PreSonus StudioLive 328AI 8" 4-Way Powered PA Speaker

PreSonus StudioLive 328AI 8" 4-Way Powered PA Speaker, Studio monitors are designed to accurately reproduce music across a broad spectrum without signal loss or distortion but they can’t handle the SPL demands of a live show.

Conventional PA speakers can deliver plenty of volume, but except for very high-end systems, they can’t deliver the extremely clear, accurate sound one expects in a studio. As a result, an affordable PA speaker that delivers studio-monitor quality for live shows has remained an unfulfilled fantasy—until now.

This fantasy has, at last, become reality thanks to a partnership between PreSonus and Fulcrum Acoustic’s legendary engineer David Gunness (formerly of EAW and Electro-Voice). Rather than take the usual brute-force approach to PA-speaker design, the team designed a coaxial loudspeaker that would employ Fulcrum’s unique DSP-based approach.

The result is PreSonus StudioLive™ AI-series Active Integration Loudspeakers, the first affordable, active PA speaker systems that deliver studio-monitor accuracy on stage—exceptionally clear, coherent sound—while supplying the features and protection systems required to mix a live show that sounds great in a wide variety of venues, and with virtually any musical genre. These features include wireless and wired control of all setup, tuning, and monitoring functions, using an iPad® or laptop.

Coaxial designs offer the advantages of a single point source for a consistent acoustic centre and a symmetrical dispersion pattern. But designing coaxial systems without acoustic anomalies has been extremely expensive—until now.

Each StudioLive AI-series loudspeaker contains a DSP chip that enables the use of Fulcrum Acoustic’s TQ algorithms. The result is speakers that deliver the full benefits of coaxial design. Products that sense each other, interact and work together via wireless and wired communication, are seamlessly integrated with software, and run on CPUs far more powerful than competitors’ current audio products—PreSonus® has realised this dream with its new Active Integration technology.

The StudioLive 328AI pairs two 8-inch midrange drivers to deliver surprising low end. Because of its compact size, we’ve found it easy to transport and set up the 328AI in places like New Orleans’ French Quarter, where access is difficult, and one has to cart everything down the sidewalk. This form factor also makes the 328AI a great choice for contractor installs.

Using your PA speakers shouldn’t be a hassle—and with StudioLive AI-series PA speakers, it isn’t! PreSonus made the StudioLive 18sAI subwoofer easy to connect, easy to move, and easy to set up.

Features

• Unique coaxial design integrates a custom-designed, 8-inch, ferrite midrange driver and 1.75-inch titanium compression driver
• Dual 8-inch, custom-designed, ferrite, low-frequency transducers
• 2,000 watt, tri-amped, Class D amplification
• LF 2x500 watts / 1x1,000 watts
• MF 1x500 watts
• HF 1x500 watts
• Active Integration 32-bit, 96 kHz DSP with more processing power than three rack speaker processors
• 32-bit floating-point DSP with asymmetric three-way crossover
• XMAX™ Class A mic preamp with 12V phantom power
• Universal Switch mode power supply with power-factor correction
• 4 operation modes optimised for:
• Normal — live front-of-house
• MP3 — music playback
• Floor Monitor — stage wedge
• User — customisable preset
• Line-level input with attenuation
• Speaker-attenuation control
• Balanced XLR Mix output