Hello, everyone!
Looking of recommendations for a portable PA system that will not cost an arm and a leg but will handle vocals over a group of folks just jamming. We have a drummer, guitarist, piano/second guitarist and, of course, a bassist!
Been looking at the Boss S1 Pro, but there are so many choices out there I thought I’d ask you fine people if you had any suggestions.
Thanks,
Sue
What is your budget, roughly?
There’s a ton in the ~1000-2000W range for well under $500.
Hi, Howard,
Well, in the $500 range would be great, but I’ll go as high a $1000. We play rock and blues mostly, but, of course, I was looking at Sweetwater, etc., and was finding a lot of choices and just really not sure what to get. When I was in a band some 20 plus something years ago, we had a Mackie system which was great, but would like something easy to transport and setup up quickly and we really have no interest in playing clubs so no need for a large setup.
I am not 100% sure and I still haven’t checked them out in person but when I looked in to this a while ago I settled on something like the Yamaha DBR10 or DBR12. I was thinking a pair of them fronted by a mixer (I like Mackie as well, and own a ProFX 10 now) could power vocals, synths, and ideally everything else - just run everything into the mixer. If it worked out, that would prevent everyone from having to drag amps around.
I haven’t done this in a really long time though; last time was with our college band in the late '80s. But that’s what we did then (except we used our own amp and cabs after the mixer, not powered PA speakers.)
If you do go the route of running everything in to it, the guitar and bass will probably want some kind of amp/cab sim in pedals.
For just the vocals I would bet just one of the DBR’s would be fine. You’d still want to run the mic into something with a nice mic preamp before sending it to the speaker.
Would love to hear how it goes if you check these out. It’s unlikely I will play live again but you never know 
Thanks, Howard!
I’ll check those out.
There’s less expensive options than that as well