Any DJs or band members in the house? PA Speaker questions.

I did a reasonable job of DJing a friends small wedding last week. I used a borrowed powered speaker from a local DJ my wife knows. The speaker in question is a Mackie SRM450 and I was pretty impressed with it. Now I think I need one or two of them. Lemons paddock has been kind of quiet the last couple of years and the speakers I usually carry up there are only 40 watts. The autocross PA sucks for playing music as well. I'm thinking another 1000-1500 watts should wake up the crowd. 

Man there are a pile of powered pa speakers out there. From cheap Chinese junk to cubic dollar boxes of wonder and noise. The SRM450s are about $600. That's 1000 watts, 12" woofer and a decent horn. The SRM650 is about $750 with 1600 watts and a 15" woofer and decent horn. Yamaha makes the same type gear for more money. 

The Mackie's have extremely mixed reviews in the business. It's either love or hate when it comes to them. The entire industry is pretty polarized when it comes to manufacturers. Their forums read like a Chevy/Ford fight so I'm turning to the voices of reason.

These speakers would be used at autocrosses for music and PA, and at Lemons for evening or day time festivities. I would also use it to keep the juices flowing when working in the shop.

My questions for you guys are,

1. Any of you in the DJ business or a band that uses powered PA speakers? 

2. What is the best bang for the buck powered PA speaker that will have decent quality sound and still put out enough volume to piss off the neighbors 4 houses down?

3. What have you guys used and are you happy with it?

I would like to keep the total expenditure around $500 but I don't want to be wishing I had spent more buying better gear next week.

Thanks for any advice.

Bumping this for the day crowd. 

In reply to Toyman01 :

I’m not a huge fan of the powered speakers because it limits your options when something fails. I totally get the convenience of them, but I’d be far more tempted to buy some used PA speakers & new class-D amp, possibly for less total investment. 

Isn't this up Curtis alley of expertise?

While I drive an i8, I am not a DJ, so I cannot help.  

In reply to Toyman01 :

I see Sweetwater has a demo SRM450 for $500.

This thread is relevant to my interests.  Someone broke into our autocross trailer and stole the small PA I used for giving drivers meetings, etc.

One thing I would specifically like to know: are there systems with wireless repeaters?

Rather than trying to blast all the way from the tent to the paddock, I'd love to have a remote speaker I can park up there that would be connected via wifi to the home system at the tent and just repeat whatever was put through the main speaker locally.  IT wouldn't need to serve music, it would just need to get people down to the tent on time.

Pete's suggestion to get passive speakers and a big amp is fair, you end up with a more flexible system, but you also end up with more stuff that needs to be carted around and set up. For small gigs, having just a single powered speaker on a pole is a super simple setup that keeps life easy.

If you don't see yourself going way down this road, follow your gut and get a pair of powered speakers, and a good set of speaker stands to match. Having your speakers above the heads of your crowd makes everyone's life much better. Less harshness, sound carries further.

If you want to go budget, used gear on craigslist is always the way to go. If you're interested in getting something brand new, go grab some behringer gear. It's the cheap stuff that pro DJs wouldn't be caught dead using but it sounds 95% as good as top-tier gear for 25% of the price.

After a bunch of research and a couple of phone calls to some people my family knows, I ended up with a QSC K12.2. 2000 watts, 12" LF Driver, 1.4" HF driver. I found a refurbished unit that had been discounted $200. 

Supposedly more durable than the Mackie and has some extra features that I will probably never use. 

I'll let you know how it goes. 

In reply to Toyman01 :

That sounds like a great deal, I’d say you made a good choice & buy!

yupididit said:

Isn't this up Curtis alley of expertise?

I wouldn't say expertise, but I have a lot of experience with it.

In the biz, what you're looking for is called a "tupperware."  JBL Eon.  They're not expensive, they make very good sound, and they're pretty indestructible.  They aren't anywhere near 1500w, but wattage is not all its cracked up to be.  SPL and SQL are what you need and the JBLs do a pretty good job of it.

Big watts means big magnets.  Big magnets means inefficient.  The net result is that doubling the wattage (and the subsequent speaker to handle it) only gives you a small fraction of increase in volume.

You also want to pay attention to cone dispersion.  Mids and tweeters are designed to fire in a certain direction.  If you're playing music at a huge warehouse or an outdoor event, you want the widest possible dispersion.  If you're playing a rock concert from a stage, you need narrow displacement.  If you notice at something like a sports stadium, the speakers are arranged in an array of narrow horns pointing directly at the seats.  This means they can get the message to you with only about 40w and not broadcast to the HOA -run condos next door.

JBL Eon 615 will shoot the middle.  500wrms, but they split the wattage 350w/150w for lows and highs respectively.  I have some of the older 615s and they really can make you deaf.  After about 100' away you start losing some of the nuances, but who cares.  If you're 100' away, nothing will sound great.  Eon 615s will run you about $450 each.

The other nice thing is that (while not waterproof) they are composite construction, so if you're playing an outside event you don't need to panic when the rain starts.  I had mine setup outside the theater for a BBQ and it rained for a few minutes and all I did was cover the mixer.

Other suggestions:  Mackie makes fine stuff.  I wouldn't hesitate to use Mackie speakers.  Behringer has slipped, but still do speakers really well.  This means you can score some B115s new for under $300 each.  Expect sound that leans toward the mid and high end.  Behringer pushes hard to do packages with subwoofers so they don't always focus on low frequencies in their cabinets.

Creme de la Creme for me is QSC.  Nicest sound reproduction I've heard in a long time, but you'll pay for it.

If you really want to boom on a budget, go separate amp and speakers.  I have some used Peavey SP-3G (15", 6.5", and horns) that absolutely knock the fillings out of your teeth.  I picked them up used for $60 each.  Find yourself a 500w x 2 power amp for $200 and you'll wish you had earplugs.  Really wide horizontal dispersion on the cones, but they still make enough high frequencies to shoot a long distance.  I wouldn't call them... um... portable.  They are after all 3' x 2' x 2', but good GOD are they worth it.  They are rated at 350wrms, but I actually have mine hooked up to a 1500x2 Crown amp.  I can push them way past 350w and not get any distortion or xmax/peaking.  That is to say, they are very conservatively rated.

Toyman01 said:

After a bunch of research and a couple of phone calls to some people my family knows, I ended up with a QSC K12.2. 2000 watts, 12" LF Driver, 1.4" HF driver. I found a refurbished unit that had been discounted $200. 

Supposedly more durable than the Mackie and has some extra features that I will probably never use. 

I'll let you know how it goes. 

 

You'll be happy with how they sound.  QSC does beautiful things.  For DJing you might want a powered sub, but just scour the local CL and FB marketplace for some.  A home theater sub won't quite cut it for you, but look for something like a Yorkville ns200.  Big booms from two 10s in a bulletproof package.

Never saw this but QSC makes good stuff

The speaker showed up today. Naturally I had to give it a workout. 

Quick dirty review, AWESOME! 

The musical quality is amazing for a PA speaker. Multiple orders better than most other powered PA speakers I have listened to and better than the Mackie I used a couple of weeks ago. Normal volume quality is almost as good as the Sony/Acoustic Research system in my home office. The SPL at full bore is enough to make my brain hurt and it keeps producing decent quality all the way to WFO where most speakers and amps fall apart. The extra money was well spent. 

It's currently playing some Kreb Mo in the background at a low idle and doing a superb job at it. 

If you are in the market for a quality speaker, I can recommend these.

I'll be ordering another one.