PA system recomendations?

[Jupiter]

Hey guys!
My band is needing to buy a PA system. We're all college students, so the cheaper, the better! We don't mind something used, as long as it works well and sounds good.
Please help!
Ben

[JESTER700]

Need more info. What's your price range? What's available used locally? You could do eBay, but shipping on cabs is a bear.

A basic pair of 2 way cabs & a powered head will be well under a grand, but only usable in the smallest venues. Basically you'll only mic vocals with it.

For medium spaces (or smaller ones but for real good sound) a pair of 3 way cabs with subwoofers, mixer, and a pair of power amps will start in the $3000-4000 range (with a WIDE price latitude).

[kennydoe]

Mackie puts out an 8 channel powered mixer - the 808S or 808M (Stereo or Mono, respectively) which gives you 600W for Mains and 600W for monitors OR 600W per side for mains stereo. It's got EQs for each and 3 band EQ per channel. They're going for less than $700 on the 'bay right now.

I own one of these and play fairly big rooms - never had a problem being loud enough - I uswually have the keyboards and the kick drum (gated) going thru too.

For tops, I use Yamaha SV115s. They're 15" woofer+a horn for under $300. They're a great value. I prefer 15" mains to 12s. They carry kick and keybaords better. I havd mine for 3 years before upgrading, but they still work after hundreds and hundreds of gigs! My monitors are Yamahas also - 12" wedges...again, I've had them a long time and they still work. The cabinets are a bit raw from years of being thrown in and out of the van and many many gigs, but they still work. I think i paid $200 apiece.

After that you just need speaker cables, mics and mic cables.

Good luck!
~Kenny

[Jupiter]

Thanks for the info, guys!
All that we're really looking to use the PA for is to mic our vocalist with. Guess i should have mentioned that, sorry. Our price range would preferably be under $500-$600.
Keep the tips coming !
Ben

[Drew]

Jupiter,

I don't know if your school is anything like mine, but i know our activities board up here has a lot of gear for doing live shows that they let student groups check out for performances... That'd be the first place i'd check.

Also, for affordable PA systems, Carvin's usually pretty economical... i have no experience with their PA's but i've been using a small mixer of theirs for a while- not amazing quality by any means, but definately great for the money... It wasn't powered, so i was using it to submix into a powered mixer for live work, and as a preamp for my dad's Korg recorder (since the pre's in the D-8 are about the crappiest sounding, noisiest things i've eer worked with), and it was quite effective.

-Drew