"best" Budget powered speakers

Let talk about some good budget POWERED speakers, ones that can double as a main and then drop on the floor for a wedge… what are your recommendations for a ‘Below $500 speaker?” What about in the $500-1000 speaker?



Since this is in the JV, we aren’t talking about artist specific rider requirements, but the local bar band/festival would like to have # of monitors on stage.
 
In the $500-$1k range, the QSC K series is solid standby, although I'll admit to not having mixed on the K.2 series. On the original series, I've found I prefer the smaller boxes (IMO, the K8 sounds better than the K10 sounds better than the K12). Yamaha DXR (I've used the 10s) also sounds decent, but I've had some issues with the inputs being picky about grounding.

Honestly, in that price range, I doubt there's a bad choice from any of the major vendors, especially given the current state of the art in DSP. Choice will come down to feature set, vendor preference, and personal preference on voicing.
 
Below $1k? RCF HD32A is worth a good listen as well.

Below $500? At that level it's all about cost, not performance, as everything is compromised to hit a price point. Turbo M10 is the best I've heard first hand, turn down the HF knob by one "click", and don't crank the SPL. Then again, don't crank the SPL on any sub-$500 speaker.
 
I bought a couple of 15" floor wedges from Thomann - The Box - their own brand not expecting much, but I've been quite impressed. They have a stand fitting on one end too and I've stand mounted them, and used them as the FOH system on one occasion when the FOH system hired in for an event didn't arrive. Audio and electronics - no issues whatsoever. The only negative is the paint chips off quite easily revealing the wood underneath. It looks great when new, textured and normal looking but a contact with a brick wall soon abrades it. I'll certainly buy more. I even played my bass through one of them at a gig, when my usual rig was too big (an 8 x 10" cab) to lift up to the ridiculously high stage.
 
Hi from down under,has anybody tried

LD Systems ICOA 12 A 12 Inch Active Coaxial with rotateable horn flare and DSP with 4 presets,3 band EQ and delay function, 350wtsRMS D class

retails down here for around $500 also a 15" for around $600.

Cheers
 
Hi from down under,has anybody tried

LD Systems ICOA 12 A 12 Inch Active Coaxial with rotateable horn flare and DSP with 4 presets,3 band EQ and delay function, 350wtsRMS D class

retails down here for around $500 also a 15" for around $600.

Cheers
Some of the LD products are pretty good. I looked at the sub section of a Maui 44 V2 that a friend of mine purchased and it was flat in its bandpass and was roughly 6 db's down at 36hz. Didn't measure it's max output but I thought the whole system sounded rather well. They seem to have a good bunch in the engineering department.
 

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