I am looking into building a PA system to play music at a good friends wedding reception. My DIY experience includes sealed & ported subwoofers and mains with passive crossovers. i know winisd well but have no hornresp knowledge. I need some help figuring out what my requirements are and what gear will fulfill those requirements.
What I have now:
What I need:
I need to have a plan in a week or two and decide if I want to do this or if they should commit to a professional DJ. I think there will be 200+/-75 people. Music will be quite a mix including country, pop, and classic rock, but I think I would be ok with a f3 of 40 HZ (or even 50). Transportation is an issue we can look at later; the wedding is 2+ hours away and I have a hatch back Probe and a standard cab truck w/o a topper. I should be able to find someone else driving by and throw some gear in with them. Sorry for the long post - any information you can share would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Payton
PS - Budget is flexible (no pyle-pro piezo crap but $5000 would be way over budget)
What I have now:
- Two crown XLS402 amps (http://www.crownaudio.com/media/pdf/legacy/133617.pdf)
- Adcom 5500 amp
- Two 15" dayton HF drivers (currently unused in a 18HZ tuned mdf enclosure)
- A speaker with a PA310-8 and a Selenium D220Ti-16 on a Dayton Audio H6512 waveguide. tuned to ~80HZ(?)
What I need:
- Mains - At least one more main speaker (would prefer to DIY as it is hard to find any quality used gear around here.) Should I do another 2-way with dayton driver(s) or something else?
- Subs - I don't think my 15" dayton HF drivers are the right drivers for the job. so I would like to build something new, I would love to be able to go sealed but I think amp power and driver cost will be prohibitive. Other options are TH and BR, any suggestions?
- processing - I will need at-least a crossover and a high pass for the subs. how does a balanced mini-dsp compare to real pro offerings? If I could also use it as a crossover / LT / sub EQ for my home system that would be great.
- Amps - I might need another amp or 2 depending sub demands and if I use my Adcom. I plan to run everything in mono - are there any amps with enough built in processing to eliminate the need for a separate processor?
- Mixer / microphone / limiter - No experience here, source will most likely be a laptop hooked up with a 3.5mm to RCA cable. No clue on a microphone anything in the $50 range that would work? I could find a place to rent one but don't mind buying used (or new) online.
- Misc. (rack and speaker stands) I'm sure I can design/build a rack or two and speaker stands. Any existing designs or build threads I can look at for ideas?
I need to have a plan in a week or two and decide if I want to do this or if they should commit to a professional DJ. I think there will be 200+/-75 people. Music will be quite a mix including country, pop, and classic rock, but I think I would be ok with a f3 of 40 HZ (or even 50). Transportation is an issue we can look at later; the wedding is 2+ hours away and I have a hatch back Probe and a standard cab truck w/o a topper. I should be able to find someone else driving by and throw some gear in with them. Sorry for the long post - any information you can share would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Payton
PS - Budget is flexible (no pyle-pro piezo crap but $5000 would be way over budget)
Payton, are there any options to rent equipment in your area? If so you might be surprised just how cheap it is to get your hands on a complete Dj system for an event like this.
But if that's not possible then the equipment you have isn't a bad starting point for a system. I'd say build another 12+1 top and add a single PV Lowrider 18 sub based on PV's medium sized enclosure plans, add an active crossover like the DBX 223 or Behringer CX2310 and a small USB pro sound mixer(Behringer has many) because you will get better SQ from a laptop by bypassing it's internal soundcard and this also gives you mic inputs and balanced XLR outputs to drive the amplifiers. You could bridge one of your crown amps to drive the sub, that requires a special XLR cable with pins 2 and 3 reversed on one channel and then the speaker is connected across the RED binding posts, that should provide about 800w into an 8ohm load. And if you want something better in terms of a crossover I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the DCX2496, you get so much more processing for the money and it is a very clean, quiet piece of equipment when used with balanced interconnects. For mic I'd recommend you look for a used Shure SM58 or Sennheiser 835, these are industry standards that often go for $50-80 used and they really do perform much better than a cheaper mic.
But if that's not possible then the equipment you have isn't a bad starting point for a system. I'd say build another 12+1 top and add a single PV Lowrider 18 sub based on PV's medium sized enclosure plans, add an active crossover like the DBX 223 or Behringer CX2310 and a small USB pro sound mixer(Behringer has many) because you will get better SQ from a laptop by bypassing it's internal soundcard and this also gives you mic inputs and balanced XLR outputs to drive the amplifiers. You could bridge one of your crown amps to drive the sub, that requires a special XLR cable with pins 2 and 3 reversed on one channel and then the speaker is connected across the RED binding posts, that should provide about 800w into an 8ohm load. And if you want something better in terms of a crossover I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the DCX2496, you get so much more processing for the money and it is a very clean, quiet piece of equipment when used with balanced interconnects. For mic I'd recommend you look for a used Shure SM58 or Sennheiser 835, these are industry standards that often go for $50-80 used and they really do perform much better than a cheaper mic.
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