Band buying PA - advice

[Timi]

I know what you are trying to say, I just think its silly. As silly as saying my cat has a 10 watt meow, my scream is 25 watts, and I can do a mean 5 watt fart.

The actual SPL output of a "400 watt speaker" can differ wildly. Its the SPL that you should be looking at rather than ambiguous power ratings, and I very much doubt a drum kit can put out over 150dB.

I was trying to put some non technical power terms into it
If they are playing in a garage with a drum kit they will need a certain level of power to overcome the noise from the drums or the drum kit will totally dominate everything

But hey what do I know I only own a sound company I haven't got time to argue over semantics a snare on it's own is around 135-137 db then add in all the rest

Uni sucks, eats away at my internet time!

Simon, I am not trying to accuse you of not knowing what you are talking about at all. Of course they will need a certain amount of "power" to overcome the drums, but that level of "power" depends on more than just a power rating.

Stormbringer, if you can afford it try and get two of those powered speakers, and make sure you get them off the ground.

[nzsimon1]

Yes of course

At the end of the market where their budget fits all the speakers make the most of some pie in the sky ratings on speakers so I was leaning towards as High as I think they would be so 400watts was just a generic thing to illustrate roughly how loud that drum kit will be in an enclosed space

As you understand you can make the rating of a speaker say anything you wish by manipulating the way you measure it
Many speakers use RMS which is in many ways misleading as RMS what ? usually it is with a 1khz tone for a micro second at which stage they have to stop before it blows itself up which says nothing .
A test that simulates nothing that speaker will ever be used for
They also leave out the THD rating ( total harmonic distortion) so yes the speaker can put out 400 watts but you can't listen to it as the distortion will part your hair from 100m

A lot of the other end speakers use AES which is usually pink noise for 2 hours at a point below clipping or something similar ( without looking it all up which anyone can do ) they will also have a sensitivity rating the higher the better and a max SPL
where it all gets tricky and a bit of smoke and mirrors is they also quote a freq range then qualify it by putting the get out of jail phrase +- 3 db so they can print say 40hz for a sub then put +- 3db which means it will go down nowhere near that in real life only on paper and then at such a reduced level to not actually be useable

So in a nutshell I was trying clumsily to say that drums on their own are loud and you will need something equally loud to get the vocals level or above them

an interesting article by Chuck Macgregor http://www.loudspeakers.net/files/technote/pwrrate.pdf

[Stormbringer]

So in a nutshell I was trying clumsily to say that drums on their own are loud and you will need something equally loud to get the vocals level or above them

Yes, and thank you very much for doing so, because I did find it helpful.

[nzsimon1]

Believe it or not that made my day