Hello
I confess to being a guitarist and I know precious little about any audio gear apart from my effects units, amps and PC software.
Here's my problem, if you can advise.
The band has acquired a new Behringer PMP6000 mixer and we need a pair of passive speakers for it.
Output Power
RMS @ 1% THD, both channels driven:
8R per channel: 300W
4R per channel: 600W
RMS @ 1% THD, bridged mode: 8R 1200W
Peak Power, both channels driven:
8R per channel: 400W
4R per channel: 800W
Peak Power, bridged mode: 8R 1600W
Our budget is £600 GBP.
I realise that we'll need a dedicated bass woofer but we need something with very good range to accomodate top-end guitar and acoustic violin
We're playing small to medium sized venues up to a couple of hundred folks in the usual, acoustically-poor , pub, club and village halls.
All advice appreciated.
I confess to being a guitarist and I know precious little about any audio gear apart from my effects units, amps and PC software.
Here's my problem, if you can advise.
The band has acquired a new Behringer PMP6000 mixer and we need a pair of passive speakers for it.
Output Power
RMS @ 1% THD, both channels driven:
8R per channel: 300W
4R per channel: 600W
RMS @ 1% THD, bridged mode: 8R 1200W
Peak Power, both channels driven:
8R per channel: 400W
4R per channel: 800W
Peak Power, bridged mode: 8R 1600W
Our budget is £600 GBP.
I realise that we'll need a dedicated bass woofer but we need something with very good range to accomodate top-end guitar and acoustic violin
We're playing small to medium sized venues up to a couple of hundred folks in the usual, acoustically-poor , pub, club and village halls.
All advice appreciated.
I'm gonna suggest you take it back and get a non powered mixer, if you guys are at all technically savvy get one of the Behringer XR series digital mixers like the XR18 or 16.. just depends how many inputs you need. This box can just sit on the stage like a stage box and be controlled wirelessly with an iPad or tablet, everybody can have their own monitor mix and control it themselves with their own iPad or whatever.
3 reasons for this suggestions.
1. Powered mixers are 80's technology and it's not the '80s any more, and they are a royal pain in the **** to use with powered speakers and subwoofers which is what you should be buying.
2. A digital mixer is vastly superior in every way, sound quality, features, and yes even ease of use once you get over the learning hump.
3. Powered speakers are vastly superior to passive speakers, this is the understatement of the decade now, powered boxes like those I'm suggesting below while not top of the line are so much more easier to use and better performing than passive it's not even funny.
The speakers I'd suggest you buy are the new Turbosound iQ series, get 12's to save pack space and buy an iQ18 sub later when funds allow or maybe a pair of iQ15 subs if the 18 is too big to handle.
If you can't handle a digital mixer or just want some physical knobs and faders to work with then look at one of the new Midas DDA series mixers like the DM16 or maybe a Soundcraft FX16ii, these will give you the basic features you need with decent quality.
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Thanks for that advice , conanski, which is informative and enlightening. I shall certainly consider your suggestions at some future date- but for the time-being the band is committed to using the existing PMP6000 powered mixer and we need suitable speakers for it.
Can you suggest any ? As I say, our budget is just £600 for a pair.
Can you suggest any ? As I say, our budget is just £600 for a pair.
I would suggest a used pair of Peavey SP5.
They don't have as much bass as a SP2, but you're not using a bass. That makes them easier to carry. They work best on poles (stands) above the heads of the audience, as they project the highs slightly down.
As with any used equipment sold on gumtree or whatever, test at the vendor's location. Take your mixer, take a CD and player, make sure the sound is proper. I use piano CD's because piano is very hard to reproduce, and having been to a live concert I know what a good grand piano is supposed to sound like. That means accuracy. That is how I latched on to my SP2, best piano sound of any speaker I've heard so far.
Hope your band is successful.
They don't have as much bass as a SP2, but you're not using a bass. That makes them easier to carry. They work best on poles (stands) above the heads of the audience, as they project the highs slightly down.
As with any used equipment sold on gumtree or whatever, test at the vendor's location. Take your mixer, take a CD and player, make sure the sound is proper. I use piano CD's because piano is very hard to reproduce, and having been to a live concert I know what a good grand piano is supposed to sound like. That means accuracy. That is how I latched on to my SP2, best piano sound of any speaker I've heard so far.
Hope your band is successful.
We buy nearly all our equipment through Thomann in Germany
https://www.thomann.de/gb/index.html
so most brands are available.
The RCFs do look expensive, yes, but the band doesn't want second-hand gear.
Do you really think that active speakers are best for us with the PMP6000 ?
My 3 year old LWEIII blew a tweeter. My 8 year old KLH22 blew a tweeter. open coil both. Both on a 35 W/ch amp. No parts support for anything identical.
My 29 year old Peavey SP2-XT sound great 4 to 10 hours per day, after 22 years on the road with a country bar band. This on a 70 W/ch amp. The bar band used 240 W/ch. Yeah, they needed whacking with a broom to get the tobacco dust off. yeah, they will need $10 in crossover capacitors some day soon.
Just saying. Cheap and new are a bad combination, IMHO. Search repair entries for Mackie, for example.
BTW the 29 year old bar band amp needed a dozen new electrolytic capacitors. Old PA amps need more maintenance than old PA quality speakers, unless abused. And a good listen on difficult source track should screen out abused or poorly repaired (cheap drivers) speakers.
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What about these as choices ? Any reason they would not be good with my PMP6000 ?
https://www.thomann.de/gb/ev_elx_115.htm
https://www.thomann.de/gb/behringer_b812neo.htm#bewertung
https://www.thomann.de/gb/behringer_eurolive_b215xl.htm
https://www.thomann.de/gb/ev_elx_115.htm
https://www.thomann.de/gb/behringer_b812neo.htm#bewertung
https://www.thomann.de/gb/behringer_eurolive_b215xl.htm
the first one is an active one. Would advise against any behringer loudspeaker especially for mid hi, if you're concerned with sound quality at all.
Please take the time to check out speakerplans, there is A LOT of great, professional grade second hand equipment on the market in England, and the guys on that forum can answer your questions, or might even have suitable merchandise for you. You can have excellent value that will pee all over any of that china stuff from Thomann which is within your price bracket. Do yourself and your bandmates the favor......
Speakerplans.com Forums
Please take the time to check out speakerplans, there is A LOT of great, professional grade second hand equipment on the market in England, and the guys on that forum can answer your questions, or might even have suitable merchandise for you. You can have excellent value that will pee all over any of that china stuff from Thomann which is within your price bracket. Do yourself and your bandmates the favor......
Speakerplans.com Forums
The first one, the Electro Voice- is passive.
Thanks for the link, bob. but the band want new with long guarantees and a fast returns option if they don't like them.
Thank you , JMF. Will our PMP6000 drive them OK at 300W per channel ? They're 400W RMS 1600W Peak.
The Behringer mixer will do an OK job driving those speakers.. as long as you're not trying to get rock band sound levels out of it. The powered version of those EV speakers has 1000w built in and it's just barely adequate as FOH for a live band IMO and even then only when it is high passed over subs.
Thank for that- we've opted for a pair of those.
We're a light band so we expect they'll be OK for our sound level- it's the tone I'm really interested in. I think that the ply cabinets will be good . We've been using an elderly pair of Peavey Eurosys 12" + with ply cabinets and they sound good- but they're only 250W .
If the EVs prove themselves we may add a pair of the actives you describe.
Thanks to all for the help.
Good forum.
power rating by itself is meaningless, and should not be the primary feature
by which you judge/compare loudspeakers. You need to consider sensitivity and frequency response before you can do any meaningful evaluation. If you have a 100 dB sensitive loudspeaker rated at 250 W, you will get 124 dB max output. A 90 dB sensitive loudspeaker rated 1000W will have only 120 dB max output, and need four times the amplifier power to do so.
Well- the PMP6000 is 300W per channel so I was very chary about cranking it up with the Peaveys.
Also, the Peaveys are 10" and the EVs are 15" - so I'm expecting a richer blend of the band's output. We can probably link the Peaveys too.
It's all quite exciting.
I don't actually know the frequency range of the Peavey Eurosys as I can no longer find them online. The EVs are 50- 20K.
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