subwoofer or your gonna blow the speakers. turning up the bass on an underpowered system is just a quicker way to blow the speakers.

If they have a legit system (speakers look like they could do more) with preamp or drive rack, whomever installed the system may have intentionally cut the bass at an eq level or installed a limiter.

It sounds like that system is not designed for high energy music, might even be a 70V system. My guess is no amount tweeking is going to make it sound better for what you are being told to do. If you can let us know specifically what parts they have and how they are configured I could tell you definitively.

I would tell them that having DJs play through it could damage it before you plug in, just in case it dies they don't blame it on you. A friend told me that she had a situation like this once. The amp caught on FIRE and they tried to blame her for their 30 year old neglected dusty amp burning up. Fortunately it didn't cause a larger fire.

Bring a small self powered sub, then cut the bass in the house system

Thank you guys for your suggestions!

After reading that my mixer could potentially damage the system I will NEVER plug into it.
@Mr.Goodkat,@deezlee I will definitely bring some extra speakers and a sub instead because maaaaan did the sound quality sound terrible last time.

@577er, I cannot tell you what the exact setup was but it definitely wasn't quality. This is an upscale restaurant and you can tell that they don't usually "party".

THANK YOU for your suggestions I have just called the management to let them know to prevent DJs from plugging into the system.

Once again, THANK YOU!

I play a spot with a lousy "house system".
I bring my own system, but I send a little signal through the house system just to provide a little treble all over the room. I cut the bass on that signal.

If you do decide to skip the house system all together (and IF you want even sound coverage across the restaurant), try and use a "mini line array" like a Bose L1 or evox.

English is not my first language, so i'm just checking: You say 'RCA to RCA', so you plug your DJ setup into the venues sound system with RCA cables? Because that might be the problem. RCA in an unbalanced cable, which can easily cause distortion, especially when they are long. You should always use balanced cables like XLR or Jack.

What exactly are you plugging into?

- A house mixer with RCA inputs + XLR?
- A house wall jack of some sort?

The reason I ask is because I was at a restaurant venue that had the same sort of issue. All the DJ's experienced sound that was too hot and it all came out distorted. Management would complain all the time.

After scratching my head, I figured out that the single wall XLR port we were instructed to plug into was VERY HOT and built for a "microphone" input signal. Mics don't have much of any output at all so their low signals need to be juice up to deliver an adequate signal. Plug a Rane TTM57 or any other hot-signal mixer in and it nearly blows the doors off the joint.

I ended up getting a Di-box to convert my hot mixer signal down to mic levels and all was good for me and the rest of the DJs.

The signal from an RCA out isn't likely to be overloading the inputs if they are RCA inputs, it's possible but unlikely. Unless the signal is slammed deeeeep into the red on the dj mixer... but that never happens 😂

For sure there could be a gain issue in the signal chain but there lots of variables we don't know. If they are in ceiling speakers we can write the system off as structurally incapable. If they are hifi speakers (manufacturerd post 1985 or so) we can write them off. If the amp is a POS with narrow gauge wire run longer than it should be for its size you have the possibility of a bad input gain situation, to an underpowered amp, to crazy attenuation from thin wire to possibly under capible speakers. We need details before we can diagnose the issues.

Does the system get loud enough for what you want to do if you use the in house audio source? Like Spotify or whatever they are using? If not then you know it will never cut it for a hotter signals from a DJ over driving his / her mixer.

If the system can ROCK when using the in house signal then you can PROBABLY find a way to get the signal to the right size for the system to get you the results you want... maybe. Sonos systems are usually plenty loud but often have a delay when getting an external source and don't tolerate hot signals.

when I plug into a house system with an obviously underpowered setup, one thing I find helps it to crank the master on the amp as much as you can so you can send a lower signal to the amp without overloading it and sending it into protect mode before you get to a desirable volume.

Basically, if the main amp is turned down, all you're going to to do is overload the inputs, but if the main amp is turned up, you can get louder volume without having to turn up the controller signal.

^^^ good rule of thumb in general

Or at least being aware of gain structuring is important