I find that commercial CDs are the ones that sound thin on these speakers.
I can see the advantages of self-powered speakers but I'm not sure if they are for me. If I understand correctly, I would have to run both power and speaker cables to these bins (as opposed to just speaker cables) and if one dies at a gig you're in more trouble because you can't just flip around an unpowered monitor and use it as a main to get through the night. Yes?
Thanks.
If the commercial CD's sound thin, I would suspect that the speakers themselves are to blame, or perhaps the EQ settings. I can think of a number of things that could cause that. One immediate thing would be that the home-spun tracks are EQ'd wrong and are bass and mid heavy resulting in properly EQ'd commercial projects to sound weak by comparison.
Gear failure on a gig. Been there many times. Had main amps quit, monitors, guitar amps literally burn up, and of course, an exploding flashpot whose concussion wave literally ripped speaker cones from their baskets on the second set of the night. Things can and will happen on a gig. You simply find a way to cope. Run the entire system on one amp (in our case) or turn the monitors toward the audience or turn the PA stack so the band can hear something. We lost half our lights at one club when the roadies plugged into the club's 240v outlet without checking the actual voltage. There was a 208 high leg that was wired by the electrician by mistake. So eliminate the preventable by always checking so you don't lose gear needlessly.
I would think you would have 2 speakers for the crowd, and one or more for you on stage. Chances of more than one failing at a time are remote so yup, flip one around and keep going. You can carry spares if you have enough money and space but mostly it's more of a case of, you do what you have to do when you have to do it to get the gig done.
Since any and all gear can, and will fail at some time..... just buy the gear that you like, and sounds good and go play. Deal with the bumps in the road when they happen. I have gear now, setting here in my studio that I used...and abused.... for years live gigging that NEVER FAILED and still run perfectly to this day.
EDIT TO ADD:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDeF4sbhS1M this was found shortly after I posted here..... and went to another music site. This guy says in the first 2 minutes what I spoke about in the first paragraph above.