The shop didn't have the PA gear in stock that I was looking at but I tried a Mackie SRM450 Active PA speaker. At £379 it is somewhat over budget and was only a 12" speaker where I'd been told a 15" works best but it was certainly noticeably better than the Power Engine.
I have a few things to now consider.
1) Should I go with a power amp and passive speakers or active speakers?
2)In a budget of £300 - £350 should I get two speakers to go stereo or simply get a better quality single speaker and play in mono, as I would have done with the Power Engine?
3) As I know absolutely nothing about PA speakers, other than being able to confirm that the Mackie was good and built like a tank; what are the best ones to look at in that price range?
As always, your help is greatly appreciated
The SRM450 is definately a 15" speaker BTW. The SRM350 has a 12".
No. The 450 is a 12" the 250 is a 10". Definately.
If you decide to look at ANY Mackie gear, I can't recommend highly enough that you buy second hand and at least 4-5 years old when they were still being manufactured in Italy. The newer ones break every two minutes and their warranty returns procedure is an absolute joke.
Before the recent takeover when I was still working there, Soundcontrol as a company had, in stock, 46 Mackie SWA1501, all broken and around a hundred each of SRM350s and 450s, all broken. These were all still in stock because Mackie avoid returns at all costs and most of them had been sitting in stock (almost all belonging to customers who had other gear out on load) for months waiting for Mackie to collect. Obviously all of these were warranty repairs so all of them were less than a year old.
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