Review: Electro-Voice Evolve 30M

QUICK SMART

All the functions of the onboard mixer can be controlled by the QuickSmart Mobile app. I’m old-school and like a fader, but this is clever modern technology and ideal for events and shows where you set the sound rather than actively mix. Up to six Evolve 30Ms can be controlled from one smartphone for complex setups. The screen layout is clean and inviting, it won’t frighten new users, the controls react as you’d expect, and feel good to use in their own virtual way.

I did a birthday party, with a band, in a local hall, with my black box PA. The band finished, I put the Evolve 30M in front of the stage pointing at the dancefloor and let the birthday boy choose the tunes. The Bluetooth was easy to pair and the tunes were ok but the best thing was the way the system filled the room. It was a small hall (maybe 100 peeps max), and we cranked the system up near to full throttle but it was great, instant disco, and it meant I could pack up the big PA while they partied on. When they ran out of puff, I was ready to load out. It saved an hour at least.

At the kids’ footy training, the coach had a little home hifi system out on the ground; he was trying to punish the youngsters with a beep test and needed more sound. I had the Evolve 30M in the car, asked him to hold my beer while I set it up and impressed everybody. The footy club wants one now. It’s a great system for sports clubs and the like, as it can be set up inside for speeches and music playback or moved outdoors for training and game day. Maybe overkill, but it also makes an awesome home TV speaker.

WHAT YOU CAN & CAN’T DO

It’s worth noting these were all done with one speaker and that’s part of the appeal. The Evolve 30M’s coverage makes a second speaker unnecessary in a lot of situations, especially in smaller rooms. A solo performer with one of these can set up in a corner and they won’t take up much real estate or need to worry about the health and safety implications of speaker stands. Outdoors or wider settings may benefit from a second speaker, it’s still only two trips, and, of course, you’ve then got the option of stereo (the mixer’s Inputs 5/6 are set up to accept stereo XLR or RCA inputs and play them in mono or stereo, the settings are accessed via the DSP).

The EV Evolve 30M is at the high end of the small column speaker market and inherits the Evolve 50’s sound quality. The DSP is vital but it’s an impressive engineering feat to get that much sound out of those little speakers. Small line array-based systems have advantages over traditional point source/horn-loaded speakers but they have limitations as well. They sound good but not in an audiophile way. Their strength is in their ability to focuss sound energy over a wide area rather than provide accuracy or detail up close. They’re well-suited to music playback, especially if the files are okay, and preferably not Bluetoothed (I know it’s convenient but it doesn’t do the speakers’ fidelity any favours). And they don’t like raucous live bands very much. The little arrays lack the horn-loaded bite and power handling in the low-mids needed to keep live vocals in front of a band, unless the band levels are very well controlled. So not recommended for studio monitoring or hard rock. Everything else; no worries.

ARGUMENT SETTLED

There’s always some compromise between height and safety with portable systems. The middle of the 30M array is 1.7m high — a good height for most applications, although not quite high enough for playing into a packed dancefloor. There’s no option of another (filler) pole section and it would be too high sitting on the narrow sub anyway so better to raise the whole system if possible.

The Evolve 30M is also available in white, for art galleries, smartphone product launches, and the like. Reminds me of an argument I had with Men At Work’s singer in Darwin, probably 1983. He wanted the PA painted white to match the stage set pieces we carried around, I wondered what it would look like after one trip in the back of the eight-tonne truck. It escalated as things sometimes do a couple of hours after a show in the steamy jungle conditions of Darwin. In the end, I said I’d still mix if someone were to paint the PA white but it wasn’t going to be me. I digress. These are unlikely to travel in the back of a truck but they inevitably will get knocked around despite best intentions. To keep the EV 30M protected it comes with a custom backpack to carry the array and poles but only an optional padded rolling case for the sub.

The EV Evolve 30M is super portable and filled with the latest tech, it’s also easy, versatile and fun to use. The convenient and quick set up combined with the comprehensive mixer give it wide appeal and should make it attractive to all sorts of live acts and DJs, as well as hire companies and corporate event producers.