Hi there, I've been lurking around the last couple of days on this board. Usually I'm over at the womb because I've always thought things would go very different.
Now I'm looking to outfit a new club in Hamburg, Germany with a new PA System. We've been running a 250 pax venue in a large squat in Hamburg until the building went into redevelopment. Mainly concerts and parties but also screenings and plays and whatnot. When we got the opportunity to rent a large hall in an old train depot, we decided to make an effort to run things "proper". In a very long process we now have most the paperwork and planning done and are looking to start operating in Q1 next year. We did some successful open-airs in the last summer on the adjacent platform and we're confident that the whole thing will work out for us - although, as of now, the let is very short. We're hoping to get an extended contract next year. We got our foot in the door with a "popup-club" idea. Anyways, I think that plays a role in the decision: It would be helpful to buy a system that doesn't have zilch resale should we have to liquidate.
Although we did the full bandwith of events in our previous place, it looks more like we will be doing Techno/EDM as our bread and butter - first because we've been successful with it and second, because we think that getting tied up realising a multipurpose venue will further complicate the matter.
The location is a long hall (trains were once serviced in it) of roughly 30x12m with a saddle roof with an average height of 5,20m. That's a volume of 1800m^3 if I'm not mistaken. So thats 100ft x 40ft x 17ft = 63500qft. It will be licenced to hold 460ish people.
In the floorplan below you can see the entrance on the lower left, and a gallery on stretching over it to the upper left, where the bar will be. On the right there will be two room for electronics and storage and so on. You can ignore the blue lines on the right, they will not be built. Also on the right there is an exit to the platform, which we intend to use as an outside, quieter area during the summer. Because of that and reasons of aesthetics (ie. not have the thing look like a tunnel) the Booth will be on the upper mid of the hall.
Since the music we host is very percussive, I vote against multiple point of sources as the phase relationships will likely have a negative impact on the punchiness of the system (but that's only my initial thought). I've sloppily sketched two stacks with my desired 120° dispersion in pink in the floorplan, DJ in between. Among other things, that wide angle is giving me quite a headache, because creates the need for more speakers than firing down the long end would imho. Also there's going to be the adjacent wall within some 10m which will likely create some horrible reflections: There are two roller shutters that will be needed to load in and out drinks and such. I hope a large theatre curtain will do.
It will have to be groundstacks, because the roof is too thin to have fly-hooks in it.
Budget constraints are €15-20k.
So far I've been looking into used:
4 Martin W8C with 4 WSX (and 2 W8Cs?)
4 Nexo alpha e-F with 4 S2
4 Meyer MTS-4 with 4 PSW-4 or 4 650P
4 Turbosound TMS3 with 4 TSC 218
As of now I haven't considered L-Acoustics ARCs, EAW or d&b. I understand these are all (or have been?) high end systems, which are still in use. Also I haven't included e.g. Cerwin Vega or Yorkville because I think they might be harder to sell. That might be totally wrong. Also, do you think the above mentioned systems are approaching the end of their product life span?
Sorry for the long winded post. Im trying to wrap my head around it and I've never something on this scale and it's not my money, so I'd like to make rather wise decisions.
I'd really appreciate if you could give me some input. Do I have my ass backwards and if so could you pull it out for me? Am I completely missing out on other options? Furthermore what are the pitfalls of used PA of that age? How about buying something unheard before?
Thanks a lot, Johannes
