Help choosing the right equipment

Hi everybody,

I have volunteered myself to dj at a Christmas party for a local club I am involved with, it will be your typical party involving party and xmas songs etc. Mainly for kids and adults. I will be playing to about 200 people max. My problem is we don't have a pa so I am looking to buy one. (I've done a few parties in the past And will probably do so in future ) thing is I have no idea what to buy in terms of speaker sizes, wattage etc. And whatt kind of amp goes with what. I don't have a great budget only around £200/£300 Any info would be greatly appreciated if you can help out.
Thanks
Craig.

Rent.

300 quid for 300 people.

Rent a better system.

A good system for 200 people costs up to a few grand, a passable one, slightly less. 300 quid buys you... a speaker...second hand.

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Originally Posted by Craiglormor

Hi everybody,

I have volunteered myself to dj at a Christmas party for a local club I am involved with, it will be your typical party involving party and xmas songs etc. Mainly for kids and adults. I will be playing to about 200 people max. My problem is we don't have a pa so I am looking to buy one. (I've done a few parties in the past And will probably do so in future ) thing is I have no idea what to buy in terms of speaker sizes, wattage etc. And whatt kind of amp goes with what. I don't have a great budget only around £200/£300 Any info would be greatly appreciated if you can help out.
Thanks
Craig.

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Your budget is extremely limited - like others said - rent. My local rental place does a package deal with two tops and a sub for like $150 or $175.

If I were you and you wanted to get serious about doing gigs, I'd go with 2x QSC K12.2s to start with and those run around $800 each. Screw amps and all that nonsense - get powered speakers that have the amps built-in. Less power draw, less space required for transport, less cabling (Which equals less setup/teardown time), etc.

Agreeing with everyone here. You ain't buying anything of worth for £300. Don't waste your money. It's not just a case of plug and play either. It might look that way but there's a whole load of science to it that you'll need to learn too. And, Public liability insurance.

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Originally Posted by mitchiemasha

It's not just a case of plug and play either. It might look that way but there's a whole load of science to it that you'll need to learn too.

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Heh - especially this. You need to know in advance at least how your speaker gets audio and power, what kind of audio cables you need (rental company will likely take care of this and provide for you, and how you're going to run those cables between your speakers and your "player". If you add a subwoofer, you need to know how to daisy-chain the sub to the speakers, etc. Speaker placement is another item you need to google as far as height, distance from wall, direction, etc. A lot of it is optimization, but at a MINIMUM if you cannot/will not research all of that, at least look into height - make sure your tops are on stands and the speakers are above people's heads (I personally feel subwoofer poles you can use to stack the tops onto the subwoofers, while convenient, suck for this unless you're on a stage). You don't want to be blasting the people directly in front of you with the horns of your speakers right at ear level, not to mention the sound getting absorbed by the people directly in front of you and not over the top of their heads to the back of the dance floor..