Depends also on your cart. I use a single bed cart from Rubbermaid (8 ys), so my keyboard (76 - heavy) lays nicely on them for transport.

The Bose and Nano, albeit compact, was a pain for my method.

Yeah.....try finding the speakers you want to A/B in ONE store (and without a salesperson interrupting you with “what do you think“ every three minutes). You stand a better chance of winning the Powerball!

I don't know.......I'm going into "speaker-itis" again!

I always thought when you wanted that big bass thump, you go with a Mackie. But lately I'm seeing a lot of buzz about these EV ZXA1 Powered Subs.

Are they noticeably that good? And is it a "clean" bass sound?

I have a complete EV System 200 with the subs, but they sound so muddy I stopped using them. Instead I get more bass out of running my EV System 200 and my EV System 300 "tops" at one time.

And then, I've been going to a lot of Festivals lately to observe the bands and not one of them had an exceptional speaker system. Yet......the usual......no one in the audience noticed or even cared about the sound system. It was all about the visual.

Mark

You could probably get a good price for you system and simplify with some powered speakers.
After debating the issue for a long time I just ordered 2 JBL 515XT active speakers.
they're on sale from Musicians Friend for $350 which is about half of their original price. Everyone else was selling them like crazy for $399 so when I saw another price drop I jumped. Many positive reviews on them and I tried one at GC. easy to handle which was very important to me.
32 lbs with a 15" speaker and 600 watts. Got the carry bags too. I'm hoping these will cover all the bases for me. I like a lot of bottom so I wanted 15's. If I do a small gig one will suffice and the two together should handle anything else including Djing and doing my organ thing with bass pedals.

Mark, I think this is the same experience many of us encounter over the years. I've seen about a dozen bands during the past month, mostly outdoor performances at various marinas and spoils islands parties. The sound systems were ALL pretty much antiquated, distorted sounding junk, but the audiences, pretty much could care less. Interestingly, most of the comments I've had about my sound system has come from other musicians/entertainers, not audiences in general.

During the past decade, though, the vast majority of the DJs and KJs in my neighborhood, Baltimore metropolitan area, have pretty much switched to the Bose L1 and Compact systems. The folks I know did this for two primary reasons - light-weight and overall sound dispersion throughout the venues.

A few OMB guys south of me have switched to the Lucas Nano 300. They say it sounds pretty darned good, but it definitely has greater falloff than the Bose systems. They're all pretty happy about the overall sound quality, though.

Good Luck,

Gary

Especially if you wanna spend $5000.00+ for a stereo sound system which IMO is no better then most Powered speakers setups with subs that so many DJ's are using for much less.
I know I did and took a beating dumping them quick afterwards...

Ain't it amazin how opinions vary, though!

Gary

I have a pair, and I've used them with the QSC K-8s on top - awesome, tight and thumpy. I have to admit - I used the K8's alone, and the difference was NOT night and day. It's not fair to say I used them the same each time - the sub really helped out at graduation with 350 people in the room. The QSC's are wonderful, but when they are on sticks, you need the extra "ooomph" if you really wanna fill a room.

... or, you could just use your Bose, like I do 98% of the time!

Re: Nano 300. I did a even up trade(equipment I wasn't using) for one Nano 300. Took me a while to figure it out but it works fine. The nano definitely has a deeper and bigger bass than my Compacts.

So, I'll play around with the Nano to see how it compares to the Compacts. I can see the Nano takes a bit more tweaking but I do like the results I get. There isn't much one can do with Compacts without a mixer.

Re: JBL 515XT. $350 is a great price on those. I almost ordered two of them. But I have one Yamaha DXR 12 and really like it. It would cost me the same to order one more DXR 12 as the JBL's.

If I ordered the JBL's, then I would have to sell the DXR...somewhat of a hassle.

For myself, I really don't need either the DXR's now or the JBL's but I'm doing bookings for a new music house that opened in a town near me. So I did say I would get a larger system to rent out to folks that don't have one.

Here's the link for the Dalton Opera house that I'm working with. It's a new venture. It's a 1905 building that a friend has completely renovated for music venues...fun place.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dalton-Opera-House/554638207883016?ref=br_tf

Does anyone use the Nano 300 as a monitor at home? I'm considering doing that underneath my keyboard with the cubes mounted on top.

Don Mason, when you use 2, do you have the cubes mounted on top or do you use stands?