Blair,
you are lucky.
You are doing gig's in coffee houses and small quiet bars.

Are planning on staying there? The coffee house circuit is where art pushes the limits,
reinvents the status quo. Or just goes to die a lonely death.

Anyway, your system as it is will not transition to bigger noisier clubs. But that is not important right now.

You cant go wrong with a Yorkville speaker. Their tweeters are superior to any in this price range.
You did go wrong with the behringer, but you will get your money out of them.

My advice is to think about how you will get the gear to the gig.
How much room do you have left after you pack your present system into the car?

In the PA world, it is good advice to buy more powerful than you need. And not push the
limits, just let it purrr. If you do this then you will get the best sound. And no expensive blow-up's.
In other words the 8" speaker will not be loud enough, just when youi need it most. And where is the dollar savings when you
are sweating a gig with not enough PA?

Now go to your gear store and look at the EV passive speakers that fit into your price range.
Yorkville is good too. I just like the EV's personally.

EV has a plastic 15" that is pretty cool. They have a powered wood enclosure that is real close to
pro level.

You _do_ want a speaker that can double as a mains speaker and that means a little cup for tripod mounting.

I would look at the "TAPCO" amplifiers if you are saving money (you never really save money on cheap PA gear)

But if you have to buy Behringer, I suggest one thing. Drive the fuck out of them within the warranty period.
there is a rule of the universe. If a piece of shit electronics is going to bust, it will _Probably_ be within 6 months.
If it doesnt, then it is one of those anomalies that stretch the fabric of the universe and keep those cheap companies in business.

If you want to step it up a little bit, take a look at the 'microwedge' from Radian.

tinyurl.com/2kjw5a

The shop I work for has a few dozen of an older version of them, and we love them for smallish accoustic band gigs. They use either an 8" or 12" with a 1" or 2" compression driver. For their rather small size, they get pretty loud, and sound better than most any plastic box I've heard. They're price point is pretty low... If you're interested, PM me, and i'll do a little digging into it for you.

As for amps, i'd take a look around and see if anyone in your area has any slightly old Crest or Crown stuff they're looking to sell off used. Often rental shops will have a few widowed amps they might be willing to part with for not much more than something junky you'll buy at guitar center.

And, next time you're shopping for a new pair of mains, take a listen to the new QSC self powered HPR series. I put one of the HPR122i's up against a similarly priced Mackie SRM450, and the QSC blew it out of the water. On top of it, it's a birch cabinet, has rigging points, has a very professional look to it.

good luck, and PM me if I can help you with anything.

-jv

Thanks everyone for your input!

Yeah, we are lucky :-) Or maybe it is by design? This is very much a hobby outfit and so we can be quite selective about where we play. And the type of music we're playing lends itself to these events. We're not likely to find ourselves in any noisy bars any time soon.

LOL -- at our St. Patrick's gig on Saturday night, a group of girls (around 9 years old) came to the venue to see us as part of a birthday party / sleep over. We can entertain anyone from 4 to 100 years old. Except maybe those jaded teenagers ;-)

Only one of our Behringer speakers has arrived so we borrowed a pair of Yorkville 550w active speakers. So I had a chance to do some comparison. Yeah, the Yorkvilles deliver more "punch" than the Behringers but I found the Yorkvilles a bit muddy while the Behringer was cleaner.

Our market here is fairly small so we have limited choices when buying locally. We're going to do some renting of gear for monitors to figure out the right mix but I hear, loud and clear, that the 8" speaker won't be enough.

My guess is that we'll go with passive speakers / amp for the monitors so we aren't lugging around another pair of huge cabinets.

I'll do some checking around to see if anyone locally carries/rents HPR or EV.

Thanks!