Members gschmittling Posted June 20, 2007 Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 I'm a guitar player who is involved in an acoustic group and a couple of generic rock/blues bands. Since I'm involved in quite a few projects and none have a P.A. system, I figured I might as well bite the bullet and buy one. I just graduated high school so I have a very limited budget. I decided on the passive Peavey PR12's since they sounded good enough, were cheap and light enough where I could have my female singer help carry them. I was planning on purchasing a Yamaha EMX 660 on eBay next chance I see one for a reasonable price, when my uncle heard my plan and suggested he had a couple of powered mixers he doesn't use anymore. He then gave me a Carvin CX630 and a Carvin CX420. Both work and are in good condition but I haven't been able to find too much information about them. I just got them last night and haven't gotten a chance to try it out at any rehearsals (which would be the ultimate test) but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask everyone on here what they thought. Should I use the FREE CX630 and CX420 or buy the EMX660? Is there another alternative? It'd be used from small/medium bars to coffee houses for primarily vocals and acoustic guitar. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rbts Posted June 20, 2007 Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 I think in terms of general quality, the yamaha and Carvin mixers you are talking about are probably pretty similiar. If you have enough inputs and stuff, noth8ing wrong with using what you have. If in fact it will work for you. I don't really think that the Yamaha would be a huge "upgrade". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members congaron Posted June 20, 2007 Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 Free...seems like a no-brainer to me. Get some speaker stands and cables, mics with the money you save. Maybe some cheap monitors...free is good. God bless! -Ron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Singin' Dave Posted June 20, 2007 Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 I agree with the others - try out the free ones and see if they'll do the job for you. Good choice on the speaker; those get pretty good reviews for the $$. And if possible, take BOTH of the free mixers - you may find one useful for "slaving" off the other, i.e. you might be able to use the power from one of the mixers to power monitors down the road or for extra inputs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gschmittling Posted June 20, 2007 Author Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 The CX630 is 200 watts, The CX420 is 150 watts, and the Yamaha would be 300. What I'm about to say might sound ridiculous but again I'm new to this pro audio stuff. Would there be a way to hook both Carvin's up to get more power if I need it? Also, is wattage in P.A. systems like wattage in guitar amps? I know 100 watts on a marshall isn't necessarily double the volume of a 50w marshall. Again, I'm oblivious here! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Singin' Dave Posted June 21, 2007 Members Share Posted June 21, 2007 Hmmm.. Those are pretty low power. 100W in live sound/PA world is peanuts, while a 100W guitar amp (particularly tube) is a beast. Two totally different animals in the range of frequencies they are asked to amplify, how they do it and the speakers used to do it. (Well, not "totally" different, but I'm too dumb to explain it) It's your call on this one. You could use just the CX630 and it would work. And Yes - you can power each PR12 with one of the Carvins, likely delivering ~150W to each at 8ohms. (To do this, you use one mixer as the "Master" and the other as the "Slave" - in other words you plug your inputs (vox etc.) into the seemingly better mixer and use it to control overal levels, eq etc. You then run a 1/4" cable (balanced if possible, but it might not matter with those old mixers) from the "Main out" of mixer one into the "Line in" on mixer 2. They may or may not have these jacks so you might need to get creative with channel routing. Plug one speaker into mixer 1 and the other into mixer 2, power up and balance.) but....as you can see this is getting fairly cumbersome and both options have their drawbacks (low power or neven main power w/ lots to lug etc.) So my advice would be to see if it's cool to sell BOTH of the Carvins as revenue towards a much more robust mixer. You should be able to get $100-$150 each for them or so. And then you buy a powered mixer that has 2 internal amps with at least 400W@4ohms each. One other recommendation - The Yamaha will serve you welll but if you really want a work horse with awesome reliability and excellent power, look STRONGLY at the Peavey XR8600 - IMO, much better bang for the buck at $599 w/ free shipping on MF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members congaron Posted June 21, 2007 Members Share Posted June 21, 2007 Make sure it's pre-amp out or line out if it's a powered mixer (line level, in otherwords)...not main out in that case, since it would be amplified speaker level power. God bless! -Ron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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