Brian

I'd buy the cheapest line mixers I could find, like the Behringer MX400 at sub-£20 each. Mod the output stage with a couple of transistors to drive phones, add an RJ45 socket to take in three of the line feeds plus power. That's the muso end of things done, plus they have a fourth local line level. If you really need stereo then a PULSE MLX402 at £22 will do the job.

Most of the M10 nuts I encounter are a 17mm? IIRC the Japanese metric standard uses 16mm for M10, where in Europe it's 17mm.

Whitemark. A good consultant will guide you through the process.

Talking of XLR's https://www.canford....TORS-ConvertCon Short pins 2 and 3 for one wire Pin 1 for the other Ooooh, interesting.

Something around 5A max. Thanks, that a better search than the one I was using. It's a pity that there don't appear to be any that are a bit more 'XLR-like'. Something with decent cable strain relief.

Can anyone think of what I can only describe as a gender-free connector? ie one that will interconnect with itself? I can only think of the ST16 as used for LV AC but ideally I'd like something a bit more robust. I only need 2 poles, but more will be OK, and I don't care about polarity.

Can anyone recommend any software, or maybe a plug-in, to do Loudness Levelling? Note that I am not talking about the simplistic process of bringing all peaks to the same level; I'm talking about proper processing to do Loudness Equalisation.

Hmmm, the difficulty in contacting them tallies with what I've heard. Let's hope everyone has ordered their pyro for panto season early enough!

I'm surprised that there is a problem, at least one that'd be solved by having dedicated speakers at the desk. Speakers are generally not that directional; perhaps a better solution would be to tweak the angling of the main PA.

You don't even need a vertical machine. An ordinary smoke machine and a right-angled bit of drain pipe will do the trick.

In my case it was a pair of these beauties in a recording studio control room... (for a sense of scale, the bass drivers are 12" units)

It's worth noting that monies from advertising and paid ads comes to about £50 a year.

#Apologies but this sounds like a typical sound muppets excuse. Apologies but you've clearly never heard a decent sound system capable of high SPLs without distortion. I have and it's very disconcerting to discover that you can't hold a conversation because the SPL is so high but that you have no concept of how loud the sound is.

Alto Ts310 or RCF ART310A

Le Maitre mk2 has risen from the ashes and now all department are based in Peterborough. https://www.lemaitreltd.com/contact/

Not for the 600, but the 500, there might be enough commonality to help... SM_MAC500_EN_A.pdf

What do Selecon say?

So Thomann have made it easy for the non commercial purchaser. However, it seems that the VAT registered business purchaser now has to claim back VAT incurred in the EU from the EU! Link (there's a few dead links in that government webpage). It can take "up to six months"... I don't believe that to be the case. As I understand it Thomann will have registered with HMRC, have a GB VAT number, and will be collecting VAT at 20% on behalf of HMRC. So, as long as their invoice has a GB VAT number on it you claim the VAT back just as you normally would. It's no different to how Mouser, a US company, have been doing things for years. I spend quite a lot with them, ordering directly from the US operation. But the invoice I receive is in GBP and has UK VAT applied which I reclaim as usual. The links above would apply where a UK business want to reclaim EU VAT which is not what is happening here. In fact, that's what applied before Brexit. Post Brexit, buying from the EU is no different to buying from the US, China, Australia, or anywhere else. Plenty of EU based suppliers have been doing VAT 'properly' since Jan 1, it's just Thomann chose not too.

I've just seen that Thomann are now back to dealing with the VAT for UK customers and there is no more handling charge to pay to the courier. https://www.thomann.de/blog/en/an-update-for-our-valued-uk-customers/

I can't see that listed on the ECS site. Got a link?

Asking for a colleague... they are a freelance sound engineer/AV technician. Recently they've been asked, on a couple of jobs, if they have an ECS card. Now, putting aside the fact that it appears to be yet another money-making scheme that delivers no real benefits, has anyone here applied for and got one? Which one did you go for? And how much of a chore was it to get it?

What sort of mains connections do these units have? I have an odd situation on a setup with two items connected together where each unit has a 2-pole figure-8 mains connection. As the connectors are reversible that means that I have four possible combinations... AA - terrible HF interference AB - some HF noise BA - some LF noise BB - silent (the exact order might be wrong but you get the idea) It's down to how the items deal with any HF noise to meet EMC requirements without a real ground connection to use. Most switch-mode supplies do it by taking their 0V output line back to a point on the mains side via a capacitor. That point may be the 'neutral' line, but with a 2-pole connector that might be the 'live'. They might use a point somewhere after the incoming mains filter and rectifier. They might just pick a random point. For EMC it doesn't really matter as long as it is low impedance at RF. But it can play havoc with audio. In my setup, with those two units, there's clearly something odd going on and they aren't playing nicely with each other.

D'Oh! So I'll need a DoreMIDI host as well.

I often find it's the small authorities that have most trouble dealing with unusual events... Absolutely. I think it was the smaller authorities that lost the most. Have you ever wondered by Premises Licence conditions for all the smaller councils re the same? It's because they were all centrally written; it's only the larger, usually metropolitan, authorities that have the in-house expertise.