The Fender Passports are good systems. The Yamaha Stagepas 500 is another option. A little pricey, but both eminently portable and good sounding.
I needed to get a small rig in December and opted for a pair of
Proel Flash 12A (Muse mag review of the range - not mine) powered speakers and the Proel M16USB mixer, which are a lot more bang-for-the-buck and full-featured compared to the compact systems (which trade off features for size). About R20K
retail, so you can expect to pay +/- R15K - probably a grand less if you shop around and haggle (or you can probably squeeze a pair of speaker stands out of them instead). And all in all, not much bigger than a Stagepas or Passport and with better low end extension.
Aside from the feature set (which suits my needs perfectly, with room to expand), the mixer also came standard with a soft carry case and rack ears included. I got the matching Proel speaker stands, which are ridiculously lightweight (I can carry both in one hand), but still sturdy enough. I also grabbed a standard BNC gooseneck lamp (the M16 for a few hundred (essential, IMO).
If I need to upgrade (which experience tells me is more a matter of
when, rather than
if), adding on a pair of the matching Flash15sa active bass bins will extend the low end and add another 700W (upping it to a 1200W tri-amped system) for another R14K
retail. For me, I think a couple of channels of compression are priority first.
The Yamaha MG166CX mixer was another option I considered for the mixer - nice in that it has basic one-knob compression on the first half dozen channels. Ultimately the features of the Proel won out for me, plus it's a Cape Town based distributor, which makes service and support easier with a faster turn-around time (also essential for PA IMO, as in the long run, something is
bound to happen).
