PA System for an idiot...

TelePaul

TelePaul

J to the R O C
I was wondering if someone could explian what the story is with PAs. I need something for practicing at home, just for D.I.ing a bass and for vocals. What's the deal with Passive vs Active Speakers? I'm assuming passive require a stand-alone amplifier?

Right now I'm looking at active sets like this one:

http://www.thomann.de/index.html?partner_id=97926&page=ie/the_box_pa108_a_mixer_bundle.htm

The speakers are 80w Bass, 50 watt treble, would that be loud enough for practicing?
 
TelePaul said:
I was wondering if someone could explian what the story is with PAs. I need something for practicing at home, just for D.I.ing a bass and for vocals. What's the deal with Passive vs Active Speakers? I'm assuming passive require a stand-alone amplifier?

Right now I'm looking at active sets like this one:



The speakers are 80w Bass, 50 watt treble, would that be loud enough for practicing?
Click to expand...

hi telepaul. i have no experience with the products you linked, but as a general answer to your question of "is it loud enough?" the answer is maybe. what kind of music? is your band loud? will you be running anything besides vocals through it?
based on specs alone, it is probably quite sufficient for lower volume or acoustic-type stuff, but would likely be completely inadequate for a loud rock band, especially if you are hoping to amp more than vocals. just because a system is, for example, rated as capable of 1000 watts continuous doesnt at all mean that it ever actually should have to deliver that (and truly, it perhaps never will, no matter how high the gain is set, but i digress). even very expensive amplification can and will sound crappy when it has the shit driven out of it (though the limiters seem to be getting better and better). a low-powered system will have little headroom (read: easy to distort) and also will be more prone to feedback as you try to squeeze out more power that isnt there. trust me; i have fought under-powered pa for a lot of years of my life, and i cannot recommend anyone follow suit. if money is a key factor, there is always the used market.

but first things first.... what do you need it to do?

a
 
I have had the opportunity to see and hear a few Carvin PA systems, and I was just amazed at the quality of sound for the price. I am not saying they are the best, just great bargains.

Charlie
 
toobalicious said:
hi telepaul. i have no experience with the products you linked, but as a general answer to your question of "is it loud enough?" the answer is maybe. what kind of music? is your band loud? will you be running anything besides vocals through it?
based on specs alone, it is probably quite sufficient for lower volume or acoustic-type stuff, but would likely be completely inadequate for a loud rock band, especially if you are hoping to amp more than vocals. just because a system is, for example, rated as capable of 1000 watts continuous doesnt at all mean that it ever actually should have to deliver that (and truly, it perhaps never will, no matter how high the gain is set, but i digress). even very expensive amplification can and will sound crappy when it has the shit driven out of it (though the limiters seem to be getting better and better). a low-powered system will have little headroom (read: easy to distort) and also will be more prone to feedback as you try to squeeze out more power that isnt there. trust me; i have fought under-powered pa for a lot of years of my life, and i cannot recommend anyone follow suit. if money is a key factor, there is always the used market.

but first things first.... what do you need it to do?

a
Click to expand...

Hey thanks for the reply. Right now, I only need it to deliver vocals for a kind of bluesy-rock band...but when I say 'rock' I mean more Creedence than Zeppelin. I need the vocals to be heard over drums, and likely the bass too. When it comes to the active speaker/mixer relationship, what exactly determines headroom?
 
Think of active and passive speakers like powered and unpowered. It's not the same thing but you can get the idea from say a condenser that needs phantom power to work versus a dynamic mic that doesn't.
 
Almy said:
Think of active and passive speakers like powered and unpowered. It's not the same thing but you can get the idea from say a condenser that needs phantom power to work versus a dynamic mic that doesn't.
Click to expand...

This will seem stupid but which is better?
 
I don't know if one is necessarily better by default. Keep in mind I'm a home budget hobbyist guy so I only know just enough to get by. Others will likely give you more realistic answers.

Having said that, I like unpowered better for PA's. But that's mainly because I like to gear up as I go with individualy units. Mixer, power amp, speakers. I like having each step in the signal chain separate as much as possible. Mainly because I tend to be on a budget and plan for upgrading. So in my case I like to have PA gear as individual as possible so that I can upgrade just the power amp when needed or just the speakers/wedge monitors when needed.
 
Almy said:
I don't know if one is necessarily better by default. Keep in mind I'm a home budget hobbyist guy so I only know just enough to get by. Others will likely give you more realistic answers.

Having said that, I like unpowered better for PA's. But that's mainly because I like to gear up as I go with individualy units. Mixer, power amp, speakers. I like having each step in the signal chain separate as much as possible. Mainly because I tend to be on a budget and plan for upgrading. So in my case I like to have PA gear as individual as possible so that I can upgrade just the power amp when needed or just the speakers/wedge monitors when needed.
Click to expand...

You're gonna hate me for asking, but when you say unpowered....is that active or passive loudspeakers?
 
Tele, I would advise against buy the stuff you posted the link to.IMO, it wont
cut it with drums in the picture.
The best way to approach P.A. is to look at it like putting together a component stereo system.Every component you buy should be able to
serve a need when you expand on the system.
If I were you I would purchase a couple of 15" unpowered mons w/horns
and a used powered mixer.(head)That will serve your needs for practice,
and as you expand on your system(mains,subs,mix console,power amps)
Nothing really becomes obsolete.The mons can be used for live and the
mixer head can serve as a back up power amp or act as your practice P.A.
 
SHEPPARDB. said:
Tele, I would advise against buy the stuff you posted the link to.IMO, it wont
cut it with drums in the picture.
The best way to approach P.A. is to look at it like putting together a component stereo system.Every component you buy should be able to
serve a need when you expand on the system.
If I were you I would purchase a couple of 15" unpowered mons w/horns
and a used powered mixer.(head)That will serve your needs for practice,
and as you expand on your system(mains,subs,mix console,power amps)
Nothing really becomes obsolete.The mons can be used for live and the
mixer head can serve as a back up power amp or act as your practice P.A.
Click to expand...
This is the best advice I think for what you're describing.
As for active versus powered ..... just think of them the same way except active has the power amp in the speaker. Other than that ....... things like headroom concepts are the same.
 
SHEPPARDB. said:
Tele, I would advise against buy the stuff you posted the link to.IMO, it wont
cut it with drums in the picture.
The best way to approach P.A. is to look at it like putting together a component stereo system.Every component you buy should be able to
serve a need when you expand on the system.
If I were you I would purchase a couple of 15" unpowered mons w/horns
and a used powered mixer.(head)That will serve your needs for practice,
and as you expand on your system(mains,subs,mix console,power amps)
Nothing really becomes obsolete.The mons can be used for live and the
mixer head can serve as a back up power amp or act as your practice P.A.
Click to expand...

I hear ya man, I appreciate that. What about a powered mixer and speaker combo? I know you said to buy the parts individually but the site I mentioned does some bundles with speakers and mixers.

http://www.thomann.de/index.html?partner_id=97926&page=ie/cat.html?gf=passive_pa_sets&oa=pra

Would you recommend any of these?
 
TelePaul said:
I hear ya man, I appreciate that. What about a powered mixer and speaker combo? I know you said to buy the parts individually but the site I mentioned does some bundles with speakers and mixers.

http://www.thomann.de/index.html?partner_id=97926&page=ie/cat.html?gf=passive_pa_sets&oa=pra

Would you recommend any of these?
Click to expand...
Before I made a recommendation I would need to know more about the
goal you have in mind for your band.Will it be a regular working band or
will it be a for fun thing to do in your spare time with the occasional party
for friends?
Let me know and I'll try and help you put something together.
 
Just some road experience and sense perhaps.

The only monitor I've ever destroyed was a powered monitor that was dropped. They are oddly shaped and large in the first place and we dropped ours loading out, cracking the mother board. Speakers you don't have to worry too much about but amps are different. Amps alone are usually square with handles and are easily loaded and packed.

I would also never get a PA with amps in cabs. What if the amp goes out at the gig? Can another amp be patched into the speaker box? If your speakers are separate all you need to find is alternate amplification. I'm not up on all the gear these days but that would be a major drawback for me owning powered speakers.

Rusty K
 
OK, Here we go. Yo Telepaul! See what I've been saying about the blind man and the elephant? The question I heard you ask is, "What are the different kinds of PA's, and where should I start for a small classic rock band? And- what is this active and passive thing, anyway? And BTW, I'd like to run a bass through it."

Every PA is a combination of a mixer (which is a bunch of preamps with controls that sends however many inputs you have to a smaller number of line outs. It usually has EQ on each channel, and adjustable reverb for each channel), a power amp (which raises the line level to something that can drive a speaker), and one or more speakers (usually in at least 2 identical arrays). Each speaker array is likely to contain dedicated speakers for lower frequencies (woofers), higher frequencies (tweeters/horns), and midrange frequencies (drivers). In larger systems, a single subwoofer is added to handle really low frequencies.

The differences are in quality/price (like everything else in the world), power, number of channels, and what boxes the components are in. A component system keeps it all separate. You use an unpowered mixer (most basic mixers are unpowered), to one or more separate power amps, to passive speakers (ones that don't have a built in power amp).

Another version is an unpowered mixer to powered speakers, such as Eons. This is very portable and simple. The downside is you can't use those power amps to drive anything but those powered speakers. The upside is it's simple, and usually, the amps are well matched to the speakers, because they were built to work together.

The third version uses a PA head or powered mixer to drive unpowered (passive) speakers, It's the same deal, but the power amp is built into the mixer instead of into the speakers.

No matter which version you use, the mixer, the power amp, and the speakers have to match in impedence and in power output/input.

So which is better? No simple answer, dude. It depends on your preferences and your needs. One thing to remember- The more components you have in one box, the more convenient and portable it is, the less versatile and flexible it is, and the more stuff that's out of action if one part of it breaks.

How much power do you need? That also is a matter of opinion. Some real crude guidelines:

100-200 watts, 4 channels- OK for 1 or 2 acoustic folkies in a coffee house

250-500 watts, 8 channels- good for small garage band, small gigs

800-1200 watts 16+ channels- What your average semipro working band uses while they dream of *more power*.

4000+ watts, 64+ channels- You are playing lead on for a headliner

10,000+ watts, 128 channels- Earth, Wind, and Fire (with the horn section and the doo-wops)

100,000+ watts- Woodstock. You can hear it clearly a mile away.

If you want to run bass through a PA, it would be good to have a dedicated subwoofer (usually just one), and a lot more power than you would otherwise need. You can do a small gig with a 50 watt guitar amp. The bass guy probably has 400 watts. You can overdrive guitar amps. Most bass players only want to use a fraction of their available power.

Why all this power? The closer you get to using all your available power, especially with low quality components, the more noise and distortion you get compared to the signal itself. Most folks want a guitar amp to distort on purpose. When a PA distorts, that is a *very* bad thing. Hope this helps.-Richie
 
Richard Monroe said:
OK, Here we go. Yo Telepaul! See what I've been saying about the blind man and the elephant? The question I heard you ask is, "What are the different kinds of PA's, and where should I start for a small classic rock band? And- what is this active and passive thing, anyway? And BTW, I'd like to run a bass through it."
Click to expand...
I posted this again so you can re-read it and decide if you think you come across as an asshole to the folks that took the time to offer Tele advice.
 
Well, If I come across as an asshole, sorry. This is not a thread where people are busting Telepaul's balls for asking one of those *big* general questions, as often happens. Everybody here has offerred something to help him. My point is that sometimes we try to build our informational house on sand, and we give a person that lacks general experience *a piece* of the answer. All the advice given above was good. I just felt that if a person asked the original question, it indicated that he might lack the knowledge base to put the pieces of the audio jigsaw puzzle together. You can draw your own conclusions about whether I'm an asshole. Like y'all, I'm typing stuff to try and help this guy, which for me, usually means painting the big picture. My purpose is to help all the answers make sense in a larger framework.-Richie
 
Richard Monroe's advice was excellent. Clarifies an awful lot. Thanks man.

Thanks everyone for the input.

(I'm TelePaul's brother, btw, and I'll be paying half of this)
 
Thanks for all your responses. I don't want any animosity here, a difference in opinion is essential and lets me make the most informed decision. As it stands I could walk into a shop tomorrow and ask the guy behind the counter what I should buy. But I like to at least udnerstand some of the basics.
 
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