“You want how many microphones?”

I’ve found myself asking clients that question on many occasions. Big board meeting. National membership meeting. Round-table committee discussion. Meetings where there are 30 to 100 people who all need to be able to hear and be heard.

I’ll be honest -- you cannot have 50 microphones live at once in one meeting room without digital processing and expect to not have feedback. There’s no way one sound technician can manually keep track of who’s speaking and who’s up next and keep it all going smoothly. It’s not going to be pretty. And think of how many cables you’d need!

Luckily there’s a solution that lets everyone have a mic, prevents feedback, and keeps technicians from ripping their hair out.

It’s called an Audio Discussion System, or alternately known as a “Congress” or push-to-talk system.