The speakers were $329 each over the cost of the Mackie.
If I had all the money to spend at the time of purchase I might have gone with the Carvin rig. I used there system years ago and loved the sound and quality of what it was. The powered heads are nice as were the 1584 speakers they made (they have now replaced those with another model).
On a side note:
The Mackie head arrived Wed night and upon opening the mangled box, the faceplate (where all the controls are) was off the unit. All the styrofoam that was packed around the head was smashed into small pieces and even the dessicant pouches were smashed filling the package with those small little beads. They had to have thrown this box around to smash it up this bad. The clips that hold the faceplate of the unit on were completely sheared off on one side. UPS sucks
On the upside:
The store I ordered it from is sending me a brand new one that will be here tomorrow (Sat). They ROCK!! Z Zounds is the store BTW.
The cool part about the brand new head they are sending me, the new ones go for $799 and I bought mine as a non-factory sealed unit for $719. They didn't bat an eye over the $80 price difference and the $45 upgrade in shipping it two day delivery. So if I add up things:
$80 upgrade to new unit
$45 upgrade in express shipping
$? cost of original shipping (they had free shipping for me so I'm not sure what it cost them)
$? cost for the return shipping on broken unit
extra expense to me= ZERO
They are eating a big chunk of $ over the mistake UPS made. Again, they ROCK!!! (I love their payment option too - american musical uses the same warehouse and has the same payment plans - I like that
).
