So I had some speakers die on my recently and its time to look at replacements.

Some background stuff, it it is usefull:
I run my keyboard (and whatever else I want) through an ancient peavy PA head with two 150 power amps leading into 4 kustom 10 inch speakers.
The sound was kind of flat, but it worked well enough for shows until I got my newer korg keyboard, which is just super super quiet compared to my 50$ crappy casio.
After that the guitarist started attaching the kustoms to his marshal halfstack, and I was running through 8 fender 10 inches speakers, and a friends ampeg BA115 bass amp.
Couldn't really tell much of a difference between the set of fender speakers and the kustoms, we mostly did that to spread the sound around on stage. We were just keyboard guitar and drums, and were kind of sensitive to one side of the room sounding like guitar, and the other side sounding like keyboard until we added more speakers spread around the stage. The Ampeg really did good things for the bass end.

Anyway, the kustom speakers died, and I don't have access to any of the other stuff any more... and I'm not going to be playing super loud rock shows any time soon.
The PA head is older than I am, but it still works well, and I love how many channels and settings and adjustments that thing has. So I am looking to get some more speakers.
I don't want to spend a lot, because I can't. Still saving for the stick. Unless I stumble across another ridiculously good deal on a used model I'm going to order one pretty soon. Finances are tight and I would rather spend the money on the instrument.

I could potentially replace the 4 10''s in the kustom cabinets... but I'm not really inclined. Those things are older than I am and not in the best shape. I also don't really want 4 10"s, and I don't want to pay 150$ to replace them, just to have a crappy sound at a volume level I don't use. Also, the speakers can't be repaired. They are very very very old and are glued together an assembled in such a way that you have to destroy everything to even get a look at the voice coils.

Watt ratings on a speaker indicate how much power it can take, right? So do I have to get a 150 watt speaker? Something less than that will be distorted at the full power of my PA head, correct? But if I don't need super loud does that matter?

Right now, I'm considering a lower end model that has something larger than a 10inch, perhaps a 12 or maybe even 15, that also has a built in horn or tweeter.
The kustoms didn't sound bad, but the bass tone sucked, and they just weren't very lively sounding. Kind of bland. My thought is that something like one of these would give me a pretty decent tone across a wide range and provide me with enough volume I need for myself at home. I'm not going to be competing with a crazy loud drumset or guitar anytime soon.

http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/pr ... 82080#used
http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/pr ... sku=485590
http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/pr ... sku=600815

I really don't know anything about speakers and amps and such, so I'd really like some thoughts on this. Being a fundless teen in a band you just take whatever handmedown stuff you can get. And being a fundless graduate student, I haven't had money to buy stuff since those years. I'm using a keyboard, so a bass amp/guitar amp duo isn't really what I want. I'm not looking to color the sound a lot. And I really want the same for the stick. Not that I won't take it to my friends houses and plug it into their guitar and bass amps one day.

I guess the ultimate question is if you were in this situation, what would you do to get a decent sound for a stick if you didn't really care about big shows?

A keyboard really demands a hifi/PA cab, and it sounds like you've already ascertained this. Tastes vary, but a full-range PA cab could also be highly effective for your Stick, as well.

I'm still a little sketchy on your front-end: Does the Peavey head have stereo amp outputs or does it drive a separate set of amplifiers? What's the rated output of your amp, at what impedance?

Are you looking at getting this *just* for home practice or are you going to be gigging (even on a small scale) with the rig as well?

EDIT: Oh, and I hate to ask this, but what sort of shape is your Peavey head in?

Its a peavy xrd 680. I'm not sure what year it is but it is old. Two of the XLR mic inputs got loose and came out when the mic was removed. Those need to be replaced, but otherwise its in pretty good shape. Used it as a sound system for keyboard and vocals back in the day, and whatever stuff our friend-bands need it for. Just had to have enough speakers. The bands would pool our speakers when we set up our own shows, it worked fine.
Never really had any problems with noise or distortion.

It is a mono system with two amplifiers. If you are really dying for stereo, you can split a stereo signal into mono cables, and send each signal to a separate amplifier, then to separate speakers. The default setup runs both amps together... I think.

The description on the manual is "dual 150 watt amplifiers."
It states
"Rated Power:
150 watts RMS into 4 ohms, both channels driven.
100 watts RMS into 8 ohms, both channels driven"


Each amplifier has two outputs, the circuit diagram on the manual leads me to believe the two outputs are different, one at 150W @ 4 OHMS, the other 105W@ 8 OHMS.

I'm a full time student, with other part time employment. I won't be playing shows for a long time. I'll have tenure somewhere before I have time for that. (And by then I'll have money!)

I appreciate any thoughts. I'm a total neophyte when it comes to this stuff.

Well, if it's just for practice, one of those 12" cabs would work just fine. If that's all you intend to do, no need even for really two cabinets--that would be kind of overkill at (moderate) practice volumes.

Since money is tight I'd recommend keeping the head around--it's a dirt-cheap way of mixing both sides of your instrument and as you can see you can get a reasonable entry-level PA cab dirt cheap.

As far as power-handling, I'm pretty sure what your amp diagram is telling you that your amp will output 105W into an 8-ohm load and 150w into a 4-ohm load. This should be for *each side.* *Most* Over-the-counter pro-sumer PA cabinets are a nominal 8-ohm load, so as long as you get a cabinet that can handle 100 watts or more you shouldn't need to worry about "overdriving" the cabinet. You're not going to hurt a higher wattage cabinet with a low-powered amp, either, unless you do something silly like driving the amp beyond it's capabilities.

I would go with the Behringers over the Kustoms. A lot more solid R&D behind the Behringers. Nearly everything you get at this price point is going to be made in China, but Behringer has a bit better quality control than most--we even press some of their gear into use in our venue, and haven't had really any serious problems.

Edit: Oh, and don't bother with a "powered" speaker. Since you already have an amp, you can get better sound for the same amount of money by purchasing a slightly better passive cab than a mucho-cheapo active.