RFI: Little PAs.

that little fender all-in-one star trek suitcase thing seems pretty popular and sounds good from what I've heard, it has enough watts to overcome a drummer with headroom to spare

Maybe, but I am leery of the Fender all-in-one thingies. (When you've got a bunch of unmodular components that want very much to go together, you can be kinda screwed if something breaks or simply ceases to suffice.)

A powered mixer plus a couple of smallish speakers, or a mixer plus powered speakers, might be a better choice.

We got a 6-channel 200-watt Yamaha powered mixer (in mono), and some of them wedgey 10" speakers that can either be monitors or stand upright, for $600ish dollars a few years ago. Fine for a house or small club. The upsell specialist at the store assured me it wouldn't be loud enough, and we needed to spend $900ish. He was and is wrong.

Yamaha is making a 300-watt system where the mixer goes into the back of one of the cabs - http://www.zzounds.com/item--YAMSTAGEPAS300 - but I haven't heard or played with it. Caveat above applies.

If you REALLY don't need loud (that is, no drums), a keyboard amp/mini-PA might suffice.

The Fender Passport PD-250 is a pretty good solution, actually. We've had one in rental for about 4 years now and it hasn't gone down yet, and trust me when I say that rental stock = true test of equipment. The 150 might be a little meager, but is cheaper, and the 80 is a joke. Also, they just did a price drop, so the deluxe models (bose components shhhhhh.) are priced where the standards were.

Usually my band has a reduced drum kit, so it's mostly to give vocals a little boost and to serve as a sort of keyboard amp.

How is the 150 meager, just in terms of how loud it goes?

My worries would be in the low range capability. When I get to the shop tomorrow, I'll take a look at the (purported) bandwidth difference and let you know. If you're heavy on the left hand wrt keys, it could be a problem. Also, how many channels do you need?

If you don't mind hauling 3 things instead of one, Mad Puffin might be right, although the problem w/cheaper speakers is normally the use of a piezo tweeter which sounds like scratchy, awful crapola in the HF range, to my ears at least.

Whatever speakers you get, I suggest you get those suckers up near where human ears reside. Which is, as it happens, not the floor.

I just got notice of a University auction that should be lightly attended with a huge amount of surplus PA gear that I intend to use for my live electronics setup. This is probably totally insane overkill, but if I can get a bargain on this equipment I am going to go for it.

Can anyone give me information regarding: Crown Macro-Tech 1200 and 3600 amps and XEQ-2 Crossover? I'm really curious about whether or not this stuff could be portable at all, power up off of a standard US residential breaker, and maybe what could be considered a deal.

I've been toying with the idea of building my own PA speakers, and this would be a great excuse to do that. But maybe this is not feasible. If so, someone please speak some sense and save my neighbors.

The system will technically run on one 20 amp circuit, but I wouldn't do it. If memory serves, the 1200 is 480 W max and the 3600 is 1600 W max, so it's right on the line of possibility. I'd use 2 circuits for safetys sake. Are you thinking of running subs and tops? Otherwise, bi-amping a single cabinet with that sort of power disparity will be odd.

Also, unless it's really a burning desire that you've been holding back, building your own cabs is almost always a terrible idea. They'll cost more than equivalent purchasable cabs, and if your tolerances are off, they'll sound bad.

Of course, if they're cheap enough, you could always sell one of the amps and the xover on ebay to pay for/amortize the cost of the other one.

I have a Parts Express catalog from last year that had some plans for some PA speakers, which is what initially piqued my interest. I remember them being rated much lower than these Crowns though, so it's probably moot.

I figure that if all goes well at the auction, I can sort out the cabs/subs question later. Definitely want some subs, otherwise what's the point of this kind wattage right? Also stereo is key. Some long extension cords might be necessary to get it across more than 1 circuit.

Thanks for the advice John. I'm a little out of my depth, but have a strong sense of adventure.

A little (old) blue book info from 2001 orion book:

1200 - $639 used mint
3600vz - $1345 used mint
xover - whatever, it's a xover, probably worth about $50 used.

These prices will absolutely have declined, possibly as much as 50%, but at least it's a starting point.

Great! Thanks!