stadium speakers

[Krusscher]

The college I work at has a baseball diamond with stadium speakers. there is only 2 of them on lighting poles about mid way down the baselines that cover the whole area, they are fed with 14awg 2 wire cable that if I had to guess is about 200ft long. The minor league baseball team that also uses the facility wants to replace those speakers and the guy is telling me they don't make them any more where you just feed the speaker wires only to them and that you have to have 120v to plug them in now... this sounds a bit off to me but I don't know speakers at all really. Is this really the case? Does anyone that has worked with PA/stadium speakers have any recommendations on what to replace them with?

 

[hbiss]

the guy is telling me they don't make them any more where you just feed the speaker wires only to them and that you have to have 120v to plug them in now... this sounds a bit off to me but I don't know speakers at all really. Is this really the case? Does anyone that has worked with PA/stadium speakers have any recommendations on what to replace them with?

Not hardly! Sounds like all that guy knows about is clubs and DJ stuff. Best advice I could give you is the go here, sign up and ask this question there. (Just a heads up- use your real name when you sign up not Soyo102. For some reason they feel that nicknames are not professional.)

Installed Sound/Contracting

Installed Sound/Contracting

forums.prosoundweb.com

There are pros there that do stadium stuff all the time (unlike me) and can give you recommendations based on requirements and the price you are wanting to pay. (I am a member over there.) You'll need to know what amp is powering those speakers.

-Hal

 

[grich]

Does the guy that doesn't know crap about PA speakers work for the college or the MiLB team?

There are certainly companies making speakers that don't require 120VAC at the speaker location. AtlasIED makes several for stadium applications. Perhaps that guys is confused by the 70V or 100V outputs of constant-voltage speaker systems commonly used in commercial installations like this.

Do as Hal suggests.

 

[Krusscher]

Not hardly! Sounds like all that guy knows about is clubs and DJ stuff. Best advice I could give you is the go here, sign up and ask this question there. (Just a heads up- use your real name when you sign up not Soyo102. For some reason they feel that nicknames are not professional.)

Installed Sound/Contracting

Installed Sound/Contracting

forums.prosoundweb.com

There are pros there that do stadium stuff all the time (unlike me) and can give you recommendations based on requirements and the price you are wanting to pay. (I am a member over there.) You'll need to know what amp is powering those speakers.

-Hal

Thanks, I'll get more info on that when I am in next week and ask over there.

Does the guy that doesn't know crap about PA speakers work for the college or the MiLB team?

There are certainly companies making speakers that don't require 120VAC at the speaker location. AtlasIED makes several for stadium applications. Perhaps that guys is confused by the 70V or 100V outputs of constant-voltage speaker systems commonly used in commercial installations like this.

Do as Hal suggests.

It's the manager of the minor league team and I kind of figured he didn't really know what he was talking about but I also don't know much about the subject so didn't want to question him too much lol.

 

[Little Bill]

Ones I've dealt with were 70V. The base unit was 120V and 70V to the speakers.

 

[hbiss]

Ones I've dealt with were 70V. The base unit was 120V and 70V to the speakers.

Likely, or at least hopefully you have 70.7 volt speakers which are connected to the 70.7 volt output of a commercial PA amplifier (the "base unit" that Bill mentions). That method reduces the line losses (voltage drop) over that 200 feet of wire and allows a smaller wire size to be used.

The 70.7 volt system shouldn't be confused with self amplified speakers that require 120 volt powering because each speaker also has its own amplifier built in.

-Hal