Electro-Voice ZLX-12P

A thousand watts of Class D in a thirty-five pound box, with a DSP section simple enough to run from the stage between songs.

Overview

The ZLX-12P is a powered two-way with serious DSP at a bar-band price. Electro-Voice built it around a 12-inch woofer and a 1.5-inch titanium compression driver, rated it at 1,000 watts via Class D amplification, and set the street price at $399. The ZLX-12P landed at $399 street, each, and the reviewer compared its build quality to EV's pro touring gear. For the money, the magazine concluded, it was hard to beat.

The physical package is good. It weighs approximately 35 lb., which sounds unremarkable until you're carrying two of them up a stairwell at load-in. The cabinet is built of polypropylene, steel, and rubber. Its angles were smartly bolstered by rubber feet, with carrying handles placed and shaped for ergonomic use. The reviewer also noted that the overall design was unique, with nothing about it saying "me too."

The acoustic numbers are workmanlike rather than spectacular: frequency response of 65 Hz to 18 kHz and a maximum SPL of 126 dB. A 12-inch two-way in a portable box won't shake a room on its own, which is why the DSP includes a high-pass filter for subwoofer pairing. Add a powered sub to a pair of these and you have a rig that covers most club dates.

Key Features

Rear-Panel Rotary Knob and LCD Display

The ZLX-12P has a single rotary knob next to an LCD screen, and that knob does double duty as master volume and DSP control. The DSP was built in, accessible entirely from that rear panel push/rotary knob. The adjustable parameters include Mode, with Live, Speech, and Club EQ presets; Location, with Pole, Monitor, and Bracket EQ presets; Treble and Bass each adjustable from -10 dB to +10 dB; and Sub, a high-pass filter with 80 Hz, 100 Hz, and 120 Hz settings. There are also a few LCD screen contrast and brightness adjustments. The reviewer used both the Mode and Location settings successfully and found them well chosen. The only one left untested was Bracket, since no install application came up.

The Location setting is the sleeper feature. Pole, Monitor, and Bracket are three different acoustic situations, and a preset for each means the speaker can go on a pole, lie on its side as a wedge, or hang on a bracket without the user reaching for an outboard EQ.

Two Neutrik Combo Inputs with a Built-In Two-Channel Mixer

The I/O is more capable than you'd expect at $399. There are two Neutrik combo XLR/TRS inputs for mic or line, each with an adjacent rotary level adjustment, plus an XLR output that passes the ZLX-12P's two-channel mix out to monitors or a subwoofer. The ZLX-12P also featured a unique Aux In - an eighth-inch TRS stereo input ideal for iDevice sources, whose signal appears on Channel 1 summed to mono. Per the review, the ZLX-12P works as a great multipurpose powered speaker, not just a PA main.

12-Inch Woofer and 1.5-Inch Titanium Compression Driver

The driver complement is a 12-inch woofer crossed to a 1.5-inch high-frequency titanium compression driver. The combination covers 65 Hz to 18 kHz and reaches 126 dB maximum SPL, enough for a four-piece rock band in a club.

Polypropylene, Steel, and Rubber Cabinet

The enclosure's material mix is where the road-worthiness lives. Polypropylene for the shell, steel where it needs to hold, rubber at the feet and contact points. The reviewer's one structural note was that the overall design is distinctive, with no borrowed visual cues.

Historical Context

The ZLX-12P arrived in a portable PA market that had already settled on 1,000 watts of Class D as the baseline for full-range powered boxes. EV brought not more power but better execution: a cabinet that felt like touring gear, a DSP section that didn't require a manual, and a price that undercut the expectation. The reviewer, who had already evaluated a previous 1,000 W Class D ZLX model, went in with high expectations and came out calling it the best yet in that class.

Reception and Use

A pair of ZLX-12Ps was put into a working club rig for a couple of weekend dates, paired with a smallish 600 W powered subwoofer and handling a four-piece rock band at low input — vocals, guitars, kick, and snare/hi-hat mic. During soundcheck, the guitarist walked out front unprompted and remarked on how full and open the pair sounded. A week later, a single ZLX-12P covered a singer/songwriter coffeehouse gig, with vocalists using only the speaker's built-in mixer and a DI input; placed horizontally and set to the Monitor location preset, it served as both foldback and main with a full, room-filling sound. One performer sang to prerecorded material through the Aux In from an iPhone. In that application, the review noted, the ZLX-12P's feature set let it be the only live gear on the stage — clean, impressive, and efficient.

The same reviewer, writing in a later piece on the EKX Series in Pro-Sound (December 2013, p.37), described relying on a pair of ZLX-12P cabinets as a workhorse system - mains, stage wedges, and everything in between - and called EV a reliable source of sound reinforcement across a wide variety of pro-grade applications.