Seven Sources of Superb Portable P.A.

Over the past 18 months, I’ve reviewed the following portable P.A. products in a variety of applications and environments, such as small- to medium-size clubs/music venues, outdoor/amphitheater environments, street festivals, old creaky wooden theaters, low-key coffee shops and restaurants, houses-of-worship, schools/municipal environments, and literally on the side of the road.
Here are those I’d recommend, categorized per manufacturer and in alphabetical order.

Alto Professional’s Black Series range includes the Black 12 two-way full-range pair ($599 street, each) with 12-inch LF transducer and 1.75-inch HF driver, and accompanying Black 15 SUB subwoofer with 15-inch long-excursion LF driver ($1,099 street). Built of 18mm plywood and adorned with various beefy custom-molded handles, stand and pole mounts and rigging points with a steel speaker grille, this is not a lightweight P.A. It sounds great and offers a noted 1,200 watts of continuous power.

All Black Series components are ready to work with Alto Pro’s Live Drive wireless speaker app for iOS, allowing for level matching, EQ adjustment, compression, time-alignment, and more. Also included per component is an extended-range (up to 100 feet) Bluetooth antenna for wireless device pairing.

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