We don't really use mics, so the speakers are mainly for music and sound fx.
What kind of music and sound effects and at what levels? Are you thinking background music and ambient effects or a full orchestral or rock soundtracks and effects such as thunder and explosions?
Do you have an Assistive Listening
system? If not and you are installing a new
speaker system then you may also want to verify if an
ALS system would be required under the
current ADA guidelines as they have changed from when the original
system was probably installed.
We currently have an ancient
crown power amp and 4 ancient bose speakers, all of which may or may not work at any time. I'm thinking about switching to powered speakers, but that's mainly because that is what I've always used in the past. What kind of set up would you recommend? The space is approx. 40' by 80' with a 17'
grid. Its a flex space, so the speakers would be rehung for each show, depending on
stage orientation and audience set up.
Any suggestions?
As Aman noted, you may have to consider the
power, cabling and related
conduit, boxes,
etc. that exist and what changes and/or additions would be involved in getting to where you want including what may be required to
switch to powered speakers. That may get into who should or must perform some of the work.
Added: For example, you currently may have
line level cabling to amplifiers and then unshielded pair
speaker from the amps or a
speaker patch panel out to
speaker locations. The
speaker cable would need to be replaced with shielded, twisted pair
line level cable and new terminations out at the
speaker locations. You'll likely also need new cables to go from those terminations to the speakers. You would also likely need to replace any related
patch panel. You might also need to have
power at each
speaker within the length of the
power cord so you may need to move or add circuits and/or receptacles for that, which may require an Electrical Engineer and/or Electrical Contractor (if you're lucky the school may have these on staff, otherwise that may be an additional cost). You might also want to consider how you will turn the speakers on and off, some powered speakers have an automatic '
standby' mode but not all and even those that do will wake up with any audio signal so you may still want a way to actually
power them off without having to get up to each
speaker. And if you are having to make major changes, you may want to consider if you want to change any of the existing
speaker connection locations or add any new locations.
This may also get into the budget, If you have a set budget that has to
cover everything involved then every dollar spent on having to modify or replace cabling,
power provisions,
etc. is a dollar less to spend on the speakers, but you also don't want to skimp or cut corners on those aspects. Oh, and if you do have a budget it might help to have some idea of that budget in order to help make appropriate recommendations.
You may also want to consider that powered speakers are typically heavier and require both audio and
power connections, so the loads and efforts involved in hanging them may differ. That may or may not be an issue in terms of the loads on the
grid itself but it may be a factor depending on how you or students access the
grid to hang them.
The
current equipment is not going to cut it much longer. It has some serious issues, including blown
speaker cones, so I'm looking at replacement.
As part of any replacement effort you probably want to try to identify why the
current speakers are in such shape and what can or should be done to prevent that from happening to the new speakers. That may encompass hardware, training, documentation,
etc.
It would not be an installed
system, we set it up new for each show.
The speakers may be able to be used in multiple different locations, but from a code perspective it sounds like some aspects might be considered an installed
system.