Speakers for restaurant


Hi all:
i recently purchased two Sound Acoustics c-8240 commercial mixer amplifiers from a restaurant that went out of business and am now getting ready to use one (or both if necessary) for a small restaurant we are moving into and renovating. There are basically two areas. One large 30x30 dining room with 16 foot ceilings and a 26x26 patio outside. We will only require the system to play background music and the occasional louder catering events (staff parties) and I would like to find out what speakers I should buy for both areas.  I am planning to run 12 gauge speaker wire (as this is what I have from another Reno) but am at a bit of a loss to pick some reasonably priced decent speakers. Any help will be greatly appreciated 
thanks,
Erik from Perth, Ontario, Canada
erikkafrissen
Have you seen the JBL pro powered monitors? Fairly inexpensive, but of course, you already picked up an amp.

On the other hand, having powered monitors lets you forget about how many you have on the amp. :)

You didn’t mention your budget, where you plan on placing the speakers and how you might like to place/mount them.
I’ve seen restaurants use in wall/in ceiling speakers but these require many more units and generally don’t sound particularly good or full range.  The number of units required tends to make this low visibility solution more expensive to acquire and install too.

Some restaurants place smallish home audio speakers with a modest sub mounted in a corner but that’s also limiting when you’re trying to get decent (don’t worry about hi-fi) sound across the space without working them too hard.

There are differences between pro audio speakers and home audio speakers. The latter are generally better fidelity, work better in small rooms and have nice cabinets. Pro audio speakers are designed to be efficient, hung on brackets or stands, and have simple casework - usually black plastic or felt covered.  Realistically, most restaraunts are going to be better off with pro-audio products.  Depending on budget, I’d head on down to a guitar center like store (not sure what you have in Ontario) or go online to Sweetwater.com and you’ll see plenty of options, sizes, price ranges etc.  I’d avoid the lowest cost options but there will be plenty of decent options to consider.  All will be easily driven by your amplifiers as pro-audio speakers tend to be high efficiency.  For the patio, you’re going to want outdoor speakers as humidity, sun, rain or snow would rapidly destroy anything not designed for it - and will be limiting to the life of anything that is designed for it.  
Thanks so much for all of the feedback, I think I will take your advice and go down to a local audio place in Ottawa and get their feedback.

thanks ahain
I like Mackie speakers, and powered ones aren't particularly expensive...QSC has nice ones also, and with something like that they can easily be used as live sound PA speakers, as well as very loud and robust, or soft, background music speakers.

I would think that you'd want fairly uniform coverage over as much of the area as you can reasonably get. 

Mirage speakers come to mind.  They are quasi-omnidirectional, and so they give good coverage over a very wide area. 

Duke

EV 40 are great.  They are internally fused to keep people from blowing them.  Personally, I hate hot spots for sound.  Anyone sitting under the single large Mackie or JBL will go deaf while others barely hear them.  I like to put them all around.

Also, you should consider running the system mono.  Again, for background music and announcements it will work better.

Most importantly, you want an impedance matching transformer/speaker selector.  Get a good one.  Cheap ones will melt over time.