u/BoingBoomChuck

What is the deal with the KS118? I have three different friends (2 DJs and one bar owner) and all three of them had issues with at least one of their KS118 subwoofers. I'm still rocking my KW181s and those things seem to be built like tanks compared to the current model.

Two different DJs faced blown drivers, and both had issues with QSC's warranty. One eventually managed to get QSC to give in but the other was unsuccessful and just listed his pair for sale, notating that one has a blown driver. QSC immediately cited "end user error" for the reason the driver blew for both DJs. If that is the case, why did just one go up in smoke when the pair were set the same and both running at the same time?

The third one had his amplifier module take a dump and it took the subwoofer with it after sending what appears to be DC to the sub. The driver was literally frozen in the out position after the amp went into thermal mode. It was so bad that I could see it frozen in the out position using my phone's flashlight through the grill. It even had the lovely burnt electronics smell. I've seen this all too many times in the car audio world when the power supply takes a dump on the amplifier, but rarely in the DJ world...

The crazy thing is I was there when it happened, and the sub was not even cranked. Even the gain was set less than 12 o'clock in the 10 o'clock position as it was a brand-new subwoofer and he was "breaking it in." He will probably lose his ish if QSC fails to warranty it.

As of now, if anyone asks me what 18" subwoofer to put in their bar or small club, I'm recommending the Bass Boss DJ18S over the QSC. Yeah, it is more expensive, but avoiding the headache of dealing with a blown KS118 will quickly make up for that, lol.

Oddly, I don't mind the KX.2 series tops and even own a pair of K12.2s myself. I do, however, find myself using my Yamaha DXR10MKIIs more than the K12.2s because I think the Yamahas sound a little better with subs when crossed over at 100 Hz. If I need tops only, I prefer the K12.2 when running no sub because it digs a little deeper than the DXR10.

Finally, I love the way the KS118 sounds, but I can't get over how unreliable it is compared to the KW181. Keep in mind, all of the failures that I am speaking of happened on subwoofers purchased within the last six to eight months, with one being 4 days old...

After my last wedding reception, I realized that I need to up my lighting game for control over them vs letting them run amok to the sound. I generally use Virtual DJ, so I am thinking about snagging an Enttec Open DMX USB device and giving QLC+ or Soundswitch a try.

I tried using Rekordbox for a party this past weekend with the DMX out on the FLX10 and let's just say I configured something wrong because it barely did anything to control my Gigbar Move+ ILS, even though I set it to DMX mode and assigned it in the Rekordbox software per the instructions, but was left underwhelmed. Basically, all I had was color, with my moving heads just sitting there doing absolutely nothing. The dumb thing was I could control the moving head positioning in the software, but they did absolutely nothing when the music started playing. As a result, I went back to using the auto programming, which I have grown to hate.

I want something that will control my Gigbar and Bothlighting tubes. I also have an Apeconnect with a 12 pack of Ape Labs uplights, but, that is not as important for DMX control as those can generally remain a static color at wedding receptions. For school dances, I usually break my lights up into two groups and assign them the school colors or the event colors. One of them had a pink theme, so I made all the lights pink and just put them to sound, which works good enough for uplights, lol. I'm sure someone will say "just wait until you can DMX a chase effect" and make me change my mind. Hell, it may make me convert to the Ape tubes as well and start getting more Ape fixtures...

One of my good friends suggested a Wolfmix like he uses, but, I hesitate to use yet another auto show that just goes to the sounds requiring more manual intervention on my part. I'd rather the beat of the music feed the light show vs me having to press buttons on yet another device. I get that I will have to program some stuff no matter what I do but I figure I can at least assign some DMX buttons to my DJ controller for things like blackout OR a static color for slow dances.

Ok, I went off on a tangent there, but the TL/DR version is what are you using and/or what would you recommend to control DJ lights with Virtual DJ.