Help Buying a PA

[kayla]

So im at the point where i need to buy a PA system. I dont have the slightest clue about setting up, what i need, what wattage, etc etc.

im just lookin to play small venues. plug in guitar and bass outputs, two vocal mics and mic the drums. i think thats it.

help!!

thanks

- kayla.

[hicksjd9]

Yamaha. Great affordable systems. They are very inexpensive used. You can find 2 s115vs (mains) on craigslist for around $300 total and they last forever and take a beating without batting an eye. They come up all the time, just be prepared to drive an hour or so to get them (look in Harrisburg, York, Lancaster, and Pittsburgh craigslist). You can also get an emx800 (800 watt power amp and mixer combo) for ~300 if it's in "not too pretty" condition. Both will be great and by buying used, you get MUCH better quality and durability that you will find with new behringer stuff.

If you can get 12s for mains, get 12s. Not only will they be cheaper, they are also less boomy (AND WEIGH LESS!!!). Later, when you have the cash, you can always add a sub for the low end.

[floodcitybrass]

So im at the point where i need to buy a PA system. I dont have the slightest clue about setting up, what i need, what wattage, etc etc.

im just lookin to play small venues. plug in guitar and bass outputs, two vocal mics and mic the drums. i think thats it.

help!!

thanks

- kayla.

For a first PA, I generally think that self powered speakers sound better than passive speakers. The powered speakers have a DSP processor in them to make them sound flat.
Spend your money on speakers - not on a fancy mixer. I would rather have a $5000 pair of speakers with a $99 mixer. (not saying you need to spend that much)

I would get a set of 12" and a horn or a set of 10" and horn. Add a sub later if you need.

My 9 piece horn band can play small rooms with a pair of powered tops and 1 18" powered sub.

Start with speakers then go from there/
So here are some ideas:
budget end - Behringer Eurolive (Best value), Mackie, JBL Eon, EV

middle of line - QSC K series (my#1 pick), JBL PRX , Nexo(yamaha) DSR series

high end - Eaw NT series (discontinued)

Really high end - Meyer UPA-1P, UPA-2P


Stay away from - kustom, B52, cerwin vega, Nady, Gemeni, phonic, Bose (sound ok close up but cannot throw sound far at all) or any other light weight carpeted speaker

[sunsetbass]

kayla go out to guitars n stuff. terry and brad will lead you in the right direction.

[kayla]

thanks for the help guys! my other question is, is there a certain wattage i should look for? and if the mixer is 800 watts do the cabs have to be 800? im almost tempted to get a bundled package, because i dont wanna mess up ordering stuff seperately.

- kayla.

[Banned]

PMAC is selling off a lot of his old PA equipment here. Go down to the Buy and Sell forum. He is sound guy and a musician, you can learn a lot from him.

[kayla]

PMAC is selling off a lot of his old PA equipment here. Go down to the Buy and Sell forum. He is sound guy and a musician, you can learn a lot from him.

ya i know who pat is. have known him for a couple years. next time i see him im gonna ask a million questions thanks.

- kayla.

[hicksjd9]

600-800 watts minimum should be enough to run mains and monitors safely (and not damage your speakers). Pretty much all the major manufacturers make their speakers to run safely on these wattages. Underpowering is much worse than overpowering. Personally, I wouldn't go any lower than 800 watts for two mains and two monitors but you could probably pull off 600. In my experience, anything less than 600 watts is inadequate for performing and you will never be happy until you are in the 600-800 watt range.

[kayla]

so if i get an 800 watt 14 channel powered mixer, then what watt cabs should i get? or is any ok?

thank you

- kayla.

[hicksjd9]

Yamaha S1xxVs and JBL JRX are great. Mackie used to make nice stuff (so used would be better than new). The standard mains those (and most other) companies make will all be fine with an 800 watt poweramp.

[bassist_25]

Underpowering is much worse than overpowering.

JD, do you mean underpowering as in not having enough power to get a suitable volume or "underpowering" as in running a smaller watt amp into speakers with high wattage ratings? If you mean the latter, then that's a myth. If it were true, your speakers would get blown everytime you turn off your amp. Also, an amp doesn't continuously put out its maximum power, even with the volume and gain dimed. If underpowering were a real phenomenon, a concert sized PA would have blown speakers all the time for when a vocalist does an acapella passage.

On the other hand, overpowering for a prolonged period will blow your speakers or melt your voice coils.

Kayla, take speaker power ratings with a grain of salt. Those are just measurements of how much continuous power a speaker can take before thermal melting of its voice coil. It may actually reach its XMAX before it reaches its wattage peak. There are a lot of factors that go into how loud a cabinet can go that involves more engineering than I know, but if you are interested in how loud a cabinet can get, sensitivity is a good place to start. The more efficient a cabinet is, the louder it can get with less input power.

[hicksjd9]

What you said isn't correct, Paul. Underpowering speakers (as in not providing anywhere near their rated power) causes damaging distortion. Played over a prolonged period of time at a volume that is great enough to cause distortion WILL damage the voice coil and ruin your speakers.

Overpowering on the other hand is not a problem unless you crank your amp up beyond what your speakers are able to handle. Overpowering is most certainly better for speakers as long as you respect the fact that you cant crank a 1000 watt power amp to 11 with a set of 100 watt peak speakers.

Here is some reading material to clear up the confusion (and hopefully save you some money replacing speakers).

http://www.jblpro.com/catalog/support/g ... &doctype=3

[tonefight]

I would agree that underpowering is worse that overpowering. But in reality it's the clipping caused by underpowering that is dangerous. Its not actually that putting too low of a wattage in is the problem, its that with the lower wattage people tend to run the board too hot, put too hot a signal in the amp and "clip" the signal wich is what damages the speakers.
Usually a common 15"main will have a 400 watt rating but a 800 watt peak, if you put a 200 watt amp on it and crank you board you will run into this clipping problem. If you run an 800 watt amp you will tend to not run your board as hot and and provide a nice clean signal to your speakers.
Whatever speakers you get look into the neodium drivers, less weight and higher ratings. I also prefer the composite cabs for weight although some people swear they can hear the difference of a wood cab ( I personally think its a mental thing )
I've bashed Carvin before when I tried out a new line of products a few years ago but they took care of me and I really like their boards, the most versatile I have found in their price range and they are still made in the USA, I've also had good luck with their poweramps good bang for the buck there too.
This would be a good starter system you could expand on
http://www.carvinguitars.com/products/1648-LM15
This one is cheaper but with a powered mixer you'll be confined to running from the stage
http://www.carvinguitars.com/products/RX1200L-LM15

The powered cabs are nice also I wouldn't mind having a set of the new powered JBL's but they are pretty pricey.

Do lots of homework before you buy and good luck.

[tonefight]

This guy just posted a decent setup for a good price.
http://rockpage.net/phpbb2/topic32715.html

I wouldn't run drums through this but you could add a powered sub down the road.

[bassist_25]

What you said isn't correct, Paul. Underpowering speakers (as in not providing anywhere near their rated power) causes damaging distortion. Played over a prolonged period of time at a volume that is great enough to cause distortion WILL damage the voice coil and ruin your speakers.

Overpowering on the other hand is not a problem unless you crank your amp up beyond what your speakers are able to handle. Overpowering is most certainly better for speakers as long as you respect the fact that you cant crank a 1000 watt power amp to 11 with a set of 100 watt peak speakers.

Here is some reading material to clear up the confusion (and hopefully save you some money replacing speakers).

http://www.jblpro.com/catalog/support/g ... &doctype=3

JD, you may want to read the article more carefully and read what Tony just posted. They're talking about overdriving and clipping a power amp and then sending that signal to the speakers. That's different than simply powering speakers with an amplifier that has lower rated output than the speakers are rated to handle. I can plug my bass amp rated at around 280 watts into two of my cabs, each rated at 800 watts. Even with impedance causing each cab to see half of my amp's output, I'm not going to damage a speaker simply because my amp is rated at much less output than my cabs can handle. Again, power ratings are simply the amount of juice a speaker can take before having thermal failure. Many speakers reach their XMAX before they reach their thermal failure threshold.

[tonefight]

I think you guys are thinking the same thing but each explaining it different.

[bassist_25]

I think you guys are thinking the same thing but each explaining it different.

Haha, perhaps Tony. Over at my other forum haunt, Talkbass, someone almost shows up every day and asks some variation of "Hey, I got an amp that's 500 watts and my cab's 800 watts and I'm afraid I'm going to underpower my speakers," thinking that simply having an amp rated less than their cab is going to cause bad things to happen. I'm amazed at the zen-like calmness some of the people have after having explained a zillion times that a smaller watt amp won't damage speakers on account of it being a smaller watt amp.

[tonefight]

I think you guys are thinking the same thing but each explaining it different.

Haha, perhaps Tony. Over at my other forum haunt, Talkbass, someone almost shows up every day and asks some variation of "Hey, I got an amp that's 500 watts and my cab's 800 watts and I'm afraid I'm going to underpower my speakers," thinking that simply having an amp rated less than their cab is going to cause bad things to happen. I'm amazed at the zen-like calmness some of the people have after having explained a zillion times that a smaller watt amp won't damage speakers on account of it being a smaller watt amp.

You're absolutely right paul 500 watts will not at all hurt that cab, where the phrase "underpowering" came from though was that guy with the 800 watt cab saying "I can crank my preamp and turn this up ta 11 and bang on the strings as hard as I can cause I'm only putting 500 watts into an 800 watt cab".
Really if you're over powered, underpowered or perfectly matched a lack of control and common sense is what blows speakers,

[MeYatch]

lower wattage amps driven into distortion are capable of putting out wattage that well exceeds their rating. This can blow speakers. Distortion, square waves and waves approaching square are not going to instantly blow up speakers. Otherwise PAs would be replaced everytime the keyboard player uses a synth sound or the guitar player steps on the dirt pedal.

That said its not a great idea to turn any part of your system up to a level that is introducing noise into the sound. Something bad can happen.

Simply powering a speaker with an amp rated lower than the speaker will do nothing, if you keep it at a volume the amp is capable of putting out with minimum distortion.

[Mysterytrain]

Yamaha. Great affordable systems. They are very inexpensive used. You can find 2 s115vs (mains) on craigslist for around $300 total and they last forever and take a beating without batting an eye. They come up all the time, just be prepared to drive an hour or so to get them (look in Harrisburg, York, Lancaster, and Pittsburgh craigslist). You can also get an emx800 (800 watt power amp and mixer combo) for ~300 if it's in "not too pretty" condition. Both will be great and by buying used, you get MUCH better quality and durability that you will find with new behringer stuff.

If you can get 12s for mains, get 12s. Not only will they be cheaper, they are also less boomy (AND WEIGH LESS!!!). Later, when you have the cash, you can always add a sub for the low end.

I had a yamaha pa system and loved it. I just sold it off and now regret it. I totally agree with yamaha speakers. They are solid, warm with punch. In my opinion, yamaha is the best middle priced gear out there!

My question is... just how much are you willing to invest in a pa system?

[kayla]

My question is... just how much are you willing to invest in a pa system?

im not lookin to spend a ton of money at the moment. i need something that i can use for practice right now. when the money is right i can spend more on a good system.

all the info is appreciated guys. i read through all of it. and im gettin a better understanding. thanks so much!

- kayla.

[Jasaoke]

So, as usual I've got a different opinion for you, Kayla. Don't buy a PA. I've been in bands that have owned and now we sub it out and it's waaaaaaaay better this way. We don't have to deal with: cost, cartage, maintenence, running it/ trusting someone else with thousands of $ worth of equipment. It's one more thing to deal with on gig day.

Yeah, we pay someone to do it, he usually makes more than an individual band member, but it'worth it and more. Leave it to a professional.

[kayla]

thats a good point. i'd like to get someone else to run it for me. but i need it for practice. no vocals at practice doesn't work. and neither of us can sing over all the other noise

so something cheaper and efficient will do for now. until we start booking, then i will look into something new or your idea of having someone else do it for me. thanks!

- kayla.

[lonewolf]

Powering an instrument cabinet is much different than powering a PA system. 1st of all, it depends on the instrument. Beyond the thread scope.

On a PA, its very easy to push a power amp beyond its limits and cause speaker damage from clipping. To avoid that, its a good idea to get a power amp that is RMS rated at 2X the RMS rating of the cabs. This gives you 6db of maximum theoretical headroom with linear power amps (about 4.5db with switching amps) to cover the instantaneous peaks. Headroom is very important when putting a PA together.

One of the biggest fallacies is that you can compare PA systems based on wattage!!! Not true at all. The output from 1000 watts on an ineffecient cabinet is not the same as 1000 watts on an efficient one. 1000 watts into a cabinet with 97db sensitivity has the same volume as 500 watts into one with 100db rating. The cabinet efficiency or sensitivity is just as important a spec as its power ratings.

If you are talking volume performance, you need to find out the MAXIMUM SOUND PRESSURE LEVEL (at 1 meter). This is a function of a properly matched power amp and the speaker cabinet.

Most equipment today specs this, but you need to know whether that is the absolute PEAK or the RMS or even continuous maximum. When they spec the PEAK, you generally should subtract 6db to get the RMS max SPL.

Sometimes you must calculate this. Here is the formula:

SPL = (10*(log Amp Power)) + Sensitivity 1W/1M rating

For local clubs, a max peak SPL of around 130db will do the trick and give plenty of headroom. That would usually translate into a max continuous SPL in the mid-120s. A little less than that will work, but you might find yourself straining the system in some venues.

For a beginner, I strongly recommend getting powered cabinets since the amp and electronics is matched to the speakers for optimum performance. I like ElectroVoice powered stuff, but Mackie and JBL makes some pretty good stuff as well. Behringer has some surprisingly good powered cabinets for the money. If you start with them, they make good practice speakers later.

Also, for the best vocal performance, get cabinets with 12" speakers. Except for the very best cabs, 15" speakers don't respond as well for vocals. If you need more bass, you can always add subs.

[bassist_25]

So, as usual I've got a different opinion for you, Kayla. Don't buy a PA. I've been in bands that have owned and now we sub it out and it's waaaaaaaay better this way. We don't have to deal with: cost, cartage, maintenence, running it/ trusting someone else with thousands of $ worth of equipment. It's one more thing to deal with on gig day.

Yeah, we pay someone to do it, he usually makes more than an individual band member, but it'worth it and more. Leave it to a professional.

We've actually went the opposite way. We almost always contracted production or used in-house sound in our early days. Since a lot of the bigger rooms that paid enough to cover professional production or offer in-house solutions have either closed their doors or stopped having bands, we've started running our own sound a lot more. It keeps our overhead low enough to go into smaller rooms. I still prefer having contracted production or in-house, but as I said, a lot of the big rooms that allow for that aren't here anymore.

My bit of advice is that band members should individually own PA gear. A collectively owned PA may be easier in the beginning, but U2 is the only band with longevity that I can think of that has never had a line-up change. You can always go in with the agreement that members who leave will be bought out, but unless you have a contract written up, I wouldn't count on things playing out the way you think they will.