Outdoor portable Sound Systems for Athletic events

[peacefulone61]

I was looking for a recommendation for an outdoor PA system for our schools sports teams. I came across the Anchor MEGA DP
Anchor Audio MEGA-DP MegaVox Pro Portable Public Address System

and wondered if anyone had experience with this as a system or any other systems that they would recommend. Thank you for your thoughts.

[museav]

What is the intened use? Would it be for making announcements to team or used for announcements and music playback for an entire stadium full of people? Would it be to cover the stands at a baseball/softball field or the entire area including both sidelines of a soccer field? Would it be used for an hour or two or for all day events and is there power available for any extended period use?

Anchor Audio offers some nice products and to cover a resonable area where music and sound quality are not critical that might work fine, but think more typical PA than full range sound and for some applications you might also have to consider where you'd locate the speakers to cover everyone. The 126dB@1m maximum output is not bad but if you have to get over a lot of crowd noise you may not want the speakers too far away from the listeners.

[Nelson]

I just repaired a very similar (if not the same) Anchor MegaVox system. After 15 years of hard use, the batteries finally needed to be replaced. I was quite happy with how well they are built and how easy they are to use. After all that time, they still work fine (just needed new batteries!). Our local Little League team uses it for game announcements and it seems to work fine. On a quiet night, I can hear their announcements from my house a mile away from the ball field.

[peacefulone61]

The majority of the use will be for announcing events, (primarily Football and baseball games covering the field and the stands. There will also be some occasional swim meets and senior tribute games of all varieties. It would primarily be used for just one game at a time and maybe three total for a week. there is power at each score board if we need it for our fields. The would also like to be able to play and iPod through something like an ESPN mix of sound tracks and some "pump up" music. I do not think clarity is the highest priority of the music however.

[Nelson]

The MegaVox does have two microphone inputs (1/4") and one line input (also 1/4"). With the right cord, you should be able to hook an mp3 player into the MegaVox line input without any trouble.

[museav]

The MegaVox does have two microphone inputs (1/4") and one line input (also 1/4"). With the right cord, you should be able to hook an mp3 player into the MegaVox line input without any trouble.

Probably worth noting that all of the inputs are 1/4" TS unbalanced connections, so not directly compatible with most microphones or with stereo sources. Unless you have a dynamic microphone with an unbalanced 1/4" TS connector, you night want to get one or two with the system, Anchor offers a couple models as accessories but other manufacturers also offer some.

Anchor advertises the MegaVox PRO as a Public Address system, versus the products they advertise as sound systems. The MegaVoxPRO specs list a 400Hz-10kHz frequency response with no limits or response curve provided, so I would assume those are the -10dB points and that suggests that it is very speech oriented. You could play music through it but it will probably sound like music through a typical PA system with limited high frequency and very limited low frequency output. That is fine for many applications but may not be what is wanted in order to 'pump up' a crowd.

The system linked with one main unit and one 'slave' unit can apparently provide quite a bit of output and even the main unit alone might work fine for general announcements at swim and track meets, however due to the combination of where you might need to locate the speakers to cover everyone and having to get above the crowd noise levels, I'm not sure about the system covering all of a football field and the stands during a game. If that is one of the common applications then you might want to contact Anchor Audio, they may have some suggestions on how to make it work or may suggest additional 'slave units'.

[peacefulone61]

Thank you I did not even think about it. I have talked with Anchor and they suggested one of there liberty systems to better suit the needs.