While following my normal lunchtime ritual (reading trade magazines while eating my sandwich), something occurred to me. I was reading an article about the new EAW KF740. As I read it, I started thinking about our current PA, made up of KF 750s and 755s. It’s a system that I’ve been advocating changing since I [...]
Posts under ‘Equipment’
Connecting to RS-232 Gear
Chances are you have equipment in your racks that you can connect to with the RS-232 protocol. System processors and video scalers are probably the two most likely. Last week I spent some quality time in monitor world tweaking our processors, Klark 9848s. The 9848 is a good processor and has a nice display window [...]
Rechargeable Batteries—Making the Switch
After the last post on batteries, Dave asked a really good question: How does one get started? Other questions were raised as well; How to you justify the cost of the charging infrastructure? How do you determine charging/cell capacity? Good questions, all and I will attempt some answers. First, some history. When I first started using [...]
Rechargeable 9v Batteries—Q&A
Several people have asked if I will be testing and reviewing 9v rechargeable batteries anytime soon. The short answer is no. I only have one device (a PSM600) that uses 9v right now, and hope to replace that by summer. Still, I’ve used a lot of 9v batteries in the past, so I’ll put up [...]
Rechargeable Batteries—Why You’ve Been Burned
This has been one of the most fascinating topics I’ve ever written about. As I’ve been Twittering and reading conversation threads on the CTDRT boards, there seem to be three camps of people in the rechargeable battery debate. The first group has used them for years, loves them and wouldn’t consider going back to alkaline [...]
Battery Shootout—Mike’s Picks
If you’ve missed the previous two posts on rechargeable batteries, you need to go back and read about the test, and the result. Got that? OK, good. So now we’ve run the test, analyzed the results, it’s time to pick a winner, right? Sure, fine. But let me remind you what didn’t win: The ProCell. [...]
Battery Shootout—The Results Show
Last time, I explained the test parameters, the setup and listed the batteries under test. Go back and read that post if you want to see the test conditions (yes, I had the battery meters set correctly to match the chemistry of the batteries). Today it’s time for the results show. Based on the traffic [...]
Battery Shootout Pt. 1
As a longtime proponent of rechargeable batteries, I have gotten into many, uh, discussions of their relative merits. Some people are curious about them and want to learn more. Others are pretty much biased agains rechargeable batteries of any type (except, presumably, the ones in their phones, cars, laptops, cordless phones, PS3 remotes, etc…). In [...]
New From NAMM—Digital Consoles Pt. 2
Last time, we touched on the Phonic Summit and Presonus StudioLive. Both are small-format consoles suited for small installations, recording or portable systems (which is one of my interest at the moment). But I’m also looking at a FOH console. I’m leaning heavily towards to Digidesign Profile; which I had hoped to play with at [...]
New From NAMM—Digital Consoles
I know I said we’d hit DPA mics next, but I left the sales sheet in my office this weekend. And in the quest for accuracy, I need that info. We’ll take a detour and get back on track soon. So we’re clear, some of these consoles are not new. This is just the first [...]

