Wharfedale Titan 12 Active

0:01 A bit of a product review for you for a company called Wharfedale

Alright guys, a bit of a product review for you for a company called Wharfedale. And in this video we're looking at the Titan 12 Active. Now first of all, 12 is the speaker here. Active tells me that they've got internal amplifiers. Now very quickly, passive and active, what's the difference? Passive means the speakers have got no amplifiers inside them so you'll go mixer, external amplifier to your passive speakers. Active tells me that there are internal amplifiers inside, so you go mixer directly to your active speakers. Simple. Now these guys here are 250 watts RMS on the 12 inch, which is this guy here, and then 50 watts on the CD hauler compression driver at the top. Now first of all, something really important, people are always asking me about what speakers to buy, and I'll have let's say a link to an eBay...

Www.ellaskins.com And save up the money. It's far better to do that as opposed to just spend your money on something that's not going to last. Because believe me, A, they will not last and B, it will probably sound terrible. And also there are a few manufacturers out there who will say that this particular speakers are a certain power. But believe me, they're probably not. So you will need to do some homework. Go and check on Google. If you see some speakers and they look fantastic and you want to buy them before you invest in them, just ask around. There are so many forums out there that will tell you the truth about that particular speaker that you want to buy. So do your homework before investing your money because if you do, you never know, you may regret it. Now these guys here...

2:38 All of this is nothing because you would have blown them

We'll give out a true 250 watts RMS. Now, RMS is the power you need to look at. That's the most important bit. If you see PMPO and peak power and God knows what, just be very wary. For example, someone could say peak power of 1,000 watts, but you never know, they may only be able to push out 200 or 150 watts continually, and for a millisecond, 1,000 watts. All of this is nothing because you would have blown them. They'd be knackered and you might as well chuck them outside and use them as rather ornate plant pots. Right, these guys here, let's have a look. By the way, very quickly as well, there's no point in me plugging them in at this point because you may be able to hear the sound but of course you're not going to be able to hear the true quality sound because I'm recording this, it's going onto the web, out the web on your PC so it's pointless. Right, let's have a look at the back.

Now first and foremost we've got this strange thing here that makes a funny sound. That is the heat sink. Why do we need a heat sink? Well inside here we have the two amplifiers. Now during the course of the time that these guys are running, however quiet or loud, the amplifiers will get warm. So these here are for the purpose of removing the heat from the amplifiers. Right if we have a look under here, a general idea of the back. Now we've got a switch here, high and low, and also you'll notice we've got a small microphone picture and a picture of a jack plug. What we can do here is you can plug in, let's say your microphone. So for example, let's say you're just outside, you don't want any mix or nothing like that, you just want to be able to be heard a little bit louder.

For a PA system for your voice, end of story. Now also here we've got a RCA in right and left. You can see tape or CD. Also there you can put your iPod in. Now here's a bit of a tip for you. Let's imagine you're a mobile DJ and the particular person you're working for, when you're on the telephone and you're organising the gig, they may want let's say Some more music outside while the guests arrive in canapes. Maybe you're inside and they just want some more music outside. Well, again, use your head. What you could do, you could say yes for an extra certain amount of money I can supply you with music outside. Now the client probably thinks wow this is fantastic because not only are we getting the DJ to do the main event, we're actually getting the DJ to organise music outside.

5:29 Straight away, you're increasing your revenue

What do you need? All you'll need is a powered speaker, a stand, suitable cabling to enable to get power to the speaker and an iPod. Yes, you can plug an iPod into this and straight away you've got another source of music somewhere else. And again it depends where you are. You could maybe add 50 or 100 pounds, euros, dollars to the bill or you could add 200 or 300 pounds, euros, dollars. It depends where you are. And the type of client you've got. So straight away, you're increasing your revenue. Right. Now also what you can do with this guy is you can link it. So in other words, you could go, let's say from your mixer into one of these and then out of one of these into another powered speaker. So you could have two either side as well. Your power in, you can see that's a kettle lead, on off and BRO.

Believe it's Bass Response Optimizer. With that engaged, what happens is all of a sudden, and this is sort of at low volumes where you can get the true potential of that, it enhances the bass flavour. The only way of describing it, and this is as professional as I can be, let's imagine you have got a small speaker and a bass cab, and you've just got the small speaker on. Let's forget this for the time being. The equivalent of turning that on is the equivalent of having the small speaker and then all of a sudden you turn the bass on. You do get a much more warm depth feel to the bass sound, so you're increasing the bass response. What it does, this is my own personal opinion, at low volumes it makes this sound like a 15 inch full range. In other words, not a 12 inch and a 1 inch.

8:54 In other words, everything should work in tandem perfectly together

All of a sudden, with that switched on, you've got a 15 and a 12 inch. Now, what happens as well is when you turn it on, you have a blue LED here, so that shows that the speaker's on. And it also looks pretty cool as well. These guys here, you can see we've got one, two, three. We've got one there, two handles by the way, on the other side and four at the bottom. They're for hanging purposes, so in other words, Let's say, for example, you're in a bar, you're in a small nightclub and you want to have some sound around the room. Well, you can use these for monitors as well. In fact, your DJ, as a DJ, you could use them for monitors.

So let's say, for example, you've got your mixer, you've got your external amplifier, it's your main PA system. That's done. What you can do with some of these is you can go from your mixer from the... A lot of talking here. From your mixer, from the booth out, All of these should be just as good as each other because they're not going to have an inferior part and put it amongst all the good parts. So in other words, everything should work in tandem perfectly together. Alright? So there you go. Relatively light as well. And the one thing I have found with these is that they are very bright. The sound is in your face. When you start turning it up...

We don't get to the point when we reach about sort of 80 or 90% that you feel as though they're getting overworked. What I do find is when you get to 80 and 90%, they want more, alright? Be careful when you're going to start to get up to that sort of sound pressure level or that volume because two things you have to consider. One is the speaker itself but more importantly are your ears. Even though these are small...

That doesn't necessarily mean, because they're small, they're not going to knack your ears. Believe me, a speaker that big could probably ruin your hearing. So always remember, sound doesn't have to be boomingly loud to ruin your ears. It can still be relatively low. It depends on the frequencies. Alright, a tiny bit of an insight into these guys here from Wharfdale. I will be using them on gigs etc and you will probably see them. Thank you very much.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.