peavy p115 powered speaker

[drummer84]

i just purchased a pv115d 400 watt powered speaker plugged in microphone first using 1/4 end then trying xlr end and it doesnt seem hardly loud. then i hooked it up to my behringer 2 channel passive mixer and got more volume. directions say you can hook up a passive speaker to it to give you 800 watts power!!! my behringer 600 watt seems to be so much louder. why the difference from just plugging in mic to speaker vs plugging in mic to mixer to speaker? i;ve tried different mic cable ends 1/4 and xlr no diff. any thoughts this is a brand new unit

[mkfs9]

A mic needs a pre amp to work. going direct into a powered cab is no good. you still need a preamp like in a mixer.

[agedhorse]

Ugh. Have you read the manual?

[Dookietwo]

This one?

http://www.pssl.com/Peavey-PV-115D-1...wered-Speaker-

Some powered speakers have inputs that will take Microphone level and bring it up to line level to drive the speaker to high volume output. Others like the one above requires LINE LEVEL inputs like what you get from your behringer mixer.
Another thing to note. The peavey is rated at 800 watts PEAK with another passive 8 ohm speaker connected to it. A 4 ohm load to the internal amp.
This would be closer to 400 watts RMS or less going to the 2 speakers or around 200 watts to each speaker. When your using just the single powered speaker you have it is an 8 ohm load to the amp. The amp may not be producing much more than 220 watts or so for the single speaker. Not a lot of power but enough for some uses.

Its a good medium level DJ-Coffee shop-Bingo, paging kind of speaker.

Dookietwo