Re: Small light PA tops with excellent sound quality
Thanks, Douglas. The Peavey is a little bigger and heavier than what I am looking for, but I will keep it in mind.
Thanks, Bennett and Phil. I am not surprised at what you are saying with regard to the high end of my range, ie 124 dB / 1 meter, but I am a bit surprised at the low end. 119 dB is 6 dB less than the QRX is rated, and 2-9 dB less than most of the better 10" or 12" powered speakers in that weight and price range are rated. So you are saying that speakers like the the PRX612M, rated at 134 dB peak (presumably 128 dB continuous) or the RCF ART710A, rated at 129 dB "max" (presumably equivalent to 123 dB continuous) will sound bad even that far below their max continuous rating. I have not been cranking them that high in the stores, given the limited distances available and the presence of other humans in the nearby area, and those two have sounded decent at 112-115 dB / 1 meter spl. Neither surpasses the QRX for sound quality in my subjective opinion, but the PRX sounds reasonably close and the RCF with a little EQ could as well. Maybe I should bring my Peltor ear muff hearing protectors (and a couple extras in case anyone else is in the store) and go back and crank them up another 5-10 dB, step back 25 feet, and take the muffs off, to see how much the sound degenerates at those SPLs.
Realistically, I only need about 96 dB at 25 feet for most of my small gigs, which would be about 114 dB at 1 meter, so I should probably lower my target SPL range to 114-118 dB continuous at 1 m for this small rig. My priority is sound quality, vocal clarity, and even coverage rather than SPL. Would that lower target open up any new options that are not on my short list in my first post?
