A muscian I talked to between sets last summer showed me his new PA that he was proud of. It was a Carvin powered PA with lots of power and it only weighs about ten pounds or so. It has all the controls on the front. He plugged his tele straight into the guitar input and his wife plugged her big time keyboard into it, as well as their microphones and his mic'd foot operated drum rig that he played while he played the tele. Super muscians. They played everything from "Hey Mr. Tamborine Man", to Patsy Cline, and they sounded awsesome.

He had to massive Electrovoice vintage cabinets with massive horns and big speakers. He hand made the enclosures and they looked like they weighed at least a hundred pounds each, but they put out perfectly clear sound.

Peavey is supposed to have a new PA out that is powerful and very affordable, but possibly not under one thousand. Peavey, of course, is noted for excellent PA's. I remember the old days, the sixties, when the big six foot tall thin tower type Peavey PA's first came out. They enabled the bands to run a lot of mic's and things like the keyboard straight to the PA that had been sharing other amps. Big improvement in the sound, to say the least.

I think you are on the right track. Get your own PA and you won't have to rely on any house system where ever you go. You will have good, clean, clear sounding stuff with no blown out speakers and such and no house guy messing up your sound.