jascarb said:
a) can I get a route if I tone down my ambition so I'm playing background music
I think that you may be underestimating some of the technical challenges that playing music in a pub venue brings. To start with a pub, even a small one, is likely to be a much larger space to fill with sound than your domestic living room. Then even if your hifi does sound fine in an empty smallish sized pub room as soon as you fill that space with people it's going to get totally drowned out.
Human bodies are very effective at absorbing sound you see. Fill that same room with lots of people and you'll need to play music at a higher volume level to compensate for this sound absorbsion. Then add to this the tendancy for people to talk loudly when they're drinking alcohol and you'll need to play music even louder again just to be able to hear it over all the background noise.
Your 40 watt amplifier may sound fine in a quiet room at home but in a pub you'll likely need 10 times that amount of power to get the same 'apparent' volume level. Using your NAD amplifier would be like taking a tooth pick to a gun fight and hoping you can wing it using optimism. It's just not going to work.
There's a good reason why DJ's use low quality but loud systems in pubs. It's very very expensive to buy equipment that has hifi sound quality whilst also being able to play at the required volume levels.
jascarb said:
b) is there PA that aims at HiFi rather than bass until your teeth fall out
If it really is a very small and quiet pub you'd probably get away with using some of the larger studio monitors such as the
Yamaha HS8 or some
Mackie MR8 both of which cost about £400 pounds per pair (they're usually sold as single speakers not pairs BTW). These will give hifi sound quality whilst also being able to play at a comfortably higher volume level than what most regular hifi equipment can. You'll also need something to use for controlling the volume with these monitors but you can pick up a cheap secondhand DJ mixer for next to nothing which will allow you to do this.
However you need to ask yourself (and be honest not optimistic) 'is this pub really that small and quiet?' If not then there's a very good chance that even these powerful and loud studio monitors will be out gunned and will be totally unsuitable for your needs. Also bare in mind that these studio monitors offer no protection from drunken idiots pushing their fingers into the tweeters.
jascarb said:
c) realistically I'm thinking a venue might go to £150 for some such contrbution. Do it monthly, so £1,800. Spend half of that on records. Want some left over, so £450 in year 1 if you really want a figure I might spend.
Dispite my suggestion above I strongly advise that you to speak to a pro-audio shop or an experienced pub DJ before you spend any money or book yourself in with a pub. They'll be able to assess your needs and requirements better than I can and give you more suitable advice on what you'll need.
You'll also need some closed backed headphones and 2 separate music sources because people don't want to sit in silence for 10 seconds every time you change the record. You need to have the next song cue'd up and ready to play as soon as the last track finishes.
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