Buying Sound System Kit
This is possibly the most difficult area on which to give general advice but we'll try. It'll also be expanded as time goes on to include places to buy and specific kit.
The main thing (like with any purchase) is to figure out what you are trying to do and then look into the kit that meets your needs and not the other way round.
Specific Kit
Some of the larger purchases have details in their own page, listed below:
Where To Buy
There's little substitute for seeing and ideally using someone else's kit. Obviously bearing in mind that they probably think they made a great purchase so try to remain objective and evaluate in line with your needs.
- Use a specialist if you're using the kit in a specific room, the tuning will save you so many potential problems and get
- For specific bits finding a single supplier with a wide range of brands can considerably simplify ongoing purchasing, eg. www.studiospares.com
- eBay can be great for second-hand kit from professionals, especially if you're on a tight budget but be sure to ask what doesn't work, eg. dead channels
Branded or not?
Certainly some brand you've never heard of will probably be cheaper and work just as well for live sound purposes but its when something goes wrong that you'll have problems, either fixing it or sourcing a simple part like an adapter.
Maintenance
You will need to have an annual budget to buy other bits like cables when they fail, new mic/music stands, another DI box because you don't have enough or the requisite gaffa tape.
For a system serving about 200 people once a week you'll find that roughly £200 is sufficient to buy these bits and the occasional new bit of kit. The 'lifespan' of such a system is difficult to gauge as components will fail at different times but 5 years would be reasonable with this usage and maintenance.
