HighSound

Our ideal basic high school hall system is built around a pair of 15" boxes
mounted behind steel cages. Plenty of power is delivered from typically 800w amplification mounted in a 6RU lockable steel rack alongside an 8 chanel rack mount mixer and some radio mics. Add CD playback to complete the picture.

These systems ideally suit large school halls where the call is for a basic but capable system for assemblies and general public use. More demanding applications such as musical presentations should use separate "hire in" solutions.

Typical entry price is around the $3000 mark installed.

Our Standard High School systems have one component recommended standard - a pair of Bose 802 speakers - mounted high on wall or suspended from the ceiling. There really is no other truly "all purpose" speaker capable of doing the job. The proof really is in the listening, and we simply won't recommend any other unless your budget is really stressed. Quite often your old speakers (if still working) can be "turned around" and used as foldbacks for the stage.

These systems are designed so that they are suitable for daily use but are also capable of rising to the occasion when special drama and musical events demand it. All equipment is securely rack mounted to ensure long service life and reliability and to keep fiddling fingers out of the business end.

Typically a 12 channel rack mount mixer is included along with CD playback and multiple channels of radio mics. A Feedback exterminator is included along with separate control of dedicated foldback speakers on the stage. Plenty of power (up to 1000 watts) drives a pair of quality BOSE speakers.

Quite often the system will be integrated with stage lighting controllers and include connections for multimedia equipment such as DVD players, Laptops and Video projectors. Naturally all microphones, leads and stands are also included. Being rack based these systems are ideal for use by inexperienced staff and students.

Prices start at around $8000 and can range up to $9500 depending on microphone options.

Performance systems are designed to be used by trained staff and students, not just "anyone". They are restricted to high schools which have a dedicated music department programme and have staff on hand who are well versed in music PA operation. Quite often a team of students is established who operate the system (even for simple tasks) under the guidance of school staff.

These systems are designed to handle most (if not, all) tasks you may have in your school hall from simple assemblies to very complex musical and drama presentations.

Our performance systems are typically based on BOSE speaker systems, because we have found these are the only speaker capable of handling sustained abuse they are likely to get in a high school application. In particular they have no high frequency horns - and it's horns that are usually the first thing to fail in a PA system driven to it's limits or allowed
to accidentally feed back with multiple mic lines open.

Mixers used are typically 24 or 32 channel Yamaha with around 16 channels from the stage and plenty of radio mics. Foldback is a must, as is plenty of power (typically ~2500 watts or more). Equipment is normally housed in a specially built or provided technical equipment room, and in some cases special trolleys and trailing cables are provided to allow controls to be simply "wheeled out" of the room into the hall for performance use or left "in situ" for simple shows.

Typical pricing (installed) usually hovers in the $15,000 to $20,000 bracket.