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Used PA Suggestions

#61
I should mention as others have brought it up. The whole unpowered mixer and active speakers, VS powered mixer / passive speakers thing. It seems to me to be a bit of personal preference. I have seen a lot of bands and DJs use both types, as well as passive mixer, power amp, passive speakers. From what I have seen, active / powered speakers seem to be the easiest to work with / most reliable, but you have to get power to them. I see / hear a lot about powered mixers failing. And while not unheard of, active / powered speakers aren't know to be weak points. I am not really sure how weak a powered mixer is, but the few I have seen first hand that died at the worst possible time have made me leery of that configuration. Your experience and preference may vary, a LOT.
 
#62
I've owned a bottom of the barrel powered mixer since 2008. Never a single failure. I've used it in a variety of ways including plugging a passive mixer into it and taking monitor and sub outs to a power amp and running monitors and subs. Not a single failure. Anything has the ability to fail. Not powered mixers more so than other components. I know bands still using powered Peavey, Carvin and Yamaha mixers from the 80's and 90's.
 
#63
DWBass said:
I've owned a bottom of the barrel powered mixer since 2008. Never a single failure. I've used it in a variety of ways including plugging a passive mixer into it and taking monitor and sub outs to a power amp and running monitors and subs. Not a single failure. Anything has the ability to fail. Not powered mixers more so than other components. I know bands still using powered Peavey, Carvin and Yamaha mixers from the 80's and 90's.
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The ones I have seen fail are a Mackie, and a Carvin. Again the issue could simply be maintenance, abuse, spilled beer. I haven't a clue. I was just commenting on what I had seen. I am not faulting the mixers that failed directly because I don't know for sure. It's just that the failures I have seen have tainted my view of them... LOTS of people use them and love em...
 
#64
Another vote for the little Behringer 1202FX mixer. Our band used one (I bought new for $100) since 2009 with no issues, several gigs, and very little TLC. I scored a pair of Peavey SP2XT 15 inch mains for free but had to do a Black Widow re-cone for $100 and plug in a couple of wires to make it work.

Grabbed a Crown XLS 2000 from MF Deal of the Day for $199 and air-assisted stands from Hello Music a few years ago for $50. Heavy as a truck rig but super cheap and definitely got the job done.

I'd rather see powered lightweight 15s these days but that little Behringer 1202FX was impressive especially for the price.

I am sure you can do a lot better that I did for about $500.
 
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#65
people hammer Berhinger. We've got a Europower 6000. It is not in my possession, my drumtard brother and the one singerguitartard have it and do the hooking up, I can't get close...I'll blow my stack. They've done more goofy stuff with it than you could imagine. "Try plugging it in there".

Its our smaller gig board, and kicking like a mofo.

If those two screwballs can't fry it nobody can.
 
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#67
I would never buy Behringer stuff. It will usually function ok (until it develops random crackles, pops, etc...) but there's just something distasteful about a company whose whole business model is copying successful products and then making them as cheaply as possible in china to try to undercut the people who actually put in all the R&D and probably actually have some QC standards in place. Just remember, low price doesn't equal good value.

The best way to do a small PA on a budget is to just camp on CL for a few weeks and pounce any time a good deal comes up on a component you need. I bought a Mackie 1202 VLZ for $70 off CL a few months ago. I picked up a QSC GX3 for $180 in a rack bag. Those are the kinds of deals you can find if you check religiously and jump on stuff as soon as you see it (or sometimes after it's been listed for a month and the guy is ready to get rid of it). My speakers are some older Cerwin Vega 3 way 15s from the early/mid 90s. I got those from GC used for $225 including tax. I just happened to be in there one day and saw them so I pulled the trigger. So I have a whole PA (minus cables, etc...) for less than $500. On a normal day, that stuff would total closer to $750 or so. I also picked up a pair of JBL 12" 2 ways (from the mid/late 80s) for $50(!), that I mainly use for a home keyboard rig and also for monitors when needed. And I picked up a Carver (not Carvin) power amp for 90 bucks to run them with.

So all of my gear is good to high quality, name brand pro stuff, and most of it was even made in the US (albeit 20+ years ago in some cases). But I didn't really spend any more than I would have getting crappy chinese clones, and all this stuff should last another 10-20 years if I take care of it, and if I decide to sell it, I can easily break even or even make a profit. You will never make a profit on anything behringer. I could probably list those CVs for $500 tonight and get at least $350 for them by the end of the weekend. And that's after using them on a bunch of paid live sound gigs. That Mackie, I could list for $120 at 7pm tomorrow and it would be gone before I went to bed. I shouldn't even mention these kinds of tips because they'll just work against me, but I'm confident I can come out on top more often than not in deal making and deal finding.

I also wouldn't go for a powered mixer. That's like the George Costanza wearing sweatpants of the audio world. It's giving up and saying, I really don't care, I just want... loudness. With separates you'll get much better quality, and more flexibility to have the features and the specs you need/want. Like that Carvin someone linked. It's fine for basic use (some friends have one). But unless you have great speakers and great mics, you probably won't be getting much in the way of great vocal tones out of it. And if you wanted to do anything stereo with it, you have to run RCA cables, because they didn't bother putting pan pots on any of the channels or at least using 1/4" jacks on ONE of the stereo channels. Meanwhile, you can EASILY get a decent 300x2 power amp for under 2 bills, and a mixer with as many channels and features also for 1-2 bills and actually SAVE money.

Just watch craigslist and anything you see that looks like it might work, google it! Look up reviews, look up specs, see if you can find used or new prices, etc... If you get in the habit of doing that, you'll start see stuff popping up again and again, particular brands or even models, and you'll get an idea of what's really out there. I would look on ebay too even if just to have a more diverse view of the what the market is like.
 
#68
dgrizzly said:
OP here, I've got a tip on a pair of JBL EON G2 15's. Does anybody know what these used to go for new? Or what a good used price might be? I'm having some trouble finding pricing info online since they've been discontinued, but I've read a lot of great reviews so they have my interest.
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Jbl doesn't come up often. The EON speakers I have heard don't sound very good, but they were rentals are pretty abused. Probably not representative of these speakers in new condition.
 
#69
Omega Monkey said:
I also wouldn't go for a powered mixer. That's like the George Costanza wearing sweatpants of the audio world. It's giving up and saying, I really don't care, I just want... loudness. With separates you'll get much better quality, and more flexibility to have the features and the specs you need/want. Like that Carvin someone linked. It's fine for basic use (some friends have one). But unless you have great speakers and great mics, you probably won't be getting much in the way of great vocal tones out of it. And if you wanted to do anything stereo with it, you have to run RCA cables, because they didn't bother putting pan pots on any of the channels or at least using 1/4" jacks on ONE of the stereo channels. Meanwhile, you can EASILY get a decent 300x2 power amp for under 2 bills, and a mixer with as many channels and features also for 1-2 bills and actually SAVE money.
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Thanks for your post, some good advice in there! I'm curious why you think this about powered mixers? I've never heard that they were inferior to a mixer / power amp combo in the same price range. Is this common knowledge?
 
#70
Not sure exactly what the prior respondent meant by his comments about powered mixers. I know I have seen a couple of them fail in outdoor use. High temps, high humidity, and the powered mixers were enclosed in a road case when they failed. Probably a heat issue.

There are plenty of bands, bars, houses of worship, schools, and whatnot that are using powered mixers with great results. I personally don't care for them for reliability reasons. And my concerns are probably unfounded.

There is no magic sound quality wise in building a mixer in a separate box from a power amplifier, and there ARE external connections that can become contaminated and negatively impact sound quality with separates.

With separates, you can typically keep the show going in case of a failure for far less money than with integrated units.

Aside from my own band, I know 2 other band leaders / founding members of other bands, and 2 DJ service owners. The bands tend toward unpowered mixers, and powered cabs, no separate power amp. One of the DJs chose this method as well. The other uses separates the entire way, Unpowered mixer, Power Amp, passive cabs.

The guy with the separates has the least great sound. Not bad sound mind you, just not great...

I am sure you will find tons of members here that swear by powered mixers. Just not my thing.

IF I were to go with passive speakers, I would likely go the Unpowered mixer --> Power Amp --> Passive cabs route. And mind you, I like the simplicity of combo units, but I just don't feel I can get the best match of mixer features, and power for the dollar with powered mixers... Just my humble brain dead opinion...
 
#71
Like I said, they're usually not as flexible (like the aforementioned not having pan knobs or 1/4" jacks for stereo channels), and make compromises to squeeze everything into that form factor and into the target budget (yet they still cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars new).

Any time I've bothered looking at what's out there on the market (new or used), I've found them completely uninspiring. It always seems like you're running into input limits, or power limits, or routing limits, etc... All the inputs are on the front which is right where they DONT belong. If you have consistent needs that can be met by a particular model, then the convenience of an "all in one" might work for you. But they usually cost more (certainly for what you get) than the equivalent in either passive mixer/power amp/passive speakers, or passive mixer/powered speakers. You usually lose like 1/3 of the mixer functions even if input channels and power output are close to the same.

But that's coming from an independent sound engineer, so my needs and perspectives and preferences might be different than yours. But for me, if I have a gig where I just need to get 3 vocals in the mains, I like to be able to use my little $90 Yamaha mixer that weighs 6 pounds, bring the amp and the mains that are the same no matter what (unless it's a REALLY small gig, then I can bring my small speakers to use as mains), and be done with it. Then if I have a gig where the band wants to mic the guitars, and they have 3 singers, and bass in the mains, stereo keys, and mic the kick and snare, I can get a hold of a 16+ channel mixer somehow, and everything else stays the same. I don't have to come up with a completely different rig for that, I just add/replace what I need to.

Just look at this...
Yamaha MG16XU

Compared to this...
Yamaha EMX512SC

You lose 2 mic channels, 2 stereo channels (the useless RCA ones don't count, what do you actually have that has RCA outs?), parametric mids (kinda important for live sound, esp vocals to get a full rich sound minus feedback), 2 aux sends you can actually use as aux sends and not just s monitor send (which you need to kill your stereocapability for anyway), sub groups, etc... And all you get in return for the $90 extra you pay is an amp that's not that powerful anyway unless you run it at 4ohms a side. And by estimate when you factor in all the stuff they leave out of the mixer, they're charging you about $350 for that. For $300, you could get a brand new GX3 that puts out 425 at 4 instead of 500 at 4 (or is that peak power on the yamaha? who knows?).

So that's why I'm not really in favor of them.
 
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#75
If you run bridged you lose the ability to go stereo AND you can't even run monitors from the other side of the amp. Most 4 ohm amps only bridge at 8 anyway (not 100% sure but I think they probably series both sides of the amp or something like that). So that's great if you have a 700W+ passive sub at 8ohms, but doesn't really work for 2 300W 8 ohm mains.

If you have powered monitors (or no monitors), I would just run the speakers in stereo. The power to each speaker should be close to the same as if you ran bridged, but you'll have more flexibility.
 
#79
Welp, step one accomplished:

IMG_9244.JPG

I also picked up a Legion Sound PA7202 stereo power amp for $30 with the speakers. I'm having trouble finding much information on it online, but I think it's rated at 300 watts per channel. It's old, but let's see what she's got. I've got about $400 left for a mixer, speaker stands, rack and cables... And if need be, a higher quality power amp (hopefully not).
 
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#80
Alright guys, so since we have a gig coming up that we'll need the PA for in about 2 weeks, I decided not to chance it with the crappy $30 amp. I was looking at Crest, but then I saw a sweet deal on Crown from Musician's Friend so I went with it.

I've got all of the pieces purchased and awaiting delivery for a few things...
  • (2) Yamaha S115IV ($350 used, CL)
  • Crown XLS1500 ($200 new, MF)
  • Mackie ProFX12 ($160 used, Ebay)
  • Cables ($75 new, Amazon)
TOTAL = $785

We have mics, stands and cables, but we'll still need to scoop up speaker stands and a rack. I'm hoping to score those for $120 or less.

I'll update again when I've got everything here and have a chance to hook it up and try it out. :)
 
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