Sound Advice

Like many system integrators it has been very difficult for Sound Advice to find products since Covid hit. Some companies have become real winners because they were smart enough and cared enough for their customers to have product available. Most of these were the least dependent on China. Sennheiser microphones are a great example. Much of their product is made in Europe and their wireless mic electronics are made in the USA. They are priced the same as the products I am Shure you are most used to seeing. Sennheiser has taken over a large part of the wireless market because of the inability of their main competitor to ship their mostly Chinese produced products.
What has surprised buyers is how much better the Sennheiser sound and how much better the build quality is. Most of their transmitter are steel construction compared to the plastic their competitors use. It’s been a win win for our company and our customers when using Sennheiser mics.

Don’t care about the politics of global warming but it’s hot folks. Already had one crew member on a live show taken to the hospital with a concussion after passing out and hitting his head. on the stage at an outdoor concert. It was 135 degrees F 35 feet up in a school gym doing an install. Keep your people safe. Any sign of nausea is a time to get indoors or at least under shade and drink water.

A good friend of ours took a tumble off a stage and broke his leg Thursday. NOT OUR STAGE. If it had been it would have had safety rails and he wouldn’t have fallen. Can’t remember how many times people demanded I remove the rails because they didn’t like the “look”. Now a major venue is sweating bullets wondering if they will get the Alexander Shanarra call. Your never too busy to be safe and protect folks.

Remember Cobranet? It was the signal distribution technology that was going to render analog XLRs obsolete. Many jumped on the bandwagon replacing analog cable runs that were thought of as being too long or unreliable. Now 10-15 years later that technology is largely dead with the majority of components discontinued and unavailable. What’s replacing it? Dante another technology that promises to revolutionize audio. It may but one thing is sure “ if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. Many of the Cobranet problems were cured by reverting to decades old copper that was still in place. No analog won’t have the bells and whistles of Dante but ask yourself what level of technology is needed to accomplish the mission and never exceed that level. We see too many over complicated systems that require huge levels of support to keep operating and a level of training and sophistication the clients just don’t have.