HELP – amplifier and sub

So when you say “Large House Party” how many people do you mean?

For this, I would (probably depending on size) get a pair of active (the amps are built in) speakers, 12″ in size and not bother with a sub.

I would consider the following speakers:

Mackie Thump 12 – Approx £460 for a pair – Low end but decent speakers, will sound pretty good.

Mackie SRM450’s – Depending on age, anywhere from £500-£800 for a pair. These have been around for ever and we are now on V3 of these. Decent speakers from any age and they are the go-to speakers for many DJs.

Yamaha DBR12’s – approx £700 a pair – Decent mid range speakers. Fairly new design but good reviews.

Mackie SRM550 – Approx. £900 a pair. Decent speakers, mid range. Big brother to the SRM450s.

Yamaha DXR12’s – Approx. £950 a pair. Similar to the SRM550s, Decent speakekers, upper-mid range. Big brother to the DBR12’s.

QSC K12’s – Approx £1200 a pair. High-range speakers. Well known and used worldwide.

Yamaha DSR112’s – Approx £1300 a pair. High range speakers.

JBL PRX612M’s – Approx £1400 a pair. High range speakers.

Mackie HD1221’s – Approx. £1600 a pair. High range speakers. Older now and therefore quite heavy..

QSC KW122’s – Approx £1800 a pair. High range speakers. Newer version of the K12’s..

Pick one from that list – depending on your budget. You get what you pay for though – but don’t spend too much if you aren’t DJing professionally with them enough to earn your money back within 3-6 months..

bob397

really loving the Yamaha DXR series. 1100 watts per speak. Sounds amazing. Not that large either and fits comfortably in any sedan. The 15′ sub on the other hand can be a handful as it’s ridiculously large.

I’ve never been a big fan of Behringer. I find the quality low and long term reliability low-moderate. I do like their mixers though. Lot of bang for little buck. I’m not entirely sure anything they make for audio is going to bang. You’re better off looking at Yamaha, QSC, Mackey, or JBL.

Depends on the size of the room. I use 2x500W RMS 15″ speakers (no sub) at my weekly gig in a room which is approx 30 x 20m big. I have plenty of volume and never hit the limiters (unless I really push it lol). If I had a 400W sub, I would want 2 x 400W tops and simply adjust the volume on them until it sounds balanced. It the sub active or passive?

If it is passive, you will want to run through a crossover (which splits the audio so that only the low frequencies got to the sub and only the high frequencies to the tops) – and this is where it becomes tricky. No company (that we know of – it comes up fairly often) makes a crossover that will just split between a sub and tops.

As you couldn’t use a crossover becuase of that, I would recommend that you just get a decent pair of active speakers and forget about using the sub – it isn’t powerful enough to compete with any pair of decent active speakers anyway. You might as well just get decent speakers..

What I would do (and indeed what I did do) is to get a pair of decent 15″ speakers that can cover the whole frequency range without needing a sub. Or you could get a system such as the LD Systems Dave series, HK Audio Nano 600 etc. instead – these are cheaper, smaller systems which incorporate a sub with matching tops as a set. Best of both worlds and easier to move around than a sub..

Besides all that, the system will sound better with just a pair of tops than it will with a behringer speaker in there imho.. I used to use a behinger mixer and that was alright, but it started changing the volume without me touching it and definitely coloured the sound.. My new Yamaha is much better than that ever was!!

bob6397