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Small club PA with new amp -- advice needed

Posted by bangsezmax (A) on January 11, 2002 at 06:39:38

Hi --
Trying to get some advice on how to best use a new amp with existing PA equipment for a small band playing small clubs.

Here's the band lineup --
Acoustic Gtr/2nd acoustic gtr or mandolin/electric guitar/bass/drums/three vocals.

Only two acoustic instruments and three vocals are going through PA. We're not very loud (emphasis on vocals and acoustic instruments). We're running our own sound, setting levels at soundcheck and adjusting to the best of our ability if anything sounds out of whack during the show.

Here's the current equipment --
Mackie 1202 mixer
Crest V450 (this is the new piece of equipment)
ancient Peavey 150 watt 4 channel powered mixer
Two off-brand 12" + horn speakers for mains (assume 8 ohms)
Two off-brand 12" + horn speakers for mons (assume 8 ohms)

The Crest is rated 150 w/ch at 8 Ohms stereo, 225 w/ch at 4 ohms stereo, 450 w at 8 ohms bridged mono

So here's the possible scenarios I'd like advice on --

Scenario 1 - Run the two mains in stereo (do some panning on instruments/vox for some separation), and use the Peavey for mons

Scenario 2 - Run the two mains chained through the Crest bridged mono and use the Peavey for mons

Scenario 3 - Run the two mains chained through channel A on the Crest, run the two mons chained through channel B on the Crest, and throw the Peavey in a dumpster out back.

My preference would be Scenario 3 (the Peavey gets pretty tired-sounding over the course of a gig), but I want to make sure that running 4 cabinets through that amp is not too heavy of a load. Since we're not pushing much in the way of low freq through the rig, it seems like we'd be okay. Any thoughts or alternate scenarios?

Thanks in advance for the help!
Greg B

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