good PA amp?

rjj45

A friend has a band that plays smallish and mid size clubs, and wants to replace his existing Class AB amps with something more powerful and lighter.
Is my memory correct, that the Crowns are good, but stay away from the Behringers?
Reliability is very important.
Thanks in advance!

joeybutts

What's considered light? 

PWRRYD

Yes, Crowns are good.  Behringers not so much.

Kornbread

Wasn't crown bought or have they undergone a change in the last few years as, IIRC, someone talking about their quality declining?    

rjj45

joeybutts said:

What's considered light? 

Old Crest amps are 35 Lbs each. The Crowns are about 10 Lbs. Multiply that by 5 or 6 amplifiers in the traveling rack case, and it all adds up

jr@mac

Pretty sure Crown is a part of Harman Int'l now. My JBL bass bins and tops have Crown amplification built in. I never had a lick of trouble indoors or out with them, and unless I fucked up something at the line level they had not so much as a whisper of noise. I think you still can't go wrong with the brand.

I have mixed feelings about Behringer, as I am sure many do. The iNuke amps do not hit rated power even at higher distortion/clipping so that is a strike. On the other hand, the DSP enabled models are pretty useful from what I understand. Cheap enough to keep a spare in the rack. 

Alternatively, do what I did and buy all active class D bass bins/tops/monitors and a digital board. Setup from start to finish is about 30 minutes. Roll out a Cat5 cable from board to stage, musicians plug their instruments in without any pedals, amps, other shit and VST plugins at the board take care of the rest. Load profiles from memory and start drinking beer. All you have to do is remember to load the right effect at the right time during the songs, and some notes next to lyrics and a highlighter take care of that. Love it. 

jr@mac

...and I am now sold on drum kits for live music, as well. Holy shit that was painless. Drummer walked in with what looked like a large guitar case, took the kit out, unfolded it. Sat down and jacked the stereo 1/4" cable in and voila. The kit he used has built in effects, multiple sensors - brushes sounded right, rim shots sounded right. For live music, can't be beat. 

PWRRYD

Not to derail Don's thread too far...  but Man I wish we could convince our drummer to go electronic!  He and his drums are my biggest PITA.  Well, there's also the one guitar player who insists on having his amp on stage and mic'd.  He can really mess up a good mix if he wants to 

Wolf

Yay, Crown!!

rjj45

Thanks everyone!

6thplanet

Electric drum kits🤦🏻‍♂️.....shame on both of you!

jr@mac

Nope. 

Ed_Perkins

6thplanet said:

Electric drum kits🤦🏻‍♂️.....shame on both of you!

Keith Moon is rolling over in his grave.  How the hell can you blow up an electric drum kit? 

Tom_S

The drummer in the last band I worked with had a big Roland kit. He spent tons of $$ on strange cymbal triggers & trigger pads/heads for his old Tama shells so it would look like a real kit - it sure didn't sound like a real kit. Granted it was easy to mix with no stage bleed to deal with, but it just never sounded great. I tried to get him to midi out to a laptop so we could trigger some higher quality samples, but he just couldn't wrap his brain around the hardware & software.

Pro-sound amps - yeah, stick with the known quantities - Crown, Crest, QSC, Yamaha. The Peavey IPR series is very similar to the Crest Pro Lite amps. I'm guessing designed by the same guys since Peavey bought Crest a while back. I've beaten & cooked quite a few QSC PLX amps in the past 15 years - not that great on subs, but you can't kill 'em!

rjj45

thanks Tom! I passed along the reco for QSC.

DanP

6thplanet said:

Electric drum kits🤦🏻‍♂️.....shame on both of you!

I just bought my first drum set several months ago and had to go electric for spouse reasons.  I know there's a different sound and feel to the real thing, but I have been very impressed with what the Alesis Nitro kit offers for $350.  How many of you guys are drummers?  I'd love to pick your brains next time we get together.

rjj45

Ok, not going to change the subject, but an additional question from my friend. 
What's the reco for active speakers for a small / medium size club?
He has mentioned QSC and JBL, but I"m sure there are others, and any particular models or configurations?
He has a 12 piece jazz/funk/pop dance band.

jr@mac

12pc and small/med are often at odds...

Wolf

I know Carmody is a drummer/guitarist/bassist. Reportedly he drums really well. Something tells me Wogg drums too....

jr@mac

BK drums. 

rjj45

I was in the studio when Cameo came in and cut "She's Strange" Larry Blackmon is a phenomenal drummer, and he used an electronic drum kit and pads. The year was 1985. Gotta believe that electronic drums have gotten way better now. 

Tom_S

I just pushed a friend into buying the JBL SRX812P boxes. Expensive, but he wanted loud, reliable, and good sounding - those seem to check all the boxes. The PRX line is what I see the most around here - and the QSC K series. I auditioned the Yamaha DXR series and they are great sounding speakers. I was ready to pony up for some Yamaha DSR12s to replace my passive EV tops, but the main band I had been working with broke up, so spending $1800 on better top boxes just didn't seem prudent.

At the lower end of the scale - the drummer friend has some cheap EV ZLX115 boxes and they sounded pretty harsh when I heard them. But that could be an issue with EQ or the DSP settings. I've never liked the JBL EON boxes I've heard. They just seem to lack clarity. But I haven't heard the lastest versions. I've actually been surprised by the Alto stuff. Not sure about reliability though. They had some issues early on.

rjj45

Thanks Tom!