If things go according to plan im off shopping on wednesday or thursday to buy some overdue new sound gear. I have 2k to spend and im off to soundslive in newcastle upon tyne Clicky

I have been looking and pondering for several months and am going for it at long last. My ideal setup after a lot of thought is an active system. Reason being, i want something fairly light weight (20kg is light in comparison to my current gear) modern looking, and ulitmately quick to setup. I currently make 3 trips to the van for my speakers, amps and cables alone.

yes my current rig sounds ok but i have heard a lot better recently from budget systems and it is now too tatty for some of the venues i have secured.

Initial thoughts are a pair of 12" mid tops and a sub. I do a lot of small gigs and hope the 12" mid tops will be enough for my usual 50-60 people parties and the sub for the proms etc in bigger venues.

Considerations are
mackie srm 450's
RCF 312/322
RCF 905as sub
DB tech opera live digital
db tech sub.

decisions decisions decisions, too much to choose from.

Help. your votes count!

I've been to my local shop, and from your £2000 budget, found that I could get 2400 cans of Kronenbourg.
Probably easier to carry, and would get just as much respect from fellow DJs.

Do it!

That's a decent budget - Actives are pretty good, I guess they can be a nightmare when they fail - but a failure mid-gig (on one) shouldn't be as bad as an amp on a passive system with no spare...

Try to get the shop to demo them all for you, Mackies vs RCF would be interesting. I preferred the RCF 12", but at the time they were too far out of my price (as I also wanted active subs)
There was not *that* much difference until we went to 15" RCFs (which sounded great, but out of my price range).

I'd also suggest taking along a few songs that are typical to what you play -and also make sure they run the EQ flat.. If they're bumping the bass on the mixer, then you won't hear problems are "demo levels", but at high levels it could cause problems.
A "blind" test would be best - and you could trust your ears. Even better if you can get Mrs Minty along. Carmen also confirmed what I heard.

Jason

Have you considered Bose L1 and 2 Base units?

My view of these

SRM 450 - I have a pair of these for sale. Mark I versions with covers in Mint condition. These are excellent function speakers. I used them without subs for up to 150 people. Beyond this I used an RCF 902as sub to give more bottom end. The Mackies are very robust and for life on the road the best speaker I have bought. They are signifcantly cheaper than the RCF's or FBT's.

RCF 312/322 - the difference in these 2 is that the 322 has the 2 inch horn v 1 inch on the 312. Weightwise they are farily similar to the Mackies and they are robust as well. Personally, the 322 is the better speaker as the 2 inch long throw horn will serve you better in larger venues. Therefore with £2k in my pocket I would prefer the 322. I use the 722's. These are lighter and have more power.

RCF 902/905 - These are the ART series subs. 1000 watts of power. The difference is that the 902 has the 12 inch driver and the 905 the 15 inch. I roas tested both of them and went for the 902 because it fitted underneath my giraffe stand where the 905 wouldn't. Should wise there wasn't much between them. If pushed very hard, there was a shade more thud with the 905's, but the 902's were more portable, so they suited my needs.

For the money either buy my Mackies

or

Or if I was you, I would buy the RCF 422, these are lighter than the 322's and are simply a 400 watt version of the 750watt 722's. These will be lighter than the 322's plus you will be buying the more up to date version and wll be more desirable on reselling a few years time.

Dead jealous dave i love shopping for new stuff, have you considered the QSC K12's. Mate of mine has these and the output and sound quality is very impressive for the size of them. Very portable and in your price range too, although the speakers you have in mind all seem to be excellent also.

Thanks for all the replies. Im off with an open mind. Soundslive have a wide range of gear on disply (propbably the only retailer oop north with a decent selection) and as they are an hour away, support is a lot easier. Im not into demo one place then buy 0.05% cheaper elsewhere.

I will look at the K12's as well as the 312,322,315,902,905,450's etc etc and feel very fortunate to be in this position. I have considered the Bose but as nobody stocks them round here i cant even clap ears on them.

From what people have said about the bose they are too marmitey for me and they dont like MP3, which several people have said.

I wasnt going to spend so much until Mrs Md watched me make 6 arduous trips to the van last night just for my sound rig and she wasnt that impressed with the sound after all that



a couple of vodkas and she upped my budget

Just a thought. What sort of music would you recommend to take to demo with. I am thinking of New Order Blue Monday, ACDC You shook me all night long, some chart rnb etc

basically a mix of low end thud, guitar and high end something or other

anything particular i mind?

Insomnia,Safri Duo,Whitney-Iwant to dance with somebody.

Another thought here.

If you are upgrading to good quality high-end speakers such as RCF, FBT EV or Bose you need to consider whether your current mixer will do justice to the new speakers. No point spending £2k if you intend using that 20 year old £30 mixer with it. Maybe a new mixer such as Denon or Pioneer will give you the ultimate sound.

I always use two tracks when 'sound testing' to give me clarity and thump! Paul Simon Diamonds on the soles of her shoes and Billy Idol White Wedding. On the Bose Paul Simon sounds sublime just so crystal clear and then Billy Idol gives it a right old banging!

If you only want 1 sub and tend to do smaller gigs then you might want to consider a HK Audio Lucas system.

I have looked at the hk gear but for 2k i would only get a sub and 2 8" satellites. My intention is the leave the sub at home most of the time and use a decent pair of 12" tops as my main rig. Hopefully i will get a better deal buying the job lot now.

As im doubling up a bit at the moment (2 gigs a night) the sub gives me a base for a second rig and i can easily get my hands on a pair of rcf 310-a's or a pair of mackie srm 350's which would be a bit weak on their own.

Im burning a cd and taking my ipod with some of the above tunes and have to rely on a physical test now, im even going to carry stuff round the room and up and down stairs for a bit.

I've just used my 310-a's for a few gigs recently, the ones that are in small venues, 50-60 people and usually an older crowd (70th birthday last night for instance) - I've found them brilliant for these situation, plenty loud enough and plenty of bass for the type of music I've been asked for (easy listening, motown, 60's, rock'n'roll etc).

With the items you've listed, I don't think you'll go far wrong either way.

Dave,
try to leave some £££ aside from some speaker bags -at least for the tops. I got some gator bags for my mackies, and they are still in mint condition.
My subs are starting to look a little worn (just the odd scrape which I touch up).

Jas

Definately, im hoping to wrangle as much as i can out of them and bags are first on the list.

Well i have been and as per usual spent more than i had bargained for.

I do however have a shiney new rcf rig.

The 3 series are discontinued so there were none available, the 4 series are months away for being available. They had a single 322 in stock and that weighed a ton and the others never really shined.

so its 2 x 712's and a 902 sub all with bags.

Thanks to all for the input and patience, through posts, pm's and phone calls, i have asked some daft questions and all the advice has been gratefully recieved.

now im off to sell my soul to the devil

cheers
Dave

Dave,
When you get a moment would be really interested to hear what other speakers you listened to and why you thought the RCF's were the best choice.

Sounds awesome, I think we all go over budget when we go shopping, I always do anyway, enjoy playing with them.

To be honest, not a lot. the only other real options were the mackie srm 450's and db technologies opera live 405d, neither of which IMO came close to the rcf's. My ears are not the best on the planet but for me the rcf's were the best all round. I really wanted a the cheaper 312's but as i said they are now discountinued.

I am confident i can gig in all of my usual venues with the 712's alone and the sub is for the proms etc. I wanted to avoid cross matching different manufacturers and the 902 is an excellent sub. 3 year warranty as standard

I asked that the qsc k 12 were not fired up as that would of really put the cat amongst the pigeons.

What sold it for me was when stereophonics - maybe tomorrow came on. I was at the other end of the room and the lead vocal was truely amazing.

Maybe i made my decision too quick and shopping by brand may have come in but we are limited up here with decent size retailers and they did a good price match to various online retailers. also the support is there. In the event of a failure i can take them back (about 45 miles away) and they will give me a free loan of replacemnets.

Ok i could have saved a couple of hundred quid by getting the mackies or db technologies but the final price was within my comfort zone and i effectively got the bags for free, ok not that important but still a consideration

I am sat wondering have i done the right thing and may not sleep very well tonight but so far we have been nothing but impressed with the cabs in both apparent build quality, weight, power rating, aesthetics and most importantly - sound. The sound at low levels in the living room with my ipod is rather stunning. I thought we would have to drive them to get a nice sound and that mp3's would not do the cabs any justice

Also the background hiss is nominal on full power, something else that stood out form the crowd.

saturday will be the real test.

I've had DB Technology and RCF speakers before - I think you've made a very good decision, the RCF's are definitely a step up in quality and sound (not that I was unhappy with the DB's). I'd sleep easy if I were you, don't think you could've bought better, I'm sure you'll be very happy with them after the first gig. I may well be going along the same route as you soon so have really appreciated your posts on this.

Appreciate the reassurance there funkymook, as i said i know i dont have good ears and was a bit worried that i may of missed something. You are right about the step up the ladder I wanted to do this once and not be left wanting in the future. the guy in the shop said he had never heard of a dj buying RCF and despite him having a lot of mackies to shift he said he wouldnt bother even plugging them in. He sung the praises of the db tech stuff but i didnt like the initial apparent build quality of the cabs. Very light in comparison which i suppose was detrimental to the overall sound.

My back is going to be very gratefull if nothing else as i can easily carry both top cabs at once. My old peaveys weight about 36kg each.

But now i need to rethink my light rig as 2 dynamo scanners and 2 datamoons on a 4' giraffe overhead is far from sturdy even with a 20kg amp sat on the bottom shelf. Im going to rig up a T bar with power and dmx and see what i think.

Roll on saturday and guess who will have a spare amp and pair of speakers in his van!

Cheers

Dave

P.S. Is it wired that im taking them to bed with me (nothing sexual.........honest), the cats are very jelous.......as is the Mrs.

first gig done with just the tops - never got to wander round during the gig to have a good listen at performance levels in a room full of dancing people but from what i did hear i was very impressed. The dance tunes really stood out

I had the level set at the mid point on each cab and my mixer was barely lighting up the -20db led's - it was chuffing loud at that.

The venue was difficult to get into and 1 trip instead of 3 made a big difference.

I still had an amp and pait of speakers in the van as i was very stressed about last night gig for some reason, i suppose new venue in the middle of nowhere in the yorkshire dales, new sound rig and MouseAt doind another gig for me was too much and i went ott on preperation.

At 750watts per speaker, I'm not surprised you didn't really have to turn it up!

Hope you're relaxing a bit today!

Cheers,

David

Yup relaxing a bit, it is fathers day afterall. Was getting light when i went to bed last night so am trying to have what we call a 'potter day' - potter about looking busy but doing nothing in particular thats remotely mentally taxing or strenuous.

was going to recommend RCF, but seems you have already discovered for yourself

I'vd done about 8 gigs with my RCF's and I keep them at 50% volume as well.