[Harp-L] Re: Portable P.A. amp?

["jazmaan@xxxxxxxxxxx" <dmf273@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone gave here regarding portable vocal P.A. solutions.   Today I had a chance to visit a couple of music store and try out a few candidates.    In order of price from lowest to highest and also, coincidentally in order of size:

1) The Roland Mobile Cube.  

This is a very cute battery powered stereo amp with two speakers.  Smaller than an 8-1/2 x 11" piece of paper and only 4-1/2" deep.  Sam Ash was selling it for $159.  I'm a sucker for tiny electronic gizmos and I nearly bought this one, but it just doesn't have the vocal quality I need.   These tiny amps have been getting better and better for guitar, but they still don't quite cut it for voice.  It does have a 1/4" mic input (no XLR) and it also has reverb and delay, but it still sounds kind of like a toy.  Passable in a pinch, but not what I'm looking for.

2) The Mackie SRM 150.  

Also quite small (about the size of a shoebox), this thing has an amazing sound and punch for its size.  It sells for $299.  It's got 2 mic/instrument combo 1/4"-XLR inputs with bass, mid and treble controls and a third channel with RCA inputs for plugging in an Ipod or similar line source.   Great sound but it has no FX and also lacks an FX loop.  

3) The Yamaha Stagepas 250

Substantially larger, this has a unique design - It's a two way speaker that stands about knee-high with a detachable built in mixer in the rear.  It sells for around $500.   It has 2 mic 1/4/XLR inputs, reverb, EQ and looked like it had everything I could need.  Unfortunately it just didn't sound all that good!  Kind of anemic actually.  The Mackie sounded better!

4) The Fishman Solo

This one was the bee's knees.  It's a sleek tower design with 6 vertically stacked 4" speakers topped off by a 1" tweeter.  It stands about 6 feet tall on an included heavy duty tripod and the whole thing folds up to fit into an included rolling case.  The whole package weighs only 35 lbs but looks pretty imposing when its assembled.  It's got 4 mic channels and great sounding FX.  I tried it in two different stores and there was no denying that this is a great sounding P.A.   Unfortunately it costs $1000.   I guess that's not so much compared to a good guitar amp, but it still ain't cheap.

I ended up going with the Mackie at least temporarily.  I'm going to try it in a rehearsal setting and then decided whether to keep it or take it back and get the Fishman Solo instead.

Obligatory Harmonica Content:

None of these amps are going to be any good for harmonica unless you want a pure acoustic sound.