Crate Review: PA4SYS

History:

Purchase: From www.musiciansfriend.com for $280

What I Like About This Crate PA4SYS: A nice little PA package that includes a powered mixer and two 10” speakers for small outdoor venues. It’s biggest advantage is the ability to drive four speaker cabinets which when daisy chained on speaker stands down the center line of a 120’ by 40’ tent provide a good listening environment for speeches and background music. Speakers have two ¼” jack sockets for daisy chaining and 1-1/2” stand socket. They look nice and are tough enough for outdoor use but their carpet surfaces do tend to pick up grass. Combo XLR- ¼” jacks save on front panel space. The total weight of the mixer and two speakers is less than 80 lbs., and with two Axman speaker stands is easy to transport in a car trunk. <br><br> Buying two systems lets you either run one 4 speaker setup (for wider coverage) or two 2 speaker setups simultaneously! Crate includes a 5 year warranty. Musiciansfriend also sell the Crate PA6FX PA package for $420 (not reviewed) which looks to be a more capable system for a small band and is also able to run four speakers (as mono).

What I Do NOT Like About The Crate PA4SYS: Only comes with 20 foot speaker cables when you really need one 50 foot (16 gauge) cable per speaker. Package used to include a microphone. Had to wrap duct tape to top of a standard 1-3/8” speaker stand pole to fit into 1-1/2" speaker socket.

Crate PA4SYS Quality Rating: Even though the PA4 is rated 90 watts RMS into 2 ohms, it’s internal heat sink and power supply looks only good for 60 watts RMS as confirmed when driving a 2 ohm test load. Internal spring reverb unit is only held in by plastic clips (of which one was working loose!). Design power limits before overload distortion sets in and appears to have thermal shutdown to protect from extreme abuse. Output amplifiers have a decent damping factor which gives a nice “punch” to bass woofers. Speakers can deliver 105 db/1 meter all day long. Mixer and speaker cabinet construction based on a solid wooden carpeted box.

Review Summary: Buying two PA4SYS systems gets you into a four speaker PA system for larger venues that require even sound coverage. When used for wedding speeches and/or back ground music, a four speaker setup provides enough coverage for 250 people.

Rating of this Crate product: 3

This Crate PA4SYS PA Gear Review Submitted By: Dave Breton

Review Date: 2001-08-17