Cheap stuff that you’ve used… successfully or not.

[Marko]

PV118 subs- did the job for small bars, mostly playback, but live, too

[gonzobassman]

PV 118 subs here as well.I really can't believe how well they thump in the smaller environments.

[dedmeet]

Peavey PR12 and PR12D - not top shelf gear, but rugged, simple, and got plenty loud for small rooms.

 

Radio Shack 2 x 15 band EQ - Not the best EQ out there, but it works for my small DJ rig and does one cool thing - inputs and outputs can be balanced or unbalanced; you can go 1/4 in unbalanced in and get XLR balanced out.

[nchangin]

PV 118 had a pair, have issues with solder on xover and going dead, mail to peavey and fixed and returned within a week, bottom rubber feet always come loose.

 

vocopro ir-9000 infrared double wireless mics with charge stand, great concept, but need to be in line of site of receiver for infrared to work so pretty worthless for any moving around, sound ok, still have them, anyone want to purchase let me know!

 

Peavey xr 1200D powered mixer - first mixer, 89.00 bucks and 200 watts of happiness and crackle pop, ya quite the beast, most channels scratched or didn't work very well, but the amps worked great!

 

Crown CE 2000, lasted about 16 hours and went bad.

[Starboard]

I used 2 Crown CE2000's for 3 1/2 years......four nights a week and never had an issue with either of them. I also used the Shure PG series drum mics at a house gig for four years and always got complements on the drum sounds. They aren't as good as my Beta 52 and e604's, but I was always able to get good results with them. I still don't understand some people calling them "unusable".

[WynnD]

I've got to play on this one.

Acetone organ

Standel 15" single speaker

Montgomery Ward 2x15" bass cabinet

Heathkit TA-25 guitar amp

Altec Lansing 35 watt tube PA amp. (4 channels and only a master treble and bass control. It was very clean at the volumes we were using.)

EV all weather outdoor speakers. (The kind that amusement parks might mount on telephone poles.)

 

I'm sure I've had some other weird crap, but don't remember it right now. This was fun!

[RoadRanger]

+1 for the PV118's. I've run them with an RMX2450 into it's limiters no prob (with proper HPF of course). I was happy enough with my PR12D's. My older unpowered PR10's still sound great on vocals as mains or monitors. The Peavey IPR amps are great deals. I have a Yamaha MG82CX that works great for small jobs. I got some Nady SP1 mics free with some stands I bought and they are surprisingly usable. My $50 B208D's have gotten a lot of use lately too.

 

I have a super cheap rehearsal PA - $100 Nady 4 channel 100 watt box mixer and a pair of $50 Kustom 10" two ways. I was just using it last night with everything through it (eDrums, guitar, bass, vocals) and it always surprises me how good it sounds. I had brought my MG82CX/B208D system and a small bass combo with me in case it couldn't hack it but no prob - surprised again!

[jonthomas]

Small Behringer mixer, $50 and lived in a dusty workshop for five years... still going strong but has something rattling away inside.

 

Sony V-6 studio headphones, not "cheap" back then but have turned 22 years old! Still work fine with new earpads.

 

Behringer XM8500 microphone... works

 

AT 2020 condensor microphone $70... works great! (limited experience with condensors)

 

Harbinger 15"/12" powered speakers $150 each... Glad to have them gone after ten gigs. Sold them for what I paid and they "worked", definately a (they are what they are item).

 

M-Audio GSR-10 powered speakers, so far so good as monitors, I missed the insane $99 deal and settled for the great deal from PSSL. $150 each shipped.

 

RCF ART10 powered speakers. Thanks to the many forum members who recommended these, smooth and loud. Relatively cheap and not crap.

[WynnD]

More stuff

 

Plush bass amp head that I found in a junk electronics store. I paid $20 for it and had to find 4 - 6L6 power tubes, a fuse holder and needed to recover it. (The Plush version of nagahyde was already gone.) Worked OK, but wasn't anything to write home about. (100 watts, enough for me.)

Cerwin Vega 18" sub woofer. Boy was that a mistake to buy. I wasn't running PA at the time and had bought it to play bass through. It really needed to be used as a sub. (Still don't think that's how it's being used.) It's probably a good sub but it's a crappy bass cabinet.

Hartke 2x10" bass cabinet. I should have held out for the 4x10" cab.

2 Kustom PA speakers with OEM Jensen woofers. The Jensen's are pretty bad sounding. (Especially with the original capacitor filter to the horn. We put full crossovers into them and that helped.)

[WynnD]

I'm realizing that most of the stuff I've listed was built before the rest of you were born. (And you've probably never heard of any of it.)

[Gorquin]

LOL...Memories. Well the first band I ever auditioned with was using a Pair of Atlas Metal Horns. The 2' old round type that were used for outdoor PA's....powered by a Bogen amp with some really cheap mics.

 

When we were getting ready to play out we purchased a Peavey powered PA board. I don't remember the model number but it had only 6 ch's was about 30" + wide X 2' D and had Black Volume knobs about 2.5" in diameter. It looked like one of those Sci-Fi Space ship control room consoles. LOL....It was low power, the sound was just OK but it was a LOT better than the metal PA horns. LOL..

[Gorquin]

Wynn.....I remember that stuff! A friend of mine still has a pair of rug covered 15" woofer w/horn CV cabs he purchased in the mid-late 70's.

[TheDoctorMo]

Series 10 Guitars (multiple)

Audio Centron Speakers and amp

[scharris_99]

Yamaha s118 subs - OK in small spaces but never really impressed me for DJ use as they don't get very low. Live sound, yes, they have 60Hz and push the kick drum into a medium sized room. Very natural sounding which is probably why they didn't work well for DJ use....... :-)

 

Yamaha s115 tops - not really cheap crap, but they are cheap when bought used, were my primary tops, relegated to backup, now they are 2nd level backups and I will be selling them. Decent speakers for "vintage" sound, get honky when pushed and haven't found an EQ setting to bring them into what I consider decent sound, so I limit them to medium loud with a little EQ and they are pretty nice sounding. Hate the rat fur!

 

Behringer xm8500 mics - amazing performance for cost, but as mentioned, very high handling noise, but put them on a stand and there is little difference between them and an sm58. Great for karaoke, if someone drops one. I'm keeping them until they die.

 

Behringer C2 mics - again, amazing for the cost and have worked very well for live use as drum overheads.

 

Behringer xenyx 802 mixer - bought as a backup for DJ & vocal PA use, works great in those uses for over 3 years so far.

 

Mackie dfx6 mixer - bought used for DJ & Karaoke use, EQ & vocal removal function as expected, basically useless, noisier than my $50 Berry 802???? Would not buy cheap Mackie again, or probably any Mackie.

 

Peavey PR12 speakers - bought for vocal PA use, hate using them for music but I use them for outdoor at sporting event support. I also hang on them for use as backup stage monitors for non-singing band members.

 

LiveWire DI's - I have never AB'd them with my Radials, but they are OK and haven't failed yet.

[djiceman1575]

Yamaha S-series 12's: Good for basic DJ'ing and speech, but horrible for live sound. Still have the cabinets, hopefully will throw some new components in it soon...

 

Kustom KPC215 and KPC12M's: Nice little cabinets, {censored}ty piezo tweeters. Dropped some Eminence HF drivers in each one, and the difference was immense. Great little cabinets, sold them to a buddy for his bar, and he's using them with no problems.

 

Berry 2500's: Had 4 of them in a rack, never broke down, never had a single issue out of them. Heavy as {censored} to have 4 of them in a rack, but great nonetheless. Would love a legit lighter version of them.

 

Peavey PR12's: Nice cabinets for the price, music sounds thin through them, but they were OK for speech projection.

 

Berry floor monitors: Alright, they never got a lot of real use, but my buddy uses them on his rig and they work great for him.

[abzurd]

First off.... props to my cowbell! It's been with me from the start, has nearly 600 show on it and is the ONLY thing that's original to my setup from March of 2001.

 

As far as cheap PA stuff goes....

 

1 - Furman Q-1311 31 band crossover. I got a helluva price on this closeout and bought 2 or 3. I can't bring myself to sell them even though they aren't being used as they are built very well and work great. I think I paid like $59 ea for them.

 

2 - Samson S three way crossover. Inexpensive and works well.

 

3 - Nady SP - (forget the number) microphone 3 pack. Certainly not the best, but they really werent' bad at all considering the $7 each price tag. Used for a few years on backing vocals. Very similar to an SM58. I still use them as knock around mics for farting around in the house for the occasional practices, on scratch tracks or when programming my harmonizer.

 

Tons of stuff bought used that I've since sold at a break even or small profit. That's not really "cheap crap" though.

[mrcpro]

Behringer Xenyx 1832 mixer, which has been assigned to karaoke duty three nights a week for several years now. It has had a rough life. It has been yanked on, dropped numerous times, but just keeps on going. The faders are getting a little sketchy but that's the only issue it's developing. Paid $229 for it new for it on one of MF's occasional Behringer sales.

 

I don't know if they qualify for cheap crap since they were $400 apiece but my Behringer EPX4000 power amps just keep doing their thing pushing subs in 4 ohm bridged mono, and have for over a year now.

 

I'm one of the few in this forum who believe that Behringer's reliability has improved immensely since they started building their own stuff.

 

As for cheap crap that's failed... well it's gear related because I bought it for club use. My $69 T-Mobile hotspot just died suddenly not long after I got it. It didn't work all that well anyway so I just let it go. If I do this again I guess I'll have to get a more expensive one - and one attached to a contract... ugh.

[Mogwix]

when my band started, we had four dynamic mics that we ripped off of karaoke systems that we picked up for free at yard sales. I bought a 3-channel passive line mixer from radio shack (3 1/4" inputs with a volume pot on each one, 1/4" output). I ripped a 1/4" jack from an old guitar, cut another hole into the plastic radio shack box, then soldered in the extra jack for a 4th channel. We had one of those silly fisher-price tape recorders that were white and yellow, and had a microphone attached to it... also free from a yard sale. I cut off the plastic mic and soldered the output of the line mixer to it. We placed those four mics on various instruments... hit record and well... it didn't sound too bad. We ended up playing our first show with one of those karaoke mics plugged into a no-name 15w guitar amp for the vocal PA... wow it was awesome at the time.

 

I think back on those days and wonder if I would have the same appreciation and talent for sound if I hadn't experienced them.

[spottyaudio]

gorrilla bass amp, single 12, found in a dumpster..i really want it back now, it sounded wonderful for recording.

 

kustom 10 inch speaker bass amp, low power, lived with one of the most inept musicians i ever met, and works to this day 15 years or so on.

 

peavey rq200 mixer, not really to cheap, but i got it for 20 dollars and its run entire conventions with me, and has some really neat aspects to it..working as a volume control on my desk right now actually.

 

numark cdx cdj turntables, relyability was absolutely abysmal on these ut man were they cutting edge at the time. they fall into the cheap crap category now, but sure werent new.

 

yamaha sm12 iv club series speakers, run hard as front wedges at my old work and just kept on working through the roughest nights of punk and rap gigs.

behringer ep2500, lives under a stage, bridged on subs, and has had no issues for three years, used every night.

 

jbl jrx 115 cabs, hated them, blew a lot of them up in one stupid move, and got to replace dall drivers with eminence stuff, and now i like them..still says jbl on the cabs so clients are happy.

 

radioshack stereo condensor mic with anglable capsule, has 1/8 headphone style connector and runs off double a batteries, sounds great for room recordings and really surprised me for the 4 dollars i paid for it at a garage sale.

 

ewi 300? condensors, cheap and cheerful, wont make a hoity toity viola player happy but works great for long outdoor shows where sound getting to the audience is more important than the quality of sound getting to the audience.

 

pyramid 600 watt power amp, a friend runs this on his vintage jbl 4311 speakers as studio monitors and i'm always surprised at how good this combo sounds.

 

thats all for now, i'm sure i'll come up with more.

[nchangin]

Behringer Xenyx 1832 mixer' date=' which has been assigned to karaoke duty three nights a week for several years now. It has had a rough life. It has been yanked on, dropped numerous times, but just keeps on going. The faders are getting a little sketchy but that's the only issue it's developing. Paid $229 for it new for it on one of MF's occasional Behringer sales. QUOTE']

 

Question: Xenyx - Do you like it for it's use in Karaoke? Do you use the compression on it and if so is it worth a rats behind? I seems like the perfect little mixer for that application.

[mrcpro]

The channel compression is really crude and would be totally useless for anything... except karaoke Yeah it's a good little karaoke mixer. Output is nice and clean. The channel mid sweeps are actually very useful for just roughing in a singer, and the graphic is handy too - either for mains or monitors. The only effect I use is it's delay, which is programmable(!) I don't carry an external effect box around anymore. Internal power supply and small size helps because it's on the move a lot.

 

It gets banged up so much. I'd hate to put an expensive mixer on karaoke duty. I'll probably replace it with another when the time comes.

[CliffordN]

Well, when I started we had this megaphone... And... Oh damn, I forgot what I was going to write!

[abzurd]

Forgot one - RADIOSHACK 33-3032 mics. They looked kind of like Sennheiser e604 rim mount mics. No they aren't as good, but do a respectable job, especially for the price I got them for ($19.99 I think). They were discontinued several years ago.

[LewnWorx]

 

When we were getting ready to play out we purchased a Peavey powered PA board. I don't remember the model number but it had only 6 ch's was about 30" + wide X 2' D and had Black Volume knobs about 2.5" in diameter. It looked like one of those Sci-Fi Space ship control room consoles. LOL....It was low power, the sound was just OK but it was a LOT better than the metal PA horns. LOL..

 

 

Holy crap. That was my first gigging board. Its was HORRIBLE. Big black volume pots and a smaller black pot called "Tone" which was pretty much useless.

 

After that I upgraded to another Peavey (Hey I was in 9th grade, and still stupid). I was impressed by this one because it had FADERS! Daham! And 2 7 band eq's and they have faders TOO! Must be good! IT was powered. Well sorta. Think it was 8 or 10 inputs. So then I built my first snake. I bought a bunch of the cheapest cable I could get and strung out a bunch of channels worth on the driveway the zip tied em together. Got a bud box from rancho shack and drilled holes in it to make the stage box and zip tied in a couple runs of zip cord for the speakers. We'd borrow a buddies Yamaha 15" 2 Way (the ones with the silver horns) for mains and use my ubuer crappy Earth (a even crappier company than peavy at the time that stole peavey's entire look, right down to the two strips of aluminum on the sides of the cabinet) 3 way cabs (8", 10" & 2 Piezo Tweets) as monitors. The piezo's fried the first gig and never got replaced.

 

Eventually I upgraded that in high school. Bought a 16 Channel Pace (Made in the UK, even had VCA's and mute groups) desk, a couple Voice of the Theater 15" cabs, a couple eden horns with Renkus Heinz Drivers and a pair of home made dual 12" for mids with drivers pulled from a yamaha 412 cabinet. The monitor rig was 4 cabs I bought from some mail order place in NY with crapTone 12's and what was advertised as compression horns but were in fact Piezo's which lasted exactly one gig. The board was junk and on any given night one of the channels would fail due to the craptastic interconnects they used.

 

The next upgrade was to a Peavey 24x8 desk. That one was actually pretty decent. Had a funky Traynor power amp block thing that had these plug in resistor block packs that would allow you to configure it for stereo 2 way, mono 3 way + a monitor channel and whatnot. Finally dumped that in favor a the beginnings of what would become a small fleet of Carver PM1.5's. Those turned out to be pretty good units actually..

 

In thinking about it, in the early years I had a hell of a lot of junk that was well.. Junk.

 

These days, all my stuff is really pretty decent, with the possible exception of the 6 GSR12's. Like a lot of us, I got the insane deal from PSSL when they were $150 a pop. Thus far, they've been good. Haven't had any problems with them, but then again this is just a few months in. I haven't seen any infant mortality with them (and with a sample size of six, I take this to be a pretty good indicator).

 

Because I wasn't terribly sure how well they'd hold up (and also knew what it would cost to replace them with something else, I bought the 2 year additional service contracts on them, as for $24 a cab that buys me a couple more years on em. Interestingly, after PSSL blew out all those GSR10's and 12's, a few days ago I got a notice that Avid had sold off the M-Audio division, so it'll be interesting to see what happens to M-Audio now.

 

Thanks for the trip down gear memory lane...

[Marko]

Thanks all for posting; personally, I