Electro-Voice Stage System 200
A 36-pound black plastic box that handles 300 watts of filtered random noise and takes 1,200-watt peaks. It's a compact portable PA that doesn't act its size.
Overview
Thirty-six pounds. That's what the Stage System 200 weighs, and it's the number that defines the whole design. This is a two-way sound reinforcement loudspeaker in a black plastic cabinet with a gray grille, and the enclosure measures 1.8 cubic feet — the kind of box one person can carry into a club with one hand while holding a mic stand in the other. What makes it interesting is what Electro-Voice packed inside that small volume.
The S-200 mates a Super-Dome tweeter and a high-frequency Direktor to Electro-Voice's EVM Pro-Line 12S low-frequency driver. The Direktor is the clever part. It's molded as an integral part of the cabinet, and coupling a direct radiator to a directivity-controlling device this way duplicates the performance of an EV constant-directivity horn with similar dispersion characteristics. In plain terms, the highs stay controlled and even across the room rather than beaming at whoever is standing on-axis. Recording-Engineer (August 1983, p.108) described this arrangement when the system was new, noting the high-output Super-Dome and the molded-in Direktor as the defining features of the design.
The frequency response is quoted at 90 to 18,000 Hz ±3 dB. That's a wide window for a compact two-way, and the ±3 dB tolerance is the honest part. Plenty of boxes in this class publish a number with no tolerance attached and let the buyer find the real curve in the room. Electro-Voice put the tolerance in the spec, and the system lives up to it.
Power Handling and the Active Equalizer Story
Here's where the Stage System 200 separates itself from the usual compact PA box. Electro-Voice rates it to handle 300 watts of constant filtered random noise, and the company was pointed about that being a far more rigorous test than R.M.S. wattage. Filtered random noise stresses a driver across the spectrum the way music does, rather than the way a single sine wave does. On top of that, the system takes peaks of up to 1,200 watts. Those short peaks are all in the music, and absorbing them without complaint is what separates a speaker that survives a loud night from one that doesn't.
The system has one unusual feature: it can be run with or without an external equalizer. The optional S-200 Active Equalizer is a small box of electronics that lets the system run at a higher output level with a larger bandwidth. That gives more bass response and extends the low end to 50 Hz. Without the equalizer, the system is still a formidable vocal and instrument monitor, a foldback speaker with prodigious output that a performer can hear over a loud stage. With the equalizer engaged, it becomes a fuller-range reinforcement speaker. A switch on the back of the S-200 enclosure selects between the two modes, so one box covers two very different jobs.
A working musician or small sound company could buy the speaker first and add the equalizer later, or run it bare as a monitor and never miss the low end. Electro-Voice's own dealer network, at least in the UK, was set up to arrange hands-on trials at no cost. That's a confident move for a company that knew the box would sell itself once someone heard it.
Reception and Use
The contemporary press treated the Stage System 200 as a serious piece of portable reinforcement rather than a novelty. Recording-Engineer (August 1983, p.108) covered it as a new product with real technical substance, focusing on the driver complement and the molded Direktor rather than the usual marketing language. Modern Recording (October 1983, p.56) reported on the new stage speaker alongside its coverage of heat-resistant voice coil materials and proprietary manufacturing techniques, framing it as part of a broader move toward more durable high-power drivers.
The Stage System 200 is a compact portable sound system built for high sensitivity and high power handling. It does that job with a two-way design that keeps the high frequency controlled and the low frequency honest. It is not a full-range PA cabinet, and the optional equalizer exists because the bare box is a monitor first and a reinforcement speaker second. Buyers who expected deep bass from the un-equalized system would have been disappointed. Buyers who understood the two-mode design got a flexible tool that punched well above its 36 pounds.
Collectibility and the Used Market
The Stage System 200 sits in an awkward spot for collectors. It's a working speaker, not a studio icon, and most of them spent their lives being loaded in and out of vans. That kind of life leaves scuffs, grille dents, and the occasional blown driver. The black plastic cabinet is tough but not indestructible, and the molded Direktor is integral to the cabinet, so damage there is not a simple parts swap. The EVM Pro-Line 12S woofer is the part most likely to need attention on a used example. The Super-Dome tweeter is the other component to check carefully before buying.
The optional S-200 Active Equalizer is the piece that makes a complete system, and complete systems are what collectors and working musicians should be looking for. A bare S-200 without the equalizer is a good monitor. An S-200 with the equalizer is the full design as Electro-Voice intended it. Prices for either are modest by vintage audio standards, since this is a tool, not a trophy. Clean examples with the equalizer and undamaged cabinets are getting harder to find as the working stock gets used up. Anyone considering one should budget for a driver check and, on the equalizer, a recap of the small electronics box before trusting it at volume.
What the Stage System 200 offers is a rare combination: genuine high-power capability in a package one person can carry, with a two-mode design that covers both monitor and reinforcement duty. It's the kind of gear that was bought to be used, was used hard, and rewarded the owners who understood what it was for. That's not a bad legacy for a 36-pound black box.
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