Here is what I did.
Yamaha EMX5000/12 powered mixer. 250 a side into 8 but 250 clean. 500/side into 4. Used, from the GFS here at about $450 a couple of years back.
I run JBL EON 15's Series 1 - on special at Guitar Center for $300 a unit now. my mains are for vocals, percussion and acoustic instrument support. I don't mic drum's with this system - yet.
I take a small rack with a furman conditioner / power supply and a pair of EQ's. I use a decent Rane 31 band for the house and a decent dbx dual 15 for 2 monitor mixes. The board has a 9 band that only applies to the stereo buss - if it had 2 EQ'a 1 for the stereo bus and 1 for an Aux bus - I'd dump the rack... as it is I'll probably dunmmp my board and snag a newer version as they have one with 2 EQ'a now - I'm all about quick setup and quick tear down... currently the board sit's on top of the rack on a little locking, folding table my wife found at Wally world - good girl!
The on board power in the mixer drives those LSP monitors we were talking about in the other thread. I'll either put them on 1 mix and use the other side as keyboard support or I'll use 2 monitor mixes.
Minimal dough for a PA and it really sounds good. Part of that is the Yamaha, part of that is the EON's. EON 1's are great sounding, very efficient - they're only like 150 on board to the woofer but they make a whole lotta noise with that - from about 100 hz on up. Most powered speaks filter out below a certain point. I don't trust that filter completely though so I also use a hard filter at 60 to prevent anything lower than that from going to them. It's vocals only for me system at the moment!
I bought everything except the monitors used. I'm around 2 grand total and that includes another 4 space rack with a QSC RMX850 and a home brew sub. When I put a good dedicated crossover in place, I'll be able to mic drums - although - frankly - I hope never to have to. I'm aimed at small to medium clubs, neighborhood parties outside - Park style outdoor event's here are all supported with major FOH, the larger clubs in the area provide FOH - so I'm not spending the dough on a system to compete with all that...
So what I'm adding in will be the cross over, maybe another pair of monitors at some point as I would like 4 on 2 mixes as a possibility.
What I would change - the EON Series 1 15's are great sounding speaker but they do not soft start so they get turned on last and off first or there is a big bang - I hate that as I know that one day I'll be replacing a driver if I forget ... I think some of the more recent designs offer that softstart ability. I haven't gone looking though. If the right set of passive mains came along, I might dump the EON's and go back to passive adding in another power amp - active speaks can sound great but they aren't always easy to live with ... extra cables to run, the whole power on last, off first thing - it's hard to get folks to remember that kind of crap so I end up doing more of it myself ... still at $300 a side, the EON 1's at CG are a deal. BTW - the 10" EON's suck. The 15's are sweet ...
I am not the right guy to as about Carvin. Other than the DCM amps, there isn't anything of theirs I really trust. I consider them a notch up from Behringer but that's still too many notches down the pole for me to want to trust. My preference would be going with used gear that has proven itself to me in terms of both sound quality and reliability... those are not universally held opinions I will grant. It's served me pretty well though.
oh, one last thing. Don't even begin to trust the spec sheets. The folks who write that crap have no concience whatsoever. By observation, these are folks unencumbered by an excess of moral/ethical standards...
