising as they offer many advantages compared to standard ¼-inch jacks.
For starters Speakon connectors
The compact PMX-700: 300 watts, built in digital effects and plenty of oomph…
control panel and there are 16 separate effects available as 14 individual presets, plus two preset combinations of chorus and reverb. The presets include 10 different types of reverb: Room, Hall, Plate and the two special ‘custom’ preset combinations we previously described, so there is plenty of scope for adding an some extra punch or an appropriate ambience to a live vocal or instrument. Besides the reverb presets the
built-in effects also include a smattering of popular time-delay based modulation effects: chorus, flanging and two digital delays. A faux Leslie rotary speaker simulation provides wobbly vintage-inspired undulations and the intriguing- sounding Vocal Canceller eliminates the vocal from a pre-recorded stereo backing track, leaving the original backing track clear for karaoke party sessions! The effects presets
are global, which means that the same effect will be available to all of the channels at any one time and while the presets parameters cannot be changed or programmed this is more of a help than a hindrance; everything is already laid out for you, all the user need do is select the type of effect that they need, set the overall effects mix and it’s all good to go.
Rear Panel Spinning the amp around we find a pair of locking Speakon/jack main speaker outputs; which is a great feature on any amplifier but especially pleasing to find on a competitively priced amp like this one! The versatility of their multi-purpose design notwithstanding, Speakon connections are gradually replacing conventional XLR and ¼-inch jack sockets as an industry standard,
don’t short out and their locking design also guarantees that the jack’s don’t get yanked out of the back of the cabinets when some numpty accidently treads on a speaker cable! Our joy was slightly diminished when we discovered that the PTX 12 200w speakers that come bundled with this setup don’t feature Speakon connectors, instead we find a parallel pair of conventional ¼-inch jack inputs. Oh well, I suppose that its still encouraging to know that this setup can be upgraded with Speakon-compatible speakers – Wharfedale Pros own DLX-12 for example - at some later date if you choose to go down that route and the PMX-700 System at least comes with a pair of jack-to-jack speaker cables, which also helps to soften the blow somewhat. Any disappointment, however, is quickly forgotten when you consider that at 300 watts output the PMX-700 should easily provide enough headroom to comfortably amplify two or three vocals and a touch of guitar in a typical club or pub-sized venue, with the dual 7-band graphic EQ helping to add an extra degree of control by helping to eliminate feedback from the front of house and monitors. The carpet covered PTX 12 speakers are rated around 200 watts and feature a single 12-inch speaker plus a compression driver for processing the top end frequencies. These enclosures are obviously built to a price but they are nevertheless sturdy whilst remaining compact and relatively easy to lift on and off a speaker stand (speaker pole-mount sockets are built into the bottom of both enclosures specifically for this purpose). The overall build quality seems solid enough, although carpet isn’t our favourite choice of material for covering speaker cabinets. Besides not being demonstrating
much resistance to wear and tear carpet also attracts dirt and debris like a magnet and therefore is a swine to keep clean. Sound-wise, however, these speakers seem well up to the task, they deliver a nice punchy sound with plenty of clarity and bearing in mind that 300 watts is a fairly modest output there still seems to be plenty of power for your typical pub or small club-sized venue. Low end frequencies are the biggest power drain on any PA system but there still isn’t any reason why you couldn’t add a pair of low-end subs in situations where the kick drum and perhaps one or two overhead microphones are employed to help elevate the drums slightly in the overall mix.
Graphic Equalizer
The dual graphic EQ can be assigned to operate in stereo or mono modes with an A/B switch located on the main control panel. In stereo mode (‘A’) both graphics are assigned to one half each of the two main outputs whilst in mono (‘B’) mode the monitor signal is routed via the top equalizer and the lower graphic EQ processes the signal prior to being sent to the main speakers. The graphics are not tone controls – although this is still a common misconception; both graphic EQs are there to help the user identify and eliminate feedback. There is no automatic feedback killer included but when feedback occurs during setup, using the graphics sliders to find and adjust the offending frequencies still isn’t too difficult to master. To be honest we didn’t find much need to use either graphic EQ in our test but that isn’t to say that these won’t come in extremely useful. No two venues acoustics are exactly the same and there will always be the situation where – without a graphic to tame unruly frequencies – a gig could be potentially ruined by uncontrollable feedback or a nasty low-end rumble caused by a resonating mic stand. PM
SHOULD I BUY ONE?
If you are in a pub or club band and are putting your sound system together on a fairly tight budget the Wharfedale Pro PMX-700 System feels like extremely good value for money. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to factor-in a couple of stage monitors when pricing up your PA and with the potentially huge saving afforded by this packaged system, which don’t forget also includes a pretty decent little dynamic microphone, there is no reason why you cannot put together a very capable gigging PA system for less then a Grand. Wharfedale Pro has judged this package well, ok it is built to accommodate a fairly modest budget but it still has everything that you need to get off to a flying start.
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