One Spec Fits All? Going Beyond The Surface

Consoles
In the 1990s, a well-known maker of consoles and mixers led us to focus on channel and input counts as factors above all others. Simply, they introduced more and more mixers with more and more channels at very attractive pricepoints, but at the same time, these units lacked some important features that hobbled their ability to really get the job done.

Churches in particular bought into the mystique and ultimately paid the price. But they weren’t the only ones.

Many users asked the question about channels and compared the dollar cost and could not figure out why consoles that appeared to offer the same number of channels and seemed to have a lot of the same nifty features would cost twice as much or more. Features like modularity, multiple sweepable EQ bands, bus amps and mix amps with enough headroom, etc. were not nearly as well understood and thus overlooked.

Wireless Microphones
Getting back to what started me on this subject—the question I probably hear more often than any other is “what kind of range do these things have?”

And my answer is always the same: “range of a wireless system is dependent on too many external factors to boil it down to a single number.” Things like interfering signals, antenna position, optimization of the antenna/cable system, the material(s) the walls are made of, line of sight, etc., all have a profound influence on the range of a wireless system.

The same system that might be fine over quarter mile out on the tundra in central Canada might only give you a block in downtown Manhattan.

The Marketing Game
Marketers are tasked with trying to get the message about their products out to their potential customers. Because they know that many customers aren’t as savvy as they could be, some marketers are able to use the single specification angle to influence buying decisions.

I don’t fault companies for making consoles that people want to buy, nor for adding line arrays to their product ranges, nor for stating that a wireless system has “range up to 1,000 feet” in their marketing literature.

But the problem is that in many cases, additional specifications and descriptions that might help people make more educated buying decisions are obfuscated or deliberately left out.

I’ve always felt that if you can’t find the specification, it was purposely left out so that people won’t see it and thus won’t avoid that particular product when they might otherwise. And in my view, this is wrong.

That said, however, we should do a better job of learning about the fundamental principles behind the products we specify, choose and use, in order to foster better results.

In the meantime, I’m selling an amplifier that will do 5,000 watts per channel for $500. The only problem is that the power rating above is at 0.5 ohms and it blows a fuse if the load is any lower than 4 ohms… Any takers?

Karl Winkler is director of business development for Lectrosonics and has worked in professional audio for more than 20 years.

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