Ideas for replacement of stolen speakers

[harbrimar]

My apologies if you read this under 'Speakers for projection' but I now realise that tagging a question on the end of a 2 year old thread is probably not a good idea! Our photo club had our speakers and stands stolen over the Christmas period and we are looking to replace as soon as possible. Our venue is in a church hall (size about 6m x 15m) and we can at a push sit up to 60 people but generally it is about half that. The sound equipment needs to be portable as other clubs use the venue.  I now know from reading some of the posts on the forum that the speakers we had; a pair of Alto iPA 200/400w speakers were vastly oversized/powered for our needs. We had complaints about their weight too as they were about 12 kilos each.

We use a sound system as a PA for Judges and of course for showing AV sequences. Our old speakers were connected to a laptop (Dell XPS L702X) via an Alto ZMX 862 Input mixer. We have a Canon SX80 MarkII projector. Visiting Judges generally use our radio mic but we have a plug in mic too.  At our last meeting, we borrowed a club member’s Bose Compact L1 system which worked very well and did not need more than half volume. Suggestions for replacement so far are M-Audio BX5, M-Audio BX8, Alto TX10. Some members have suggested going down the passive speaker route but that means we would have to buy an amp. Not sure whether there is any advantage.

Can anyone please suggest other speakers or indeed continue to recommend those on mentioned on this thread. Need to bear in mind we have to be able to connect a mic into the system and not too heavy. The speakers would need to be placed on stands and we have a budget of around £300.

Regards

Brian