Lightweight PA for full band??

JimiTime

Hi Y'all,
Our Bass Player has a Mark Bass Amp head and cabs, and I cannot get over how lightweight it all is. Is there a lightweight alternative to our current setup:

Dynachord powermate 1000 MK1
Dynacord bins
EV mid-high tops.

So the emphasis is on getting a PA of the same/similar quality, but much lighter in weight. Anyone any insight?

Thomas from Presence

JimiTime wrote: »

Hi Y'all,
Our Bass Player has a Mark Bass Amp head and cabs, and I cannot get over how lightweight it all is. Is there a lightweight alternative to our current setup:

Dynachord powermate 1000 MK1
Dynacord bins
EV mid-high tops.

So the emphasis is on getting a PA of the same/similar quality, but much lighter in weight. Anyone any insight?

Would be very keen to hear about power amps that weigh less. I have a Crate Power Block as a guitar back up and it puts out 150W at 4Ohms and only weighs 300g.

The newer Dynachord Powermate 1000 with the digital amps is quite light. If they could just do something with speakers gigging would be much easier!

miniroar

ha I remember wheelin in my 4 x 10 bass cab to a pub a while ago and an aul lad of a about 80 sayes " all this modern technology about you should be able to fit your speakers in your pocket!!" brilliant, just made me think i'm using the same size cab my dad used in the 60's surely in all that time we still should'nt have too use(and break our backs lifting) a van full of gear!

Savman

There are many, you just have to look. Start with the manufacturer spec sheets and narrow it down.

Most current 12" tops are 20kg but some are even less. The JBL and RCF powered units are only 16-17kg.

EV SX300's, industry standard for donkeys years now, 17kg and take dog's abuse.
Dynacord (not Dynachord!) D Lite are in, or around, the same.

Subwoofers is where you'll clock up the weight, they haven't managed to defy the laws of physics just yet so bigger is still better for your boom boom.

JimiTime

Savman wrote: »

There are many, you just have to look. Start with the manufacturer spec sheets and narrow it down.

Most current 12" tops are 20kg but some are even less. The JBL and RCF powered units are only 16-17kg.

EV SX300's, industry standard for donkeys years now, 17kg and take dog's abuse.
Dynacord (not Dynachord!) D Lite are in, or around, the same.

Subwoofers is where you'll clock up the weight, they haven't managed to defy the laws of physics just yet so bigger is still better for your boom boom.

Why is 'look' in italics? And why did you feel the need to point out a typo? Didn't you see it spelled correctly on the next line?

Anyway, thanks for bit of info. Have you seen or heard the Mark Bass stuff? Their cabs are extremely light for what they are.

unclebill98

I've played their cabs and I've listen to them being played. While light the simply do not provide the whack you'd get from larger magnets. I've listened to a 1x15 combo and the whole thing gets lost as soon as you walk more the 3-5 feet away from it. Really depends on how you guys set up.

unclebill98

To give you an idea,

I recently used an older custom system with dual 18" subs powered by HH power amps. Heavy is putting is lightly, pardon the pun.

The performance of this system simply blows away anything I've heard using lighter materials.

Plenty of light weight subs are out their but when it domes to subs its hard to have high performance and lightweight in the same box.

One option is to couple subs and break down the boxes to a more manageable weight. Class d amps are IMHO not designed to deliver great power to subs, tops yes fine but subs need beefy amps to give you the head room.

One system I used to have was jbl mrx tops, vrx subs powered by qsc amps. Great lightweight system, however the subs simply did not deliver the punch. The tops you could lift four at a time and i once had a drummer pic the two subs up and bring them out to my van.

JimiTime

unclebill98 wrote: »

I've played their cabs and I've listen to them being played. While light the simply do not provide the whack you'd get from larger magnets. I've listened to a 1x15 combo and the whole thing gets lost as soon as you walk more the 3-5 feet away from it. Really depends on how you guys set up.

he plays through 2 2x10 cabs. And tbh, it packs plenty of punch.

unclebill98

JimiTime wrote: »

he plays through 2 2x10 cabs. And tbh, it packs plenty of punch.

Yes but from my experiences this does not scale up to PA systems that end up being light.

Bass amp for on stage, pa for whole room....!