PAs, any good for metal?

[Woodinblack]

OK, I lied about the metal.

We are a loud (too loud) pub band, Rock, Pop, Ska, and as little blues as I can manage to get away with. We also do a few outside truck gigs, and a spot outside a pub in a marquee occasionally, but fundamentally pubs, small and medium sized. But too loud. Currently we have a set of behringer speakers and a Poweramp, these belong to the drummer. We put the vocals, sax, a bit of the guitar, and a very small amount of keys for a couple of songs and occasionally when outside, various parts of the drum kit through it. 

It can sound mostly ok, but it is often muffled and quite poor.

My last group we had a pair of Behringer eurolive 215D powered speakers on sticks, and I am sure that was a bit of a better sound, although that was just vocals, with very occasionaly the drums. My bass never went through the PA in either group.

We have long wanted to change this, but frankly I am probably for bad reasons, the only one who would buy one. I have thought about doing so in the past, but the thing is a minefield and frankly I haven't got much space (even though the singer would probably look after them).

So i have gone round this in circles, looking at some more 215Ds, then things like it like the Mackies, or the cheaper JBL and then getting to confused and giving in. I don't want to spend a fortune even if I do get some. Every time you find something there are a ton of people saying 'oh don't get these, these ones only £500 are much better' etc. Genuinely if I did go for it I would want to pay about £500 or so (new or SH), and if I did go above that, it would never be above £1k.

Just recently I noticed people with those column PAs, and there are a lot of adverts coming through for them. They all seem to show them with singer songwriter people, people with acoustic guitars and the like. Are they any good for a rock band?

[EBS_freak]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RCF-Art-732-A-MkII-with-padded-covers-bags-2-available-and-price-per-speaker/253905172566?hash=item3b1ded7856:g:LG8AAOSwM~Rbivka

I personally would stay away from the mini line arrays unless you go for one of the top end systems (K-Array etc). You'll get better performance from your traditional boxes for the money.

The reason for the RCF above? The 3 in the model number designates the voice coil size in these hf element. In essence, a large sized voice coil in the high means that more of the vocal can be handled by that drivers and crossed over lower so that the woofer can concentrate on what it's better at - the lows. This will give you a much better clarity and projection in the vocals over other cabs in this range - which typically would have a 1 or 1.5 inch voice coil.

[grandad]

I agree with the above, those mini-line arrays just don't do it for a full band.

[yorks5stringer]

I heard a Mark Audio mini speaker system with small subs at the SW Bash and it sounded great to my ears.....😏

[Phil Starr]

There is a whole world of PA that sits in between the higher number RCF cabs and upmarket line arrays and those Behringers and at your budget that's where you should be looking. 

The Behringers lose out because of the speakers, I've had cause to pull some apart recently and they have very small magnets. They are a wonder of engineering to a budget and they sound good for the price but those tiny speaker magnets mean two things, they don't handle bass well and they won't go loud without distorting. If that's all you can afford then they are remarkable for the price but they aren't an upgrade to anything.

If you are fairly technical and don't mind a slightly fiddle set up then there are some real bargains out there with used passive PA systems. Everyone is moving to lightweight active systems with mega powered class D amps/switch mode power supplies/Digital processing for convenience and there is suddenly a lot of older good quality PA on the market. You could probably pick up a pair of the old Yamaha Club series PA speakers for £150 which would blow the Behringers away. Look for S112V's or S115V's You'll obviously need a separate power amp. Old passive Electrovoice (EV) JBL and so on are all worth a listen too. Avoid the old passive Peaveys, super reliable but the vocal sound is really not great, they never really sorted their horn drivers/crossovers. the bass bis are OK if you go down that route.

If you want to go down the route of active and bought new then the Wharfedale Titan 12's (£200ea) are great value so long as you keep the bass out of them, the vocal sound is excellent and sax and guitar will sound great but the cab is a bit resonant at lower frequencies. For everything else they go loud and clear. You could look to see if the RCF 310 mk3's are still on offer at Thomann (I paid £250ea recently). Stunning quality but again they won't really do bass for a band, this time because they are only 10's. If you don't mind weight you might pick up some used Wharfedale EVP's at a good price but they really are quite weighty.

If you want to try some stuff out then PM me. 

Edited October 6, 2018 by Phil Starr

[BreadBin]

17 hours ago, yorks5stringer said:

I heard a Mark Audio mini speaker system with small subs at the SW Bash and it sounded great to my ears.....😏

Pretty sure that system cost a lot more than @Woodinblack wants to spend...

[Woodinblack]

9 hours ago, BreadBin said:

Pretty sure that system cost a lot more than @Woodinblack wants to spend...

Yes, probably but it is interesting none the less.

Some good stuff to think about - I don't really want to have anything too heavy and by the same token, I don't really want to carry the amp around (although we do currently), thats what I meant about the behringers being an upgrade, currently we have passive behringer speakers and they are not great! The monitors are even worse, but that really isn't an issue for me, as I have in ears so have no issue with monitoring. 

[Jack]

We got our Alto TS115 tops for £500 second hand. We did it over my protests as I wanted something more QSC or RCF but honestly? They sound great. So good I've since bought a pair of their cheaper TX10 tops for myself.

 

When you feel like it later on, the matching TS118S subs were cheap too.

Edited October 7, 2018 by Jack