From bruce@ashbysolutions.com Tue Nov 26 05:31:06 2002
Subject:Re: Pyle Speakers

Eric,

>Pyle Drivers are car audio speakers (well, they may
>make home audio too, but if they do, it's not of the
>calibre of anything you'd be investing in). I don't
>know the specs, but they are not musical instrument
>speakers.
>
>tony

Pyle Driver made Musical Instrument Speakers 20 years ago or so. I
>don't know if they still do or not. MCM electronics sold the 12" MI
>speakers as a stock replacement Fender Twin Reverbs. I thought Fender
>used Eminence speakers back then, maybe I misunderstood their
>marketing speak. MCM also sold the 15" and the 4x10 horns put out by
>Pyle. I used their horns in some homemade stage monitors I built
>around 1980. They were functional but they sure were not EV quality
>either.
>
>They were a very inexpensive speaker. I don't know if that
>corresponded to low quality or not. However guess it often does.
>
>Ed Boyd
>Springfield IL

Pyle still makes a line of DJ-oriented speakers called Pyle Pro. I picked up a pair of their smallest offering at a "stereo liquidation blowout" in Boston about a year ago, and they have become my first-choice stage monitor -- very neutral sounding, with surprisingly strong bass for a 10" speaker in a pair of cabinets that are collectively about the size of a 6-space rack! The downside? They are pretty inefficient, and will need 200-300W per side to keep up with many stage volumes. They are definitely sound-reinforcement quality.

But I digress ...

As someone already noted, Leslie speakers (as opposed to Leslie Speakers) were usually not high-end components, so price alone is not going to be the determining factor. I sell high-power Leslie upgrade gear, and I've ended up bypassing JBL, EV, and Cerwin-Vega for good-old Eminence in my choice of a woofer.

In a stock Leslie, however, all the components -- woofer, tweeter, crossover -- should be 16 ohms. The amplifier is not going to be happy with anything else, and your ears might not like it, either. I have never seen a 16-ohm Pyle speaker, although they might make them. A good way to test the speaker would be to disconnect the wiring from the crossover, and put a DC ohmmeter across the terminals; if you don't get at least 8-9 ohms, it's probably not a 16-ohm speaker.

Regards,

-BW

--
Bruce Wahler
Design Consultant
Ashby Solutions™ http://consult.ashbysolutions.com
978.386.7389 voice/fax
bruce@ashbysolutions.com