I go to maybe 30-40 conferences per year (cryptography, security, insurance, alternative investments, network states, etc.). Most of these are held at hotels or convention centers in meeting rooms where the organizers pay large amounts for venue-provided audio, and this is usually decent (although rarely excellent), but often it is in smaller rooms, bars, offices, museums or other venues without a “native” AV provider, and often people want to do this cheaply and easily without bringing in an outside vendor.
I recently held a network states event at ETH Denver, at a bar (https://lu.ma/bio_networkstate). The venue had a projector (I’ll do a separate guide for video presentations and recordings later), but unclear if it would have any audio — turns out it did, but they didn’t have the house DJ onsite to set it up, so it would have to be done without their support.
I had to buy the equipment for this (easier and cheaper than renting, and it is a recurring need), but I wasn’t sure what to get. I wanted something small (i.e. would fit inside a Pelican Air 1626 case), less than $3000 all-in, ideally battery powered (optionally), would support 2+ microphones, and could support both live and via-laptop (Zoom, etc.) speakers — we had Balaji speaking remotely and he was the headline speaker. Also wanted easy to use, durable, etc.
In college, I worked for a summer doing audio simulation at Bose (for professional audio deployments — stadiums, etc. — where we wanted to simulate various speaker arrays for unbuilt or pre-deployment structures, letting buyers evaluate them from any position in the venue. I have some $1000 headphones and listen to a lot of audiobooks on them (a waste..), and generally enjoy electronics, but I’m far from an expert on any of this. I asked some musicians and live events people what to get, and they all had strong preferences for specific brands of speakers/PA, but nothing really actionable — my requirements were simultaneously more specific (size, portability) and less specific about audio quality (it’s for presenters at a conference, not musicians…).
First thing I wanted was the 2007-era Sennheiser LSP 500 which sadly no longer is sold. I have approximately zero interest in depending on random unavailable equipment (rarely even available on eBay) for something like this.
I did some googling, and found a few options. What I got worked out well — no guarantees that it is the best, but it works well, and I haven’t yet found anything better, so I recommend it.
I went with the Bose S1+ Pro. It’s a small (5-6kg) powered PA speaker with a built-in 3-7 channel mixer, integrated wireless receivers (which connect to XLR microphones), USB-C and Bluetooth in/out. This is a single-box solution for basically everything, very rugged (pro audio level), and small enough to fit (inside a carrying bag) inside my “normal” luggage (a taller-than-usual footlocker style Pelican Air 1626 case).
Total equipment: (mostly bought from Amazon, but fuck them for a litany of reasons)
Bose S1+ Pro: $649 ea (I’m going to get a second one): B&H
2 x Wireless XLR interfaces: $149 ea B&H
2 x Shure SM58 microphones: these are “good”, and rugged, and basically the live audio standard. B&H — personally I wanted to avoid the on-off switch, since that’s just something else to cause problems
Random XLR cables: worth having a selection; my mics came with 25’ XLR which was useful.
S1+ Pro Carrier Bag: $49 many options; I got the overpriced-but nice one
Pole Mount: $80 I got a heavy one from Amazon and returned it. Ordered some “mini” stands — the big ones are designed for 100+ pound speakers, and these are about 15 pounds, so mini should be fine. I am trying these Gator Lightweight GFWSPK02050 but not sure yet if they’re the best. The big one I ordered was too big to fit in the case, and only barely fit in an Eagle Creek “No Matter What” XL duffel. Having a stand to lift the small speaker to above the audience makes it work in a much larger venue.
Zoom H6 recorder (Amazon fucked me by failing to deliver 2 of these in a row; the third one arrived the day after my event, so I just recorded on laptop)
Laptop with Bluetooth (connects to Bose S1+ Pro via Bluetooth as an audio interface for Zoom/etc., but also connects via USB-C as a record-to device for live audio as well.)
Wireless presenter/clicker (I had a random logitech in my bag, but it needs a USB-A receiver, so I can’t recommend it; will upgrade to something better.)
This all worked pretty well. People who are idiots and have no mic skills hold microphones badly (around waist, or looking away from the mic whole presenting), but $100 normal mics are better sound than $300-500 lav or headworn. I’ll probably buy a personal DPA 4466 headworn mic for myself, and maybe get a couple decent lav mics, but those are well beyond what you’d want for a setup like this.
When you’re at a venue with power, you can plug the speaker in. Otherwise, 4h battery life, and the wireless receivers charge from the unit itself.
If your venue has its own speakers and mixer and such, you can just run XLR output from the S1+ Pro into their board. You could possibly just use the S1+ Pro as a stage monitor (for speakers) and use house audio for the audience, too.
You can record live audio stream from XLR output, or from bluetooth, or from USB-C.
The system is pretty resistant to feedback, easy to EQ (using a bluetooth app if you want, or using the knobs), and essentially bulletproof.
This worked great at my event — surprisingly, given that I got the equipment only a few hours before the event and had never used it before. Audio was substantially better than most of the pro venues during ETH Denver!
I was speaking at an event two days later which had a completely janky system — a household speaker and some shit-tier wireless system — which was working horribly; I ended up going back to my hotel to get my system and set it up in 5 minutes and worked flawlessly throughout the day.
It’s now going to be part of my normal travel equipment for events; being able to run AV for a 50-100 person event with <$10k of equipment (projector, camera too) which fits inside two suitcases is quite nice.