Portable PA systems. Any advice.

[Swaphappy]

What are your recommedations for a PA system for a small group. Saw the Kustom Profile One PA System on the internet and noiced that it had some 24 bit digital effects like echo that might sound good for small rooms.
Just wondered if anyone has tried one of these.
I am not near any big music stores where I can demo it.

[Bastiaan]

I am very happy with a soundcraft spirit fx. I use a Yamaha 4500 as an amp and Yamaha S115IV speakers, but i think they have a powered mixer also. Or just get yourself some powered speakers.
Mixer/amp/effects
speakers

[minimoog]

all sound reinforcement systems are portable. you just need enough trucks, big enough to put it in! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

on a less stadium level, what type of music is it for? what size rooms will you be playing? what budget?

EAW and Meyer Sound Laboratories make some very nice small speaker systems that are really quite affordable.

also consider weather it would be cheaper to hire. if your band (or whatever type of group you are) is going to set up a business, system hire or system puchase is potentially a tax deductable expense. the advantage to hire is that you don't need to worry about most maintainance costs (as long as you choose the hire company wisely!)

[timmygrimm]

i bought a mackie cfx series recently with 2 powered jbl EON speakers. real good system... the only thing is the effects on the mackie really bite. so i'd reccomend another mixer. i highly reccomend the EONs though.

-tim

[Swaphappy]

minimoog that was a hoot [img]images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

To qualify this a little more
what we are looking for is to make Uncle Bill's
harmonica a little louder and all our vocals are
a little on the weak side. We had two acoustic guitars that were heard fairly well. My strat had no problem of course. They kept telling me to turn it down and when it was near zero I got the thumbs up. Mandolin was electric too. The banjo had a resonator so no prob.
Then there was problem with an occasional coal train passing by about 200 feet away and the
bridge construction was noisy.

Also I want to mention that the audience still wanted to be able to talk to each other. After all, this was reunion so we don't want stacked speaker columns just something to give the performance a little more body. You know what I mean?

[Swaphappy]

This not a bump. Your comments have been very helpful but
i just forgot to mention that I have a Mackie 1642-VLZ Pro mixer already so I could just get some powered speakers as suggested
but I would have to break down my digi 001 setup to use it for the group.
It has not effects either so I would have to bring an effects unit too. I don't want to end up being the road crew. I just want to play and have it be audible.

[Stone Knife]

What are you guys using now? What's the budget for this?

I'd avoid the Kustom gear. We had a little Kustom PA at a radio station we would use for remote broadcasts... when the weather got cold, it wouldn't work due to bad solder joints. YMMV.

The Mackie SRM450's will cover pretty well with their combined 800 watts, pretty hi-fi.

[aziel]

I agree with Stone, the active Mackies sounds just great, like a HI-FI home stereo ... [img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img]

[Swaphappy]

Well my budget is no more that $2000
but if I can get away with $600 it would be better.
Right now we are using guitar amps and whatever is provided on site. Sometimes there is no PA so that is why I am looking into one.
This looks interesting:
Passport P-250 Portable Sound System
And it does look easy to setup and has digital reverb.

[Numachida]

If you have the bucks a Mackie powered mixer (808?), for good but cheap you can't beat a Peavey XR600, the old ones, you'll have to find it used. Also used-any WSA series RAMSA speaker.
You should be able to get the XR600 and 2 Ramsa WSA-200's used for <$1000.00. Maybe 700-800.