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[Doug Chris]

We are a small venue oldies/country band, playing at car shows and small town fairs.  The band is a guitar, bass, keyboard and a drummer playing a Roland digital kit.  We mix all mics and instruments through a Yamaha board, then out to the amps/speakers.  Since pro sound is not provided at these small venues, we have our own PA system.  Our old passive system was 2 Yamaha S115IV mains and 2 Peavey 18” subs.   We used 2 Tapco amps with a stereo crossover.  We typically adjusted the crossover away from the bass side, as it would get pretty “boomy.”
We’ve upgraded our mains to a pair of EV ZLX-15 powered speakers.  We want to add a sub, but wanted some of your opinions on what direction to take.  Our options would be:
1.    Buy a single EV powered 18” sub.  Our thinking is that 1 would be plenty, based on our previous experience.
2.   Buy a pair of smaller powered subs, with a 12” or 15” speaker. 
Any advice or opinions would be appreciated! 

[Mac Kerr]

Any advice or opinions would be appreciated!

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Mac

[John Rutirasiri]

Doug, unless the sub you're looking at a true horn-loaded design (not just band-pass), I would not look at 12" or 15", powered or not. 18" would be minimum for me, especially for outdoor shows where you probably don't have the benefit of room coupling to the floor or corner.

Have you considered keeping your Peavey double 18's and replacing the drivers in them with more modern ones? I recently went that route for a church that did not have budget for new subs.  They had one Yamaha double-18 sub.   I plucked the stock Eminence 400W drivers, put in the 1100W RMS PRVs and it was literally like a brand new sub....all for $400 in parts.

I'm a big fan of Danley and JTR subs -- you might want to check them out.

For light, portable powered subs, I like the JBL PRX618XLF (or its replacement).  I myself use K-Array KL21MA powered 21", but it is pricey and is not better than well-designed single 18's.

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