Looking for a used PA head

[CyberStrat]

Our band picked up a drummer and he doesn't want to move his kit everytime we practice. He has plenty of room at his house, and wants us to practice there.

I don't want to move my whole system every practice, nor would I want to leave it there. I'm looking for a 4 or 6 XLR head for vocals only, so I could just leave the head & a monitor there

Any ideas on how much power I should be looking at for practice? To give you and idea of how loud we practice, my vox pathfinder 15r is just about loud enough and the practice space is about 20 x 30.

I see off brands on ebay that spec 120 watts and are priced around $120 or so. I would think these are pretty much junk, and I should look for an old peavey or something like it.

Any suggestions

Cyber

[Erock_Germany]

We had the same issue. I picked up a Mackie mixer (6 channels, has reverb), 2 old 2 way monitors and a 2x300@8Ohms Crown Amp for € 225 of a used equipment board. Sounds great for vocals for practice and it stays put in the studio....we could get away with half the power

Buying some used components like this may be a tad more expensuve but I think the sound and flexibility you get will be better - we actually use the little mixer as a drum mixer sometimes since when we play some gigs we have a horn section and we have run out of channels on the big mixer we have

[teleman55]

I had the same issue. Singer has a nice PA but I wanted something for some side projects, vocal only. Looked at some of the cheap stuff available new. It might be nice but I was a little leery. Then I found an old Yorkville Micromix powered mixer, 255W (seems conservatively rated), 6 channel, reverb and effects send. It's mono but has monitor out. Then found a couple of Yorkville cabs w/ a 15 and horn in each. It's early 90's stuff but does the job. And cost even less than the cheap new stuff. Total cost $130.

[CyberStrat]

I'm still looking. Haven't had much luck locally, except for a older Peavey powered mixer 6 ch, but they still wanted $300, way too much for something more than 10 years old.

I did come across a Mackie 1202 VLZ PRO mixer, might be a little short on XLR's. $125 locally, then I need an amp yet...puts me right back to the $300 price.

We do have a Keyboard amp. I'm thinking about just getting the mixer & sending signal to the amp for now.

I just can't justify dropping $300 on something that might not happen, and I'm the only one contributing.

Cyber

[FrankJohnson]

I bought a used PV8 mixer and attached it to my existing poswer amp for small gig and practice use. the Mixer was like $100 used and I had the power amp. you can pick those, Alesis mixiers, etc. pretty cheap used. Sometimes even new they are comparible and the newer ones have USB out - which works pretty okie-dokie for recording.

[Rickenjangle]

I picked up a Peavey 6-channel PA head a couple of years ago for about $150. It's never failed me yet, and seems to be bulletproof...

[CyberStrat]

Anyone heard of Ross mixers. Who are they made by?

There's a used powered one on ebay right now.

What kind of quality are the USA Crate mixers? Compareable to Peavey stuff 10 or so years ago?

[Wilko]

Just vocals in a practice space?

Get a Keyboard amp and have a self-contained unit.

[CyberStrat]

We do have a peavey KB3 right now, but the drummer runs his roland drum kit through it, along with two mics. We will need 4-5 mic's and the drum kit. We also find that when all the imputs are being used, volume changes based on what inputs are being used.

I'm thinking of getting a unpowered mixer and run everything into that and use the KB3 for the power & speaker.

[Wilko]

I've found that there are bunch of small-ish PA heads with/without power that are all about the same quality. They'll all do the job.

The ones that I like are from Yamaha (I got one for 200 bucks) or Mackie (a bit more money, but it sounds way better).

Usually they have two amps that are bridgable, two EQs and effects.

[FrankJohnson]

I ended up using one channel of my QSC for my Bss rig and one for vocals through the PV8......or seperate bass head and monitors/mains thorugh the PV8 and QSC......it works pretty good. Not Mackie......

My investment was $100 for the mixer, $130 for the small 10" yamaha monitors, $200 for the EVs (since sold). It was a decent setup in a pinch, and great for practice/coffehouse small vocal stuff.

Mackie 808 is a great setup. hard to beat. all depends on what you have, what you can spend, and whats available at that time.

[CyberStrat]

I picked up a Peavey XR600C off the bay.

[muddy]

Yep, the Peavey 600 series amp/mixers are hard to beat for the money and all but bomb proof.