Phil Starr

The amp will give at least 150W into the 8ohm cab which should make it really quite loud. When you say it was worse with the old cab do you mean that it is worse now or that it was never very loud with the PA cab? Either way there are not many things that could go wrong with an amp that would make it quiet without making it very distorted. since you liked the sound it doesn't seem as if much is wrong. Try gradually turning the amp up full and trying different inputs if you have them. Also try changing your lead and trying a different guitar. Let me know how you get on.

Just to say we have the same problem with a female vocalist and the sm58. We now use a cheaper Samson mic and it does a better job for our vocalist. The biggest problem with the shure is that you really need to get right up close. (there's a rude comment about putting things in your mouth there somewhere). we found that our vocalist has the mic closer when she hand holds it rather than leaving it in the stand meaning we can reduce the gain. Feedback is caused by resonance so moving the speakers around is always worth a try. lifting them off the ground means all the lower frequencies are radiating in free field rather than half space ( A posh way of saying that the sound isn't reflected off the floor in the same way) and this can clean up the sound and improve the intelligibility. Of course the main way of reducing feedback is to turn everybody else down and reduce sound levels on stage. Good luck with that!

you have had some good advice but no-one seems to have mentioned that a reflex cabinet has to be tuned to a particulat driver and that you need to march both the volume and the length of the tuning duct to match the drive unit. If you google thiele small and ported enclosures you should find plenty to read. Fane speakers in the UK are made in the same factory as Eminence and should be of a similar quality and cheaper though they changed the specs this year so they don't match exactly. I'd go for the 15/500 with a decent magnet and a good Xmax or excursion limit. Should be about £50-60 -try Blue Aran for about £20 extra you should be able to get the same speaker with a cast chassis which should be more reliable. Celestion do some reasonably priced speakers and also some expensive ones. I've not tried these but they are a well known firm. I have a black widow which I bought second hand. It is very bottom heavy, clean and deep but not much in the way of upper mids. Get the black widow with the metal centre if you go this route or plan on using it with a 4x10. They are pricey in the UK