How did the dance go?

[Charc]

Terribly. It was a long slow painful train-wreck. Not my fault, the DJ was terrible.

Well to sum matters up VERY briefly, I've secured another 500 dollars, and spec'ed out more stuff for us to buy. But unfortunately out coffee house people convinced the activities director that the money should go to a sound package, so should our budget for next year.

So I have 500 dollars to spec an expandable package. We need to start at 500 dollars. Possibly a little more. But that's about it.

First order of business? Amp + speakers. I wanted to go with active speakers, so that there are no worries about matching stuff up, or something. (I dunno, I'm not into sound.)

The Coffee house guy is saying speaker + amp, and JBL ("It's great quality".)

What would you guys do?

We need to use these for Dances and Coffee house (and other student run events). Any thoughts here? I'm lost.

 

[museav]

The first thing is knowing what type of music, size audiences, etc. are involved. Then knowing what you already have including not only speakers or amps but also cables, speaker stands, etc.

$500 may get you something like an single JBL Eon or Mackie SRM350 or you could maybe get a single Yamaha S112V or S115V and the smallest Behringer or Samson amps. But in either case these would push a $500 budget without even addressing any required cables, speaker stand(s), etc.

If you are starting from scratch my first thought is to wait until you get more money. There's a popular saying on one pro sound forum of "buy once, cry once", the point being that you can spend what it takes one time in order to get what you need or you can keep spending what money you have, not get what you really needed and then be that much further from having the money you need. Without knowing more about the situation, any suggestions are simply telling you what you might get for $500 and not necessarily what would be appropriate for your applications or what you might find acceptable.

 

[avkid]

For your own good, walk away.

 

[avkid]

I can get you one good powered speaker for $500, maybe.

 

[len]

I'm not sure if I read right, but your $500 is only going to consumables. To me, amps and speakers are not in that category. Either it's too early for me to think straight, or you need to spell out a little more clearly about what the space is intended to do, how big, and what your budget is for different things.

 

[jkowtko]

On the very low end of active speakers, you could pick up a pair of Behringer b212a for maybe $400-500 for the pair. However I don't know how those speakers sound or how reliable they are, so you may be urged to looking for Mackie SRM350s or 450s for minimum quality and relability. Unfortunately the Mackies will cost you double of what the Behringers will.

Either way, with that budget I would suggest planning on buying used equipment and monitoring eBay and Craigslist for deals.

 

[Hughesie]

Warning

Behringer is a bad company, i have owned a few of their "high quality" products

i would advice against any purchase of their products

this may sound like blantant company bashing but it isn't, if your starting out they will do what they say on the can but if you try and push for more don't expect such great results

 

[soundlight]

A coffeehouse vocal system is going to be different than a DJ system. For the coffeehouse vocal system, I'd reccomend the Kustom Profile 1 PA system, or if you can squeeze $130 more out of them, the Kustom Profile 2 PA system. I've have good experiences with multiple Kustom products. They're good for coffeehouse type gigs, but they're not good for crazy party speakers. My church had a Kustom system as the main system for a while, and still has it as the backup system. It's still a very clean system, and we've always run it with plenty of headroom to a crowd of about 150 to 200 people (this is speaking, mic'd vocals, and mic'd acoustic instruments). It's also been used for coffeehouses at the same church. I just moved, so I can't go back and tell you exactly how old it is (it was there when I got there), but it's old, and it's still performing well. I really think that either of the Profile systems would work well for a coffeehouse type situation. If they ever need club speakers, they can rent them, or just hire a real DJ.

 

[museav]

I just had to point out the description of the Kustom system speakers,

When you’ve got the mix and overall volume determined, the unique Profile Line Array speakers make your music heard with clarity, all the way to the back of the room.

This is the type of marketing crap that makes me run from products. It is certainly a "unique" line array speaker as having two 6.5" LF drivers is far from being a line array. In fact, the driver arrangement used is specifically not a line array, it is actually a quite different arrangement called a D'Appolito array. It is also interesting to know that achieving clarity is simply a matter of using these speakers and apparently they somehow eliminate the effects of how you use them, the application and the environment that affect other speakers. I personally avoid manufacturers whose product marketing and information use misapplied buzzwords and overblown claims like these to sell their product.

That said, the Kustom Profile One System may suffice for small coffee house vocal/acoustic type applications, although do be aware that despite coming with two speakers it is a mono system. I would not count on this system for dances or for higher volume rock type performances.

 

[jkowtko]

If you want to buy my Kustom Profile One -- it's collecting dust in the storage area of our theater. Our music director bought it used, and after a couple months it started blowing fuses for no reason and I couldn't figure it out ... so into the closet!

Portable PAs, though, in general sound like a great choice for coffee house. Here's an old Fender system that is selling pretty cheaply on EBay (190166371394) and may not be a bad option. It's inexpensive, that's for sure.

And you should be able to pick up a Fender Passport for well under $500 if you shop carefully. And, if you trust the Kustom, there's one selling "like new" for under $300 right now.

 

[soundlight]

Oh yeah. Fender Passport systems are also excellent. I've used multiple versions of Passport, and they're all great.

 

[avkid]

Oh my god, this lid is going to blow something up.
No powered mixer with powered speakers.
Eons are horrible and an ancient design.

I said walk away before, did I?
Now I would say run far, far away!!

 

[avkid]

Not really one less thing to screw up.

The cheaper the powered speaker, the more knobs.

Good powered speakers only have the following on the panel:
power in/thru
signal in/thru
and maybe a fuse or resettable breaker