Help with first speakers

While I think the Eon series is excellent for singing reproduction and public speaking, I find them lacking at performance when used for DJing EDM music.
I would take a good look at the Mackie Thump Series. If you take the 15inch version I doubt you will even need a sub for 150 people.
If you are going for a “do it all” system you can also take a closer look at the offerings of HK audio and Yamaha and possibly the JBL PRX series.

The Behringers are no good. I did not test the ZLX in depth.
I think I gave you good options above.

Yep, saw the new generation at the Frankfurt show and from what I could tell, they sounded really nice with lots of boom for a full-range speaker. I am guessing the “you either love m or hate m” thing will be less of an issue.

Most importantly is still “trust your ears”, so try to listen to a few of the speakers you think you might like, preferably in an a/b comparison.

Hope that helps.

Greetinx.

15s will usually give you a little deeper and solid bass (it’s all physics) than 12s, allowing you to go without a sub.

Some 12s are better than others though. I recently did a charity gig and used my 2 Mackie HD1221s in the courtyard of a medieval castle to play music during a warm-up for 220 people. I couldn’t go full steam (would have been way too loud for the purpose) but I noticed once again that these speakers pack a serious bit of low end, considering they are 12″.

Good luck.

Yep, as you can read in many of the other posts on the the forum on purchasing speakers you will see that we usually suggest renting til you can buy quality. As one of our readers told us his father had tought him, “buy right only once”, meaning that you should only by quality gear and it will stay with you a long time in the long run saving you money by not buying lower grade kit and then upgrading three or four times to get to the level you really feel you should be.

The way I read OPs original question is that he wasn’t looking for PA gear to play paid gigs, but more for house parties and other friendly events. While I am an avid advocate of using top quality gear, in this case I understand there is no or very limited budget for gear rental. So that was my reason to leave out the rental suggestion, based on the intended purpose of the new purchase.

Still +1 for your tip cusp, it’s totally in line with what we usually tell people on here. Also the tip of used, although there it gets tricky if you don’t know what you are looking at/for in used gear imho. I have seen (active) speakers that sounded fine the first 10 minutes but after some serious warming up started humming like a diesel generator ;-). Guy that bought them had listened to them for 5 minutes just to check they weren’t shot and bought them. Repairs ended up costing him about the same as he paid for the speakers. So, unless you are very sure about your ability to pick out the rotten apple (which no doubt you will be able to do seeing what your daytime job is), there is an element of risk involved.

As far as people not caring what your speakers look like, I have a slight tendency to disagree. If your gear looks really scruffy, especially at more high end events like weddings, it does draw comments. Having said that. If you buy a set of (wood enclosure) second-hand speakers, it’s fairly easy to take them apart, give them a quick wet-sanding and bring them to a paint shop for a fresh paint job.

Greetinx.

The upgrade to full Serato is about 125 USD. If you can afford it, I’d suggest getting the Reloop Beatmix 4. It’s more expensive than the SB (also fuller featured) and, for a “limited” time comes with free FULL Serato. It’s truely an awesome deal. The price difference between the two controllers is 150 USD, but with the full Serato figured in, it’s only a 25 USD more. And you get a very nice 4-channel controller.

We all understand about budgets and such, but this is one to consider, especially if you want to get full Serato.