Practical PA's with Good Tone for Club Gigs

[Already In Use]

+1 to all of this.

more tops than subs is backwards, as it typically takes more speakers, and always takes more power, for low end to keep up with high end. also, unless they're specifically designed and very carefully arranged, multiple top boxes next to each other sound terrible, as they cancel each other's frequencies and turn the sound to loud mush.

now, are we talking about some sort of internal passive crossover in these subs? (i.e., speaker cables run from amps to unpowered subs, and from subs to unpowered tops?) if so, you're losing a lot of your output power.

a real crossover before the amps, so that the tops only get above say, 100Hz and the subs only get below that, each from their own amp channels, will give you a lot more clarity and power.

and running an amp at 2 ohms/side is not "stretching its legs", it's slamming it to the wall! better amps can handle it, but it's still hard on them.

Thanks for the tips! I'll try some of this. WE do set up BIG, spread out a bit outdoors mostly.

Regardless..most seem to think a few mains and a sub or 2 would cover the initial posters needs. He has lots of options.

 

[fokof]

With my band , when we have to bring the the PA , it's usually smaller gigs (50-400 people) ,these happens not very often , maybe 4-5 times a year. Most of the gigs , the PA is there.
We have our mic & stuff , and our own digital boards for FOH and Inear.

So for the PA , we rent it when we need one.
I usually take some RCF active tops & subs (I'm a big fan of RCF stuff)

To the OP; If you you have not that much gigs on a yearly basis , maybe that's an option.....

 

[Barisaxman]

For band I run sound for (who in turn provides the rig to my band), it's generally 4 Mackis SR1530's over 4 Yorkville LS800P's. Big, clean sound and it easily covers the clubs we normally play (3-500). For smaller bars, etc. we're still working on a smaller solution so that we can save a bit on paying for the sound/rig. The aforementioned rig owner has about 20k wrapped up in sound/lights. It gets expensive fast.

 

[bucephylus]

To the OP; If you you have not that much gigs on a yearly basis , maybe that's an option.....

Agreed and good point.

Unfortunately, not my decision to make; so, have to work with what I've got.

 

[bucephylus]

Very much appreciate everyone's excellent input so far. Good stuff.

I'm liking the QSC gear myself, but the cost and load in/out issues are semi-discouraging. Plus, its tough to tell the drummer the rig he just bought is inadequate. I'm just going to try to improve what we've got and chart a course towards QSC down the road. I get the major points and don't see any short cuts.

 

[countrybass007]

We use 2 Peavey PR15s and 2 SP2s run with a 16 channel powered Yamaha board. It sounds great in most clubs. Depending on the venue, we sometimes add two 18" subs, run with a seperate power amp. We've gotten a lot of compliments about the quality of our sound, and it sounds good to me. A good sound is so important to the overall sound of the band.

 

[Stumbo]

We use 2 Peavey PR15s and 2 SP2s run with a 16 channel powered Yamaha board. It sounds great in most clubs. Depending on the venue, we sometimes add two 18" subs, run with a seperate power amp. We've gotten a lot of compliments about the quality of our sound, and it sounds good to me. A good sound is so important to the overall sound of the band.

One thing I noticed with the SP2s is that they don't have any dampening material in them(at least the ones I have). I heard that putting in some foam can improve the mids. Any thoughts on that?

 

[rodl2005]

We've 2 JBL SR5000 series 1x15" + horn bins- they're old, fairly hefty, but sound SUPERB!!!-MAINLY used for vocals, with sometimes horns, keys, Kick, Keys & guitar added for a bit of extra enhancement.
Often use it with our li'l Yamaha 400x400w box type 8 ch. pwrd mixer, But when space & $$$ is right we take an old DYNACORD PSX(??) 9000- model no. I'm not sure of-sorry- but it's a powered 350w/side with a 200w monitor amp all included. It's a desk style one- as I said big & OLD but it's SO good, it NEVER needs any graphic EQ-ing-just sounds great stright away-ALWAYS- it's AMAZING.
Pro muso's that've either played with us or have simply been in the audience, have said it sounds SO clear it sounds like a CD!!!!
It even sounds & performs better than the modern Dynacord pwrd desks we've tried out- by a long shot. My wife's one of our vocalists in one band & the main vocalists in another & she KNOWS how she can sound & when a PA ISN'T sounding right & the Dynacord/JBL mix we've got is great. We've not found a modern equivalent- not in our price range anyway

 

[Jehos]

I'm a big fan of Yamaha and Mackie for good bang for the buck. Yeah, there's plenty of other stuff that sounds better, but it's also a lot more expensive.

Right now my band uses a Mackie CR16 board running into a Crown XLS 802 that feeds a pair of Yamaha 15" cabs, the S-series ones. It all got bought used for well under $2000. We're thinking of adding a sub, but right now nobody has a way to transport a big 2x18 cab.

I personally think that most people go way overkill on what they think they need for a PA. My previous band was an acoustic folk-rock kind of thing, and our PA was a 500W powered Yamaha mixer and a couple BR15's on poles. We never had problems being heard, but then again my amp could carry the low end without PA support, and we didn't have a crazy double-kick drummer running through the PA or anything.

 

[billm67]

I had some of the Yorkville 115 cabs and after I bought a set of Peavey PR15N's I started getting rid of my Yorkvilles. I bought the first set of Peavey's because the were cheap and light. The thing is they sound great! I have two pair and a pair of 15 basic subs and I have have great luck with the system. I have a soundcraft board, three qsc amps I use a behringer active crossover. For outdoor jobs I run the subs off of the amp bridged which picks up the power. Works great, has plenty of sound and I have gotten alot of compliments on the clarity/quality of the sound coming from the PA. None of my equipment is expensive equipment (except for the Soundcraft board, but I bought that used) and everything works well.