Any PA experts out there ?

[jonnythenotes]

Not sure about these.... The band has the opportunity to buy a pair of Peavey speakers... ( I don't know if they are full range..so that's the first question.) I suppose, like a lot of people, I view Peavey as sort of entry to mid range gear that will do a job for you untill you can afford something better. Anyway...., this is what is on the cabinets... Front grill is marked up. PEAVEY BWX on a small plate at the bottom of the grill.. silver triangular logo with a red sort of brush stroke thing on it. The info on the back reads top to bottom.... PEAVEY RX Series. Max power 500 continuous. 1000 Program. 2000 peak. Black Widow Equiped. And then on a Bar coded label the following.... HYSYS 1RX. 4ohm. Serial Number E 1211453. Product 15006620. Also there is a rocker switch marked up as either Flat or EQ on the back. The fact they are loaded with Black Widows, makes me think they might be sort of the top end of this type of PA speaker. The chap wants £300 for the pair, which at first I thought was twice what they are worth, but with the above info, can any one tell me could they be worth this, and as mentioned earlier, are they full range, can they handle a bass drum at small venue volume levels...? I will be grateful for as much info / spec on these as poss. Thanks in advance. PS....in good condition as well !!!!

[JTUK]

Not up with the current range of PV ..only that I hear their cabs on all sort.of local band gigs.
I'm pretty hot on the vocal sound and the one thing I would look for is not so much the Woofer
..and the BW always was a desirable upgrade, IMO... it is the horn as these tend to take
quite a beating and are the weak point. This is not a problem exclusive to PV tho...
so, if you go and have a listen, pay particular attention to the hi frequnecy horn..and run loud as a test.

[jonnythenotes]

Thanks JT... Good advice there...

[VTypeV4]

Hisys-1 which is a 12" and a 1".. It's the later version with the ferro-cooled RX compression driver as well as the Black Widow low frequency component.

Not a bad sounding box and they're pretty tough although I'd have said £300 was a little steep, if you could get him down to £200 - £250 that would be more like it. They often have a light bulb to protect the HF component too. It can help save you if something gets wild and squeals as an automotive bulb is cheaper than a new diaphragm.

Don't worry too much about the EQ switch, just use it how you prefer the sound.

Hope that helps.

[JTUK]

And further to VtypeV4 post about horn units... I think anything over an 1" is better.
1" is standard but the better types like QSD tend to offer 1.75.
RCF have a 2" range but appear in heavier boxes..??

[Les]

We had the Hysis 2's, similar to yours but with a 15. I liked them to be honest but we used them with bins. Moved on to EV's and only got 80 quid for them on ebay

Do some research on second hand prices, 300 feels a bit steep.

[jonnythenotes]

Thanks for that chaps...all of you, but would you class them as full range, and would you consider a bit of bass drum thru them, or is that a no no.....

[Les]

I'm not sure what they would be classed as but going off the 15" version we had I would say they'd struggle with kick at any worthwhile volume.

[jonnythenotes]

Cheers Les.....its just to enhance the kick a bit.... to warm up the low end a bit....

[spacey]

Set of yamaha 15" + 2" Horn for that on a selling group in Yorkshire, they will hammer the peavey on Vocal clout.

[Roger2611]

The Peavey's should be very reliable but we had a set of Hysis 2's and had real problems with feedback, I then picked up a set of Martin CS2's....ok the Martin's new were far more expensive but used I gave £150.00 for the pair, sold the Peavey's for £180.00....£30.00 up on the deal and now with Martin Audio gear our sound is much better without the feedback problems we got with the Peaveys'

[JTUK]

[quote name='jonnythenotes' timestamp='1429527842' post='2752220']
Thanks for that chaps...all of you, but would you class them as full range, and would you consider a bit of bass drum thru them, or is that a no no.....
[/quote]

If you wanted kick then maybe 15's would be a better start point.
I think the PV's will be typically robust enough but I think kick will impact
on the vocal delivery too much and tbh, you aren't starting from a great
sound POV in the first place.
Having said that, we ran kick well into QSC KW112's but then again, they are
apples and oranges.
What is attractive about these PV's to you.... the price, capability..?
If price, then you are probably getting a well used ( abused?? ) pair
of cabinets and you'll take your chances.
If you go ahead, then maybe a kick test should be part of your buying guide/demo

[JTUK]

I'm thinking any useful kick is beyond most 12" P,A cabs...

[jonnythenotes]

Thanks to all of you for your advice...It's certainly made be rethink pulling the trigger on these. I will deffo investigate some of the other speaker types mentioned in this thread.

[Phil Starr]

Don't buy. The advice has been all good. These are reliable well made speakers but the vocal sound is poor due to the horn drivers the BW's are good enough but this is a higher price than you should be looking at in any case. For less than £200 you should be able to pick up some Yamaha S112V's or the almost identical but older and jack plug fitted S112IV's which I've seen go for little over £100 on ebay. These have a really punchy vocal sound and run with easily obtainable Eminence drivers should you get any problems. If you don't mind the extra weight the S115V's are slightly nicer sounding. Mine must be 20 years old with no problems to date.

EV, JBL QSC and RCF are all good but are likely to cost more. Wharfedale EVP series are worth a look if they turn up in this price range.

[JTUK]

I've heard people say very good things about Alto cabs, which are in the budget range price, but the point about Martin is that they are light years ahead of cabs like PV and Mackie, and also ahead of QSC which are the benchmark for local bands P.A IMO.
Martin stuff will be old but assuming you can still get the drivers if anything is wrong..and you can lump the wooden cabs,
then you'll have so much more bang for the buck.
The downside of cabs of this grade will be that they will be old, wooden-made and will likely need a decent heavy amp rack with their own controller, but if you can entertain these issues, you'll have a very very capable P.A.
We ran Martin ICT500 ( 410 ) cabs and the appropriate Crest amps and controller and that was our best and most capable sound by far.
We replaced it with QSC KW which was lighter and quicker to set up and generally a better carry all round, but the trade off was the sound.
That was a trade-off we could live with.

Cost of the ICT500's with controller was £500 and we sold for the same money 18 months later.
I wish I'd kept them.. as Martin is excellent gear but generally too expensive for us, if anywhere near new prices
but then you pay for quality

If it were me, I'd be looking at RCF 7/5/3 series with the 2" horns...and you may get these in active versions.
For a pub band set up active makes sense... there is a valid argument that separates are better, but that is another
topic.

[martthebass]

We recently sold a pair of Hysis 1s for £125 so £100-150 would be about the benchmark. They are fine as vocal cabs but we found they hit their limits fairly quickly when putting backing tracks or instruments through them. We changed to HK Audio PR:O12 s, the improvement was massive.