Danley’s unique subwoofer designs were heard by thousands, if not millions, in the late 1980s and early 1990s at concerts of all kinds. More recently, you’ll find Danley products in churches all around. And that’s no surprise, considering that the company’s mission statement is simply Proverbs 3:4, “To find favor and a good name in the sight of God and man.”
Danley’s original SH-100 speaker is a very straightforward but excellent design, essentially a Synergy Horn coaxial two-way speaker in a pretty simple box. The wide dispersion and front-to-back rejection of this speaker are the two standout features that make it very appealing. Danley has now wrapped this speaker inside one of his clever tapped-horn designs, extending low-end response from 70 Hz down to 35 Hz. I got to test drive a Danley SH-100B ($2,998 passive version, $4,670 self-powered version) and I was delighted with it, as I expected.
A Look Inside
The speaker enclosure is formed of Baltic birch, 29.5 inches tall, 20.5 inches wide, and 19 inches deep. It’s surprisingly light at 115 pounds. Even with the laughable extra eight pounds added by the available self-powered amp, it only totals 123 pounds. The cabinet is covered in a durable black coating that should be more than enough protection in an installation. Line-X truck bed liner is a finish option for portable or outdoor usage. NL4MP Speakon connectors get your signal into the box. The original SH-100 was a 20.5-inch by 20.5-inch box nine inches deep with a center-loaded eight-inch coaxial driver. In the SH-100B, Danley has literally wrapped a tapped-horn woofer box around this original design. Four eightinch woofers are arrayed around the original SH-100 John McJunkin box in accordance with Danley’s unique tapped-horn design. The best way to describe it is to say that the four woofers are directed, on an angle, toward the middle of the rear of the cabinet. Short of getting into the technicalities of horn theory, the woofers are effectively closer to the mouth of the horn, rather than the throat. Again—I won’t belabor the gory acoustical details that will thrill the physicists (and you can see the Danley website for a white paper on tapped horn theory) but I will convey two points. First, the drivers’ radiating surfaces are effectively increased by a significant amount through this design. Second, diaphragm excursion is reduced, also reducing distortion. Bottom line—Danley’s math and physics have yielded a compact, powerful woofer design that produces excellent fidelity.The coverage of this speaker is wide— a 110-degree conical dispersion pattern with very noticeable boundaries. Frequency range for ±3 dB is 35 Hz to 18,000 Hz, down 10 dB from 20 Hz to 24,000 Hz. It’s a pretty efficient speaker as well, with a 1W/1M sensitivity rating of 98 dB SPL (down 1 dB from 80 Hz to 20,000 Hz.) This is a very honest spec, as well, measured in free air at 10M of distance with a 28.3V input. Maximum output is very healthy, at 126 dB SPL continuous, 129 dB SPL program. It’s rated for 1000W continuous power, 2000W program. Nominal impedance of the package is 4Ω, and a 35 Hz highpass filter with a slope of 24 dB/octave is the signal processing recommended by Danley. And in case I haven’t already made it clear, the overall package basically consists of a center-loaded eight-inch coaxial driver surrounded by four eight-inch woofers in a tapped-horn configuration.
Ample Applications
Danley Sound Labs touts a handful of potential applications for the SH-100B, starting the list with houses of worship. This speaker is indeed an excellent choice for all but very large churches, which will more likely fly a line array anyway. And frankly, it is arguable that some of Danley’s other solutions make attractive alternatives to line arrays in even those applications. This speaker, like other Danley products, exhibits exceptional fidelity in reproduction, which is probably my primary rationale for saying it is a good choice for a church. It also is capable of a lot of “bang for the buck” in terms of sheer SPL, but fidelity is, in my estimation, the more important factor, and the SH- 100B has that covered in a big way.
Danley also lists commercial theatre surround (alluding to movie theatres,) live music venues, discos, performing arts centers, and home theatre as potential applications for the speaker, and indeed, these are all applications that would benefit from both quantity and quality, which are nicely delivered by this speaker. One other note on diverse applications for this speaker—I once had the pleasure of hearing a complete Danley 5.1 surround system with original SH-100s in the surround field. I viewed and heard both cinematic material and also strictly musical material as well. In both cases, I was blown away with both the quality and quantity of sound, and now the SH-100B emerges with extended low end—I could only dream of having a complete 5.1 system with these speakers.
I listened to a fairly broad range of material; from classical to metal, through the SH-100B that I was provided. I used absolutely no processing whatsoever, and deliberately chose an amplifier of moderate quality, knowing that a very high quality amp would obviously yield even better results. The SH-100 component of the SH-100B was exactly as I remembered it from the last time I heard it—smooth, consistent, sufficiently bright without harshness. High-hats were crisp and clean—not splatty. Cellos were exceptionally well defined, whether they were those of the Beatles or the London Symphony Orchestra. Vocals similarly exhibited a very pleasant and unobtrusive presence. The mids and low mids were round and full, and not nasal in the least. The top frequency bands were nicely represented by the original SH-100 part of the box.
Conclusion
I was truly excited to experience the clarity of the original SH-100 with the addition of the kind of healthy, unambiguous low end that Tom Danley’s designs traditionally deliver. The tapped horn design gave me exactly what I expected—tight, clean, full bass. At higher SPLs, pop and rock music delivered a sufficient thump in the chest. I should stress, however, that while this speaker delivered plenty of quantity in the low end, the quality was the truly impressive factor. It was not just a lot of low-end air moving. The detail of low-frequency instruments was truly impressive. I would nevertheless recommend a good solid subwoofer to bring you the sub-35 Hz fullness that truly impresses, and Danley has a wonderful array of products to accomplish this task.
The overall SH-100B package provides reproduction with a high degree of fidelity and clarity, but there’s also plenty of SPL for smallto moderate-sized churches. As I said before, these are not suited for large rooms, but Danley has products that are, and they are worthy of strong consideration if that’s your scenario. Over the years, I have come to expect exceptional fidelity from Danley Sound Labs, and the SH-100B fulfills that promise once again.
If you’ve recently used or purchased a Danley SH-100B, the editors of Church Production Magazine want to hear from you. Please share your opinions on these products at www.churchproduction.com/usercomments.John McJunkin is the CEO of Avalon Podcasting in Chandler, Arizona, and offers high-quality podcast production and consultation services to a broad range of clients. He also provides consultation in sound reinforcement and studio commission.