PA System?

[Blackout]

I will be buying a PA system for our club shortly and was wondering if anyone had a good recomendation? It does not need to be portable and does not need to be wireless. Looking for something inexpensive, but powerful. Thanks for any input! Looking for advise on mics and speakers as well.

 

[Ron Jefferson]

Craig,

You might want to check with Mike Hallam. He has some stuff for sale right now. His ad states a new pa system with a bunch of speakers. Not sure if you need a clock or other related pieces but it's all in the ad in the for sale section.

Later, Ron

 

[Greg Hahn]

Craig, buy a good power amp and mixer in one unit 4 or 6 channel, with at leaset 500 watts per side or 1000 watts mono and the key is good speakers. JBL makes a good indoor/outdoor unit that's easy to maintain in weather.

If u were at Hobart last year that was my system that was rockin the pits all weekend. Simple system but works

gh

 

[Luc White]

Hey Craig check out these guys lot's to choose from

http://www.123dj.com/packages/pa/index.html

 

[Bigbird]

We use a Peavey Escort. Great system. You can usually find a used one for 3 to 4 hundred.

BB

 

[Norm Doerr]

MCM Electronics Cheap

 

[Rick Sowell]

like Greg said, get a good system. I have a Yamaha Stage Pass system, 300 watts, they also make a 500 watt system, 4-8 channel mixer and two speakers. on the 300 watt system you can hook up to 4 speakers, two powered off the mixer and two self powered speakers. not cheap but dam good stuff. professional quality. check your local music stores, sometimes they have lease returns and demo models, or rental systems for less money. just feel the pain and buy once and you won't regret it.

 

[Blackout]

Thanks for all the advise guys! It's much appreciated.

 

[richard jones]

Thanks for all the advise guys! It's much appreciated.

Craig

My advice is buy a standard PA amp, used for audio reinforcement,at stadiums and short tracks, 4 input,minimum,70 volt line outs,200 Watt minimum, dual zones if possible, 15 to 18 inch 70 volt speakers, with this set up U will be able to turn the volume up enough to over come the 100 plus decibels at most races so the drivers and those at the farthest ends of the pit areas will be able to hear whats being announced over the mic's, some good places to check for inexpensive used equipment is audio, sound reinforcement rental businesses and pawn shops.

Hope this helps

dick

 

[Mike Hallam]

Our club PA system is 35 watts, has 7 speakers and has more than enough volume 200 feet away.

We have transformers plugged in at each speaker. If you have an electronics expert like we have in our club, he can tell you it's how you wire it that counts. Our system is for sale if anyone is interested.

 

[darby96]

yes 70 volt system is the way to go

no ohms matching run long distances

very little line loss

radio shack sells a little 100watt 70volt system works great

 

[Blackout]

yes 70 volt system is the way to go

no ohms matching run long distances

very little line loss

radio shack sells a little 100watt 70volt system works great

Is a 70 volt system something different than a typical home audio system?

 

[richard jones]

yes 70 volt system is the way to go

no ohms matching run long distances

very little line loss

radio shack sells a little 100watt 70volt system works great

Is a 70 volt system something different than a typical home audio system?

Yes they are night and day different, "home audio systems can be 4, 8, or sometimes 16 ohm, these systems are very limited in how long of the speaker wires can be before resistance becomes to high, typically if U run 100 feet standard 18 gauge speaker wire from a 100 watt 8 ohm amp, " an amp sold as a 100 watt amp is actually quite a bit less, for a true output wattage U should look for the RMS wattage, into a 100 watt 8 ohm horn speaker you would loose approximately 45 percent of the volume. The next thing would be that U would want more volume so U would turn up the volume control to send more voltage to the speaker to make it louder, the problem is the resistance is so great at some point the voltage being sent down the speaker line will start returning back into the amp into the power transistors either wreaking them or total shorting them out. Some amps have a built in protection circuit which will shut down the output section momentarily and then reset so U can start talking again. Eventually the protection circuit will also fail because of all of the reverse voltage coming into the amp side and then U will fry the electronics.

:70 volt systems"

100 watt 70 volt out amp, 100 feet 18 gauge speaker wire, 100 watt 70 volt speaker, typical loss would be around 4 percent, want to add another speaker, add around 6 percent, want to have 1 100 ft, 70 ohm speaker line on the left and another on the right with 2 speakers on each side, no problem.

The biggest problem with 70 volt systems is using speakers that are to small for the application, IE using a 200 watt pa or bigger, with 100 watt or less 70 volt speakers, it is very easy to overdrive the speakers and damage the horns. By buying some big 15 to 18 inch round PA address horns the amount volume, "decibels" these are capable of producing will be a lot more volume than 2 of the smaller 100 watt 8 or 10 inch horn.

Hope this helps

dick

 

[Mike McKnight]

Craig I am in the Audio/Visual biz. Let me know your budget and I'll find you something at my cost and have it drop shipped. I have wholesale and dealer contacts

 

[Blackout]

Craig I am in the Audio/Visual biz. Let me know your budget and I'll find you something at my cost and have it drop shipped. I have wholesale and dealer contacts

PM Sent. Thanks!

 

[Mike McKnight]

Basically you need a PA head or powered mixer that has about 150-200 watts. A 70v line systems is only needed for doing long runs. We used to to that when I did sound for street rod shows at the Oakland Coliseum. We ran 70v line around the concourse area which was nearly 2000 feet. Using standard amps that would have had a hell of a delay and we would have had to have a signal cable with an amp every couple hundred feet. No need for that here. The most we should be running at a race is about 50-100 feet. A PA head, Mic, cable, speaker cables, speakers and stands. Peavey used to make a nice little compact 2 speaker system but it was very under powered. I'll see what is out there now.

 

[Hydro Junkie]

Okay Dick, I have a fast question for you. Why would you run 18 guage wires that long or, for that matter, at all in a high powered PA system? Anything smaller than 12 to 14 guage is asking to burn up the amp with the wattages mentioned. Evern with my home system, kicking out 100 watts per channel and under 40 feet of cable per speaker, I still run 12 guage speaker cable specifically to reduce resistance.

 

[richard jones]

Okay Dick, I have a fast question for you. Why would you run 18 guage wires that long or, for that matter, at all in a high powered PA system? Anything smaller than 12 to 14 guage is asking to burn up the amp with the wattages mentioned. Evern with my home system, kicking out 100 watts per channel and under 40 feet of cable per speaker, I still run 12 guage speaker cable specifically to reduce resistance.

Hydro Junkie, I posted this for comparison, "typically if U run 100 feet standard 18 gauge speaker wire from a 100 watt 8 ohm amp, " an amp sold as a 100 watt amp is actually quite a bit less, for a true output wattage U should look for the RMS wattage",

A lot of wattage numbers get thrown out when talking about power, unless U have the equipment to actually measure the true wattage output the next best is by finding the amp sticker which will have the RMS numbers on it, I have seen many many amps advertised as 100 watt however when reading the RMS numbers they are usually between 35 and 65 watts RMS, when I was selling and installing full home theater systems we offered a 200 watt and a 400 hundred watt 6 speaker systems, I would demo both in my store for the customers to hear the difference, the volumes were set on level 3 in both systems, the 200 watt systems sounded great, the 400 watt systems was so loud after a couple of minutes of "top gun", they would ask me to turn it down, the longest demo cable run from the amp to the speakers was 14 ft X 6 speakers of 14 gauge, my original post was to throw some info with a comparison between using a ohm speaker system VS using a 70 volt PA speaker system. In my few years of boating, all over the country, I have seen and used many different audio systems at boat races, in my limited memory bank I believe i have only seen 3 systems that could overcome the decibels generated by both nitro and gas, weather it is open water or heat racing, on the drivers stand, in the pit areas and extend out to the left and right of the pit areas far enough, at least 200 feet, for the boaters under there tents or in there trailers, and at some big races tent and trailer areas are 300 feet. I have also been to many races during the race U could not hear the CD while racing on the drivers stand.

So my question is what good is a PA system U can not even hear while on the drivers stand, who jumped?, where are the dead boats, whose boat cut a bouy, who finished in what position, and the participants who are not pitted right behind the drivers stand, have no Idea whats going on. I offered this info to someone who asked about PA systems for boating, a 100 watt "PA" 70 volt amp and a couple of 18 inch public address round out door speakers will give better coverage than any system I have seen in probably 10 years, and there are many used one available if U just spen some time making some phone calls.

JM2CW

dick

 

[Norm Doerr]

Not to drift off Topic too far, but I really could care a less about RMS power, I look at PEAK CURRENT. My Mono Blocks hit over 60 amps. peak current. Much more than Amps that cost MUCH more money and have a higher rated "RMS" rating. RMS is good for comparing product "A" against "B"... But if you can't weld with it??????

I also will not use any wire smaller than 10 AWG wire

Now back to regular scheduled programming.

 

[Hydro Junkie]

Okay Dick, I have a fast question for you. Why would you run 18 guage wires that long or, for that matter, at all in a high powered PA system? Anything smaller than 12 to 14 guage is asking to burn up the amp with the wattages mentioned. Evern with my home system, kicking out 100 watts per channel and under 40 feet of cable per speaker, I still run 12 guage speaker cable specifically to reduce resistance.

Hydro Junkie, I posted this for comparison, "typically if U run 100 feet standard 18 gauge speaker wire from a 100 watt 8 ohm amp, " an amp sold as a 100 watt amp is actually quite a bit less, for a true output wattage U should look for the RMS wattage",

A lot of wattage numbers get thrown out when talking about power, unless U have the equipment to actually measure the true wattage output the next best is by finding the amp sticker which will have the RMS numbers on it, I have seen many many amps advertised as 100 watt however when reading the RMS numbers they are usually between 35 and 65 watts RMS, when I was selling and installing full home theater systems we offered a 200 watt and a 400 hundred watt 6 speaker systems, I would demo both in my store for the customers to hear the difference, the volumes were set on level 3 in both systems, the 200 watt systems sounded great, the 400 watt systems was so loud after a couple of minutes of "top gun", they would ask me to turn it down, the longest demo cable run from the amp to the speakers was 14 ft X 6 speakers of 14 gauge, my original post was to throw some info with a comparison between using a ohm speaker system VS using a 70 volt PA speaker system. In my few years of boating, all over the country, I have seen and used many different audio systems at boat races, in my limited memory bank I believe i have only seen 3 systems that could overcome the decibels generated by both nitro and gas, weather it is open water or heat racing, on the drivers stand, in the pit areas and extend out to the left and right of the pit areas far enough, at least 200 feet, for the boaters under there tents or in there trailers, and at some big races tent and trailer areas are 300 feet. I have also been to many races during the race U could not hear the CD while racing on the drivers stand.

So my question is what good is a PA system U can not even hear while on the drivers stand, who jumped?, where are the dead boats, whose boat cut a bouy, who finished in what position, and the participants who are not pitted right behind the drivers stand, have no Idea whats going on. I offered this info to someone who asked about PA systems for boating, a 100 watt "PA" 70 volt amp and a couple of 18 inch public address round out door speakers will give better coverage than any system I have seen in probably 10 years, and there are many used one available if U just spen some time making some phone calls.

JM2CW

dick

Dick, just to be clear on this, I was just curious as to the why on the cable size, not cutting you or anyone else down. Since part of my job is electrical, the cable size to wattage just didn't make sense to me which is why I asked. Thank you for the clarification.