A friend asked me to DJ his 50th wedding anniversary party in June. He understands that this is just a hobby for me, I don't really know what I'm doing, but he wants me to do it anyway. I have everything I need to spin this new rock and roll craze the kids are wild about -- the latest Buddy Holly, Fats Domino, maybe even those Beatles kids. All I lack are speakers/amps for the venue. He told me find out what I need and he'll buy or rent whatever it takes to make it work.
The venue is the problem. In his house we could just use the big honkin' speakers hooked up to his TV. But this is going to be a good 500 meters away from the house in a meadow with no source of electricity. That means we'll be using a generator, and we want to keep power draw down to a minimum so the generator doesn't drown out the music. There are no hills, walls, or anything to reflect sound, just a bunch of picnic tables and plastic chairs scattered around the small gazebo where I'm setting up.
We do NOT need enough power for a rave. These are baby boomers (hence the Buddy Holly and Beatles -- I wasn't kidding about the playlist) who just want to hear their favorite songs but still be able to have conversations without yelling. The farthest away someone might be standing from the speakers is ~25 meters.
There are maybe 3 sound system rental sources in all of Wyoming; the guy who comes most recommended doesn't have powered speakers so the plan is to go laptop=>mixer=>amp=>speakers. I'll just go with a pair, no subwoofer.
So with that in mind, what do y'all recommend in terms of how much power (watts/dbs) the amp provides, speaker size, etc.? Our rental source has his own recommendations, but I want a second opinion from people who don't have a vested interest in how much I'm spending.
Once we have that question settled I could use some help figuring out how much power the generator needs to provide for the specified equipment, but that's a problem for another thread.
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