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[Kevin Kemp]

Hey everyone, this is my first post here so I look forward to learning from you.  I am leading a sound team for a new church plant outside Tampa Florida.  I used to work in sound 10 years ago but have been out of the game for a while.  We have a need for some new monitors.  I am looking for the best monitors around $400 per cabinet.  I don't need powered monitors as I have a QSC RMX 1450 and QSC RMX2450 that I am going to lend the church to power them.  What would you recommend?  I need 2 for vocals/guitar/keyboard and 2 for bass/drums.  What would you recommend?

[TJ (Tom) Cornish]

Hey everyone, this is my first post here so I look forward to learning from you.  I am leading a sound team for a new church plant outside Tampa Florida.  I used to work in sound 10 years ago but have been out of the game for a while.  We have a need for some new monitors.  I am looking for the best monitors around $400 per cabinet.  I don't need powered monitors as I have a QSC RMX 1450 and QSC RMX2450 that I am going to lend the church to power them.  What would you recommend?  I need 2 for vocals/guitar/keyboard and 2 for bass/drums.  What would you recommend?

Powered monitors give you more than just an amp inside - they provide EQ, time alignment, and limiting that is difficult to do externally - particularly with a $400 budget. 

Depending on your time horizon and where you ultimately want to go, I'd recommend buying fewer of some nicer powered monitors like QSC K10s  and adding on later.  You may also want to consider going towards in-ear monitoring.  This is particularly helpful if you're a porta-church - fewer boxes to haul around, lower stage volume which will help considerably in a room with less than optimal acoustics.  You can get Sennheiser IEMs in a two pack for a bit over $1000, so not too much more than your monitor budget.

[Kevin Kemp]

We currently have two Behringer Eurolive powered monitors I am replacing (they are horrible).  I have the monitor EQ, RTA and FBD taken care of (Behringer DEQ2496), just need unpowered wedges.  Our band currently has 3 vocals, acoustic, electric, bass, keys, and drums.  Sometimes we add a 2nd electric and hand percussion.  IEMs are in the future but not in the budget right now as we would need to supply them for 8 people.  Besides, a combination of wedges and IEMs is where we will probably end up.  I inherited this system and the person who aquired all our gear left the church long before I showed up (we are relaunching a failed plant).   

[g'bye, Dick Rees]

We currently have two Behringer Eurolive powered monitors I am replacing (they are horrible).

That's not because they're powered...........

[Kevin Kemp]

I agree, our mains and subs are powered QSCs and sound pretty good.  We are asking those Behringers to do too much to service the whole band. 

[Samuel Rees]

If powered QSC has worked for you, I'd stick with it. That way your whole rig will be modular (mons can replace mains, etc, without any change in wiring). Why pile on a load of unpowered gear when you've already 4/5 of the way to an easy powered system? Sell all the rest of it, IMHO. If you had a largely unpowered system I'd suggest you stick with that , as well.

[Bob L. Wilson]

Hey everyone, this is my first post here so I look forward to learning from you.  I am leading a sound team for a new church plant outside Tampa Florida.  I used to work in sound 10 years ago but have been out of the game for a while.  We have a need for some new monitors.  I am looking for the best monitors around $400 per cabinet.  I don't need powered monitors as I have a QSC RMX 1450 and QSC RMX2450 that I am going to lend the church to power them.  What would you recommend?  I need 2 for vocals/guitar/keyboard and 2 for bass/drums.  What would you recommend?

As you can see most of the posters here have ABOB (Active Boxes on the Brain) where as I am a Bob. I recently helped a church implement four EV ZX1 passive units for wedges as their budget was $300 per box. The results were solid bordering on impressive for the size of the boxes but they would not have been nearly so, had they been implemented without solid processing between the aux outs and the power amp for each and every mix. As I it sounds like you may be working with a single DEQ2496 and an all the boxes on the same mix solution I strongly suggest funds be reapportioned as necessary to purchase additional processing to facilitate as many individual mixes as your console will support even if it means reducing the per box budget for the wedges themselves.

My solution fully based on my own biases would be a Shure P4800 as it can support up to four discrete aux inputs and up to eight outputs matrixed from the four inputs combined with eight ZX1. Sell the RMX2450 get three more RMX1450 give everybody more me in their mix while simultaneously turning the total monitor levels way down. Call it $3000 all in if you need a number.

[Corey Scogin]

If you're certain you want to go passive, the Community MX10 fits your requirements quite nicely.  It's coaxial, which is nice for monitor duty.  Being close to a horizontal driver/horn configuration seems strange to my ears.

[caleb gall]

I would look into the EV Elx112 Passive's. My church just picked up 4 of them. They are good sounding boxes.

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