Nakatomi
15-10-2015, 12:56 AM
Okay, I admit it. My penny pinching ways, timing & other factors have resulted in me adding a pair of Alto TS115A speakers to my collection. They're for backup, and for playing a smaller room in my residency. "They'll do til I can afford better". I'd been to hear the Proel V15As recently & thought the Altos sounded about the same - albeit for less money. The TS115 speakers I'd heard once before at a gig somebody I know was walking in at.
So, what are they like? Well, for £400 a pair including (a little shonky) stands from Gear4Music.com they're easily the best sounding speakers I've ever owned.
I took them for a test drive at a wedding tonight (Mackies were in the car juuust incase) and can honestly say compared to the SRM450s I barely had to touch the EQ tonight no matter what I played. With the Mackies I'm always having to tweak the mid & top to stop them being ear-bleedingly awful. Lulu - Shout? Forget it on the older speakers of mine. Motown like 'You Can't Hurry love' ? Crank the mid & top to quarter to, then a little more with my other speakers. Beyonce's 'Single Ladies' ? Careful of hitting the SRM450's excursion on that one fella even with the bass 'flat'. No such qualms with the Altos tonight. Everything I played into them sounded much more natural than I'm used to and as I already said I barely even had to touch the EQ all night.
At low to mid volumes they sound pretty good, but things seem to fall apart when they're pushed (cheap speaker syndrome I suppose) - no more than the you-know-whats though. But at high volume, they still sound pretty good. The 15" woofer delivers plenty of punchy bass, which seems tight & controlled. Midrange & top from the 1" compression driver is restrained & pretty well balanced. I didn't need to put the mixer's EQ in a smiley face curve - they sounded just fine nigh as damn it flat. The mid control was brought down to around 5 to, maybe closer to 12 o clock.
I played a variety of stuff through them tonight, but where they really shone was current music & reggae (!). Yes I said reggae. Toots & The Maytals 'Monkey Man' has a very fine bassline, and these speakers cope with it just fine. No rattles, no buzzes, no thumps.... just astonishing low end, controlled mid & crisp highs. Bob Marley's 'Three Little Birds' was a good test too.. I actually had to wind the bass down for that one, just because there was so much of it. It seemed there were no nasty peaks in the bottom end where one bass note sticks out like a sore thumb. Britney & Will.I.Am's 'Scream and shout'... last time I heard that played it was at BPM coming out of a big KV2 rig. No comparison, but you couldn't half feel a pounding from the Altos.
Sadly these Altos are another case of stupid input configuration - where (great!) you get no less than two XLR/Jack combi sockets - but each has its own volume control which up to 12 o clock gets you line level sensitivity, and past that it goes into mic territory. There's a master volume control for the speaker after those two, and you can output a mix of both inputs (or not) on the extra output, which is going to be a nifty feature for somebody.
The 'contour' switch engages a 'smiley face' 'loudness boost' EQ curve to the output which might be a help at low volumes but will only make the bass far less controlled at high volumes & likely to tickle the speaker's inbuilt limiter.
Did I mention these things have a built-in media player too? Well they do.. plug in a USB stick or microSD card full of music & away you go.
They seem pretty well built, although the front grille has a tendency to ring if you strike it - something I was worried would translate into nasty resonances in the output but I didn't notice any such problems in my testing.
For £400 a pair I very much doubt you're ever going to find a better speaker than these. They're loud, light, and very very punchy. Reliable? Time will tell. The limit LED comes on way before the Mackies in terms of input level, but by that point the Altos are belting it out way louder than the SRM450s could & they're not fatiguing at all.
You'll likely need to keep an eye on the fan during their life though. At the end of the night, after running at almost full pelt most of the time the amp module on the back was barely even warm - but if the speed controlled fan ever conks out I wouldn't given them long.
So happy am I with these speakers I'm now seriously considering leaving the Mackies at home from now on. The Altos are way lighter, better looking IMHO (apart from the label on the front.. gah) but best of all I hardly had to touch the EQ on tracks all night. Hell, even Mr Brightside sounded quite palatable! :O
So, what are they like? Well, for £400 a pair including (a little shonky) stands from Gear4Music.com they're easily the best sounding speakers I've ever owned.
I took them for a test drive at a wedding tonight (Mackies were in the car juuust incase) and can honestly say compared to the SRM450s I barely had to touch the EQ tonight no matter what I played. With the Mackies I'm always having to tweak the mid & top to stop them being ear-bleedingly awful. Lulu - Shout? Forget it on the older speakers of mine. Motown like 'You Can't Hurry love' ? Crank the mid & top to quarter to, then a little more with my other speakers. Beyonce's 'Single Ladies' ? Careful of hitting the SRM450's excursion on that one fella even with the bass 'flat'. No such qualms with the Altos tonight. Everything I played into them sounded much more natural than I'm used to and as I already said I barely even had to touch the EQ all night.
At low to mid volumes they sound pretty good, but things seem to fall apart when they're pushed (cheap speaker syndrome I suppose) - no more than the you-know-whats though. But at high volume, they still sound pretty good. The 15" woofer delivers plenty of punchy bass, which seems tight & controlled. Midrange & top from the 1" compression driver is restrained & pretty well balanced. I didn't need to put the mixer's EQ in a smiley face curve - they sounded just fine nigh as damn it flat. The mid control was brought down to around 5 to, maybe closer to 12 o clock.
I played a variety of stuff through them tonight, but where they really shone was current music & reggae (!). Yes I said reggae. Toots & The Maytals 'Monkey Man' has a very fine bassline, and these speakers cope with it just fine. No rattles, no buzzes, no thumps.... just astonishing low end, controlled mid & crisp highs. Bob Marley's 'Three Little Birds' was a good test too.. I actually had to wind the bass down for that one, just because there was so much of it. It seemed there were no nasty peaks in the bottom end where one bass note sticks out like a sore thumb. Britney & Will.I.Am's 'Scream and shout'... last time I heard that played it was at BPM coming out of a big KV2 rig. No comparison, but you couldn't half feel a pounding from the Altos.
Sadly these Altos are another case of stupid input configuration - where (great!) you get no less than two XLR/Jack combi sockets - but each has its own volume control which up to 12 o clock gets you line level sensitivity, and past that it goes into mic territory. There's a master volume control for the speaker after those two, and you can output a mix of both inputs (or not) on the extra output, which is going to be a nifty feature for somebody.
The 'contour' switch engages a 'smiley face' 'loudness boost' EQ curve to the output which might be a help at low volumes but will only make the bass far less controlled at high volumes & likely to tickle the speaker's inbuilt limiter.
Did I mention these things have a built-in media player too? Well they do.. plug in a USB stick or microSD card full of music & away you go.
They seem pretty well built, although the front grille has a tendency to ring if you strike it - something I was worried would translate into nasty resonances in the output but I didn't notice any such problems in my testing.
For £400 a pair I very much doubt you're ever going to find a better speaker than these. They're loud, light, and very very punchy. Reliable? Time will tell. The limit LED comes on way before the Mackies in terms of input level, but by that point the Altos are belting it out way louder than the SRM450s could & they're not fatiguing at all.
You'll likely need to keep an eye on the fan during their life though. At the end of the night, after running at almost full pelt most of the time the amp module on the back was barely even warm - but if the speed controlled fan ever conks out I wouldn't given them long.
So happy am I with these speakers I'm now seriously considering leaving the Mackies at home from now on. The Altos are way lighter, better looking IMHO (apart from the label on the front.. gah) but best of all I hardly had to touch the EQ on tracks all night. Hell, even Mr Brightside sounded quite palatable! :O