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Hundreds of framed copies of the company’s patents adorn the walls of the subterranean passageway that connects Bose’s headquarters to its R&D center

Bose Knows a Bit About Pro

I recently attended an all-day technology demonstration at the Bose lair outside of Boston. On the way, there were lots of Bose active noise-canceling headphones visible onboard the flight. And in the room at The Charles Hotel in Cambridge, there was a Bose Wave radio, as iconic as a Herman Miller Aeron chair or a Le Corbusier chaise lounge, sitting on the nightstand. All this foreshadowing might have seemed like a PR person’s dream, as though somehow Ford had managed to make every car on the road taken to one of their dealerships a Mustang or an Escape. The reality is that it’s a fact of life: Bose has built a tremendous brand in the consumer electronics business.

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Basic layout of house speakers and mix position relative to stage and audience

Avoiding Feedback

Feedback occurs when the output of a device is fed to its own input. An example that most of us have heard is guitar feedback. Let’s say an electric guitar player turns his amp up loud and faces his guitar toward the amplifier. Sound from the speakers excites the strings, causing them to vibrate. The pickups change the string motion into an electrical signal, and send the signal back to the guitar amp. The guitar amp magnifies this sound and sends it to the speakers — so the process repeats.

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As part of the installation at St. Mary’s Church (Homington, U.K.), integrators Newtech Southern selected Trantec wireless mics for the pulpit to reduce cabling in the historic 14th century building.

Podium Microphones

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by politics. Especially the all-encompassing presidential elections that seemed to dominate the TV of the day. When I think back to president Jimmy Carter’s inaugural address, I remember he spoke at a podium into two microphones. I really wasn’t a Carter fan, but that really doesn’t matter for this article. What does matter is that president Carter was speaking into two microphones. It seemed like a rather obvious move now. One mic goes down, and you still have another one on-line. However the big question in my mind was what manufacturer supplied those two microphones for the inauguration? I didn’t get the answer to that question until much later in my life. In the meantime, Ronald Reagan was elected president and was inaugurated. At his big speech he used three microphones. I figured this guy had to be more cautious than Carter, or he just wanted to make certain that every word he spoke was heard.

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Illustration by Andy Au

Sex, Drugs and Tales from the Road

Just recently, I completed reading Keith Richards’ 2010 memoir, Life, which I found to be a great read. I was fascinated because I grew up listening to the Rolling Stones. And in the book, Keith gives a personal touch to all the 50 years of rumors, innuendos and tales that have floated around the business regarding himself, the band and the colorful associated cast of characters who managed to find their way into the ongoing narrative.

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InfoComm Show Floor

InfoComm 2014’s HOT Product Hits

LAS VEGAS — Some 37,048 professional audiovisual buyers and sellers worldwide from more than 114 countries made the annual pilgrimage to the InfoComm (infocomm.org) conference and exhibition. Established in 1939, the organizers marked the event’s 75th anniversary this year. Held at the cavernous Las Vegas Convention Center from June 14-20, this year’s event represented a 5.5 percent increase in attendance over InfoComm 2013.

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Yamaha QL5 Digital Console

Yamaha QL5 Digital Console

Two years ago, Yamaha unveiled its popular CL series mixers to much fanfare. Here was a solid digital console with a great feature set, including Dante interfacing, onboard preamps, Dan Dugan automixing, Rupert Neve-designed signal processing and the fast GUI of Centralogic control. The CL Series was an immediate hit.

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