Separate mixer and power amplifier or powermixer?

See Mixers and powermixers at Muzyczny.pl

This is a fairly common question faced by bands that often perform in different places. Of course, we are talking about those less known bands, whose members have to prepare everything themselves before playing like this. It is known that rock stars or other popular music genres do not have this type of problem, because this is what a whole team of people dealing with the sound system and the entire musical infrastructure have for them. On the other hand, bands playing and serving, e.g. at weddings or other games, rarely have such a comfort of work. Currently, we have a wide range of musical equipment available on the market in various prices and configurations. Therefore, it is worth considering the choice of equipment so that it meets our expectations and, if necessary, has some additional reserve.

Setting up equipment for the team

Most music bands try to configure their peripheral equipment to the minimum necessary so that there is as little as possible to disassemble and assemble. Unfortunately, even with the configuration of this equipment to a minimum, there are usually many cables to connect. However, you can configure your music equipment in such a way that there are as few devices and packages as possible. One of such devices that will to some extent limit the number of suitcases to be packed and unpacked when going to play is the powermixer. It is a device that combines two devices: a mixer and the so-called a power amplifier, also known as an amplifier. Of course, this solution has certain advantages, but also has its drawbacks.

Advantages of a powermixer

The undoubtedly biggest advantages of the powermixer include the fact that we no longer need to have two separate devices that would have to be connected with appropriate cables, but we already have these devices in one housing. Of course, here an alternative to a separate power amplifier and mixer is, for example, mounting these separate devices in the so-called a rack, i.e. in such a cabinet (housing) in which we can place separate peripheral devices such as modules, effects, reverbs, etc. The second such quite important advantage in favor of the powermixer is its price. It depends, of course, on the class of the equipment itself, but most often when we compare a pawermixer and a mixer with a power amplifier with similar parameters and of a similar class, the powermixer will usually be cheaper than buying two separate devices.

Powermixer or mixer with a power amplifier?

Of course, when there are advantages, there are also natural disadvantages of the pawermixer compared to devices purchased separately. The first basic disadvantage may be that not everything can fully satisfy our needs in such a powermixer. If, for example, such a powermixer has an adequate reserve of power, which we care about the most, it may turn out that, for example, it will have too few inputs in relation to our needs. There are of course various pawermixers, but most often we can meet the 6 or 8-channel ones, and when connecting a few microphones and some instrument, e.g. keys, it may turn out that we will not have any additional spare input. For this reason, many teams decide to buy separate components such as a mixer, reverb, equalizer or power amplifier. Then we have the opportunity to configure the equipment for our personal preferences and expectations. Each of these devices can be selected according to our preferences. This, of course, involves the need to connect everything with cables, but as we have already mentioned above, it is worth placing such a set in the so-called rack and have it complete in one cabinet.

Summation

To sum up, for smaller teams of 3-4 people the powermixer can be a sufficient device to support team members. First of all, it is less cumbersome to use and transport. We quickly plug in microphones or instruments, fire up and play. However, with larger teams, especially those more demanding, it is worth considering the purchase of separate individual elements that we will be able to adjust more precisely to our expectations. This is usually a more expensive option financially, but when mounted in a rack, it is also convenient to transport like a powermixer.