Sound Systems
• Basic Sound System Troubleshooting
A sound system, also known as a public address or pa system, allows one person to communicate with an entire room, or an entire stadium while speaking at a normal conversational level. A sound system allows a presenter to speak for long periods of time without losing his or her voice. A sound system that has speakers in multiple rooms will allow a presenter's voice to be heard in more than one place at a time, which would be difficult, if not impossible otherwise.
Sound systems may be small battery operated portable units, or large line powered fixed installation systems. Many hotel, convention and meeting facilities have sound systems available, as part of the room rate or a as a separate fee. For meeting facilities that do not provide or offer sound systems, most cities have sound system rental companies, usually listed in the yellow pages under "sound systems and equipment-renting" or "audio-visual equipment-renting." A basic sound system consists of a microphone, an amplifier, a loudspeaker, and associated cables. Often a microphone is first connected to a mixer before being amplified. Mixers provide a larger number of microphone input channels, and offer more tone controls and signal routing flexibility then connecting a microphone directly to the typical sound system.
