Preferred Mains?

Diminished Triad

Diminished Triad

New member
For those who might have regular outdoor or large indoor gigs, what are your preferred mains?
JBL seems to be the favorite around here and just wondering if anyone has some decent experience with other lines and can share a little... Thanks!
 
Re: Preferred Mains?

Never player outdoors and never had to supply my own PA!

Most gigs I play are in venues one might call 'seedy'. :)

It's all about stage volume for me!
 
Re: Preferred Mains?

Most of the places I've played at on that big of a scale used JBLs from churches to clubs to outdoor gigs.
 
Re: Preferred Mains?

It all depends on how high-end you wanna go. JBL is not bad for sure, but as far as PA goes, it is not highest-end at all, but I guess you should really go to a sound-engineer forum for those questions ;). In general that will not be the sort of stuff any music store will be able to supply though, you will need to go to a specialized company for the higher-end stuf in general. JBL, EV, dB, KME, Dynachord are some brands that are the higher-end music store type stuff.
 
Re: Preferred Mains?

I've used Yamaha S115V's with excellent results. If you need more power handling you could get S215V's, but I'd probably just double up on the 115's instead. These are a very clear/transparent speaker in solid cabs.

If you live near a Guitar Center, you can A/B these in their Pro Sound room. But beware that they bias the speakers a bit by how far apart they space the different models on the speaker wall.

EDIT: Correction - mine are series IV, not V. But the current series looks to be even better than the ones I have. On a budget, this is how I'd go.
 
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Re: Preferred Mains?

p.s.
If you do setup an account and ask any questions over there make sure you use your Full Real Name(They REALLY hate screen names :) ), and you give an accurate as possible description of:
1. The type of music you play
2. Number of members and types of instruments you will be using
3.What you already currently own
4. The sould level you hope to accomplish at a given distance (e.g. 100dB average, at 60 feet from the stage)
5. BUDGET, and Does the Given Budget include or exclude all extras like transportation, cables, amps, POWER e.g Generators etc.

Keep in mind that you'd normally need 3-4 times the power/speakers/SPL to cover an outdoor venue compared to an equivalent sized indoor venue with the same volume
 
Re: Preferred Mains?

McCauley, years ago I dropped the coin on a set up so my band would never have to rely on someone else for sound and those cabs rock.
 
Re: Preferred Mains?

When I played with Ascension back in the mid 90's we ran a big set of Sonic mains that were and are still the best sounding set of cabs for the size I have ever heard.
Ours ran RCF drivers and we had a pair of 2/15's on a 2/18 sub on each side. So clean out front they sounded like a set of studio control monitors. These things handled some massive power doing outdoor shows for years without a single failure! When I saw Queensrich here at Oak mountain back in the late 90's they were running a wall of the absolute same cabs we had and to this day that is the best system in an open air venue like that I have ever heard!
The company is still around here is the website. http://www.sonicspeaker.com/
Don't know if they are still building that same high end quality of speaker today but if they are --. I would look at the 2 inch horn series speakers hard as the ones we had were simply amazing!
 
Re: Preferred Mains?

The Yamaha Club Series are the best bang for the buck PA speakers for small club weekend warrior bands. Peavey makes some good inexpensive cabs too.
 
Re: Preferred Mains?

Dimished...are you looking at buying a full blown PA system or are you just asking about big gig systems generally?
I think you are pretty right about jbl being the standard these days in a line array.
 
Re: Preferred Mains?

EV sx-300 cabs for acoustic gigs have always served me well solo. With a band paired with bass bins have always kicked some serious butt. But there are plenty of other PA cabs that do great things as well but for a 12" with horn for about 600 bucks I've never heard a better box. Mine are about 15 years old and still going strong after 1000+ gigs and as many rehearsals.
 
Re: Preferred Mains?

My big system is Peavey SP-2X tops with JBL M-Pro 255 subs (215 folded horn). I've run 4,000 watts of QSC PLX power into them and they sound as good as any system I've ever heard.

I just bought a smaller system for club gigs. This one is Carvin LM15 powered tops and the Carvin LS118 powered subs. I've been pleasantly surprised at how good this system sounds.

You'll want to carefully match the output of your power amps to your speakers. The common rule is that you should power each speaker with an amp rating equal to the PROGRAM rating of the speaker.

And ALWAYS buy a mixer with more inputs than you think you'll ever need.

Oh, and don't scrimp on your snake. Buy the highest quality you can and take good care of it.

Good luck.

Bill
 
Re: Preferred Mains?

gibson175 said:
Dimished...are you looking at buying a full blown PA system or are you just asking about big gig systems generally?
I think you are pretty right about jbl being the standard these days in a line array.
Click to expand...

I have Mackey 1531s and use 1801 subs.....our sound engineer uses older JBL's and powered mackies at times to supplement when we play a larger outdoor event. I'm hoping to find mains we can use ourselves outside without having to rely on someone else - he strongly suggest JBL's.....they have a lighter line out now (haven't checked in a while but think it's the stk line) where they keep things light for those loading and unloading a few times a week. Yamaha is probably the second most popular line out here but not because of quality.....just because they've always been on the expensive side....always good stuff from yamaha in my experience.

Thanks!
 
Re: Preferred Mains?

Boogie Bill said:
My big system is Peavey SP-2X tops with JBL M-Pro 255 subs (215 folded horn). I've run 4,000 watts of QSC PLX power into them and they sound as good as any system I've ever heard.

I just bought a smaller system for club gigs. This one is Carvin LM15 powered tops and the Carvin LS118 powered subs. I've been pleasantly surprised at how good this system sounds.

You'll want to carefully match the output of your power amps to your speakers. The common rule is that you should power each speaker with an amp rating equal to the PROGRAM rating of the speaker.

And ALWAYS buy a mixer with more inputs than you think you'll ever need.

Oh, and don't scrimp on your snake. Buy the highest quality you can and take good care of it.

Good luck.

Bill
Click to expand...
Thanks Bill!
 
Re: Preferred Mains?

The 2 best sounding systems I've come across myself whilst doing FOH have been Logic and Turbosound (not sure of specific models of either).

The drummer in 1 of my bands has his own PA Company and for smaller things he uses either Bose or Peaveys and his larger rig is (I think) an old carlsbro setup. Snob value aside, whatever it is it sounds good even though it doesn't look like much.
 
Re: Preferred Mains?

Brow said:
The 2 best sounding systems I've come across myself whilst doing FOH have been Logic and Turbosound (not sure of specific models of either).

The drummer in 1 of my bands has his own PA Company and for smaller things he uses either Bose or Peaveys and his larger rig is (I think) an old carlsbro setup. Snob value aside, whatever it is it sounds good even though it doesn't look like much.
Click to expand...

Some of the touring bands provide a list of 3-4 options they will allow for mixing boards and mains. My little experience working with them is their sound engineers want to be extremely familiar with the system and since they've mastered a few and with little time they want big/popular names. Even if just a start, looking to invest in very large/high output mains that I could continue to add to later should I be able to put an entire concert set together. What might that one brand/name be? Thanks!
 
Re: Preferred Mains?

Diminished Triad said:
Some of the touring bands provide a list of 3-4 options they will allow for mixing boards and mains. My little experience working with them is their sound engineers want to be extremely familiar with the system and since they've mastered a few and with little time they want big/popular names. Even if just a start, looking to invest in very large/high output mains that I could continue to add to later should I be able to put an entire concert set together. What might that one brand/name be? Thanks!
Click to expand...

All depends on your budget to be honest.

Both the Logic and Turbosound rigs I've worked with in the past have sounded great, just expensive. I think the guy with the Turbo rig told me he paid about £1k per cab at 1 point.

At a lower price point I quite like some of the Peavey stuff. Sounds good and I've always found it to be quite rugged too.
 
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