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Mixers & PA Systems
Choosing desks and loudspeakers, and getting the pairing right.
What Fits What
Range Explainers
Buying Guides
UK Rules & Licensing
How To
About Mixers & PA Systems
The desk and the loudspeakers decide what a system can do; everything else adjusts it. These guides cover choosing both, pairing them safely, and the operating decisions that separate a rig that sounds controlled from one that fights the room.
On loudspeakers, the first question is nearly always active or passive. Powered cabinets are simpler and cheaper to get running, passive systems scale better and service more easily, and the honest answer depends on how the rig will actually be used rather than on which is technically superior. Active versus passive works through it by use case. If you are matching an amplifier to existing cabinets, watts, ohms and impedance explains the arithmetic and kills the myth that a bigger amplifier is automatically a risk. For low end, choosing and placing subwoofers covers crossover points and why splitting subs left and right creates the power alley down the middle of the room.
On consoles, channel count is the number people shop on and mix buses are what they run out of. Our Allen & Heath comparisons cover the current range from both directions: CQ against Qu for compact systems, and Qu against SQ against Avantis where the decision is about processing, buses and future stagebox expansion. The Allen & Heath SQ-5+ sits at the point most buyers land.
The operating side matters as much as the shopping. Gain staging covers setting levels from microphone to amplifier so the system has headroom where it needs it. Stopping feedback deals with the loop itself rather than reaching for a notch filter first. Stage monitors and wedges covers how many mixes a band really needs and how to keep stage volume from swallowing the room.
Two guides deal with constraints rather than kit. Noise limiters in UK venues explains how the boxes work and how to play a show without tripping one, and the small venue PA guide puts a complete system together for rooms of the size most bands and churches actually work in.
