Volume on Pa

[ITendtoWeez]

My band just received a PA from Carvin (http://www.carvin.com/products/single.php?ItemNumber=XP880-PM15&CID=SYS1). We were using a crappy 200watt PA in the past, and were very excited to step it up to 800watts. The first thing I did after plugging the speakers in, was to plug in a vocal mic. I kept the volume low, because I thought the thing would blow my ears off at even 1/4 up. Well, I could barely hear it. I then turned the volume about half way, the gain up 1/4, and the main at half. The thing was clipping at that volume, and didn't sound any louder than our old 200watt pa at the same volume. I checked the manual, and I can't seem to figure out what I did wrong. Note, I would have posted this on the carvin boards, but its ghost town. Any help is much appreciated.

[Forlorn Hope]

Maybe the cord on the vocal mic is screwed up. Or one of the cords that run to the speakers. Or...in a worse case...the PA is defective. I would imagine it's either a cord problem or something to do with the way you have the settings.

[Aes820]

Did you read the technical specs.?

It says that this thing has a 2x 250 watt output while at 4 ohms.
For the main outputs.

Then. Considering your speakers are both 8 ohm speakers, this power output would then be reduced down to about 125 watts per channel.

The speaker efficiency is pretty good.
But considering your usuage of the PA, you're not really getting much of an increase in headroom as from what your old PA setups was.

I think in the end, this wasn't really too much of an upgrade. Sorry.

[isojoe420]

You think that the mixer would have a setting for a setup without monitors. So you could use all that power for just the mains. Makes sense, but might not be possible.

[Aes820]

You think that the mixer would have a setting for a setup without monitors. So you could use all that power for just the mains. Makes sense, but might not be possible.
Some mixers like these do have that option.
Although there's no indicator if this one does or doesn't.

I'm thinking that it doesn't tho. Because usally the ones that do, when they are split for use with monitors then the main outputs are cut to a mono output.
Wheras this one says that it has both an L and R and monitor output.

Also. Alot of these newer 'lightweight' powered mixers are dead set just crap.
They reckon they've got a good amount of output power but they just don't seem to perform all that well.