Seriously Now...

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Our construction crew is hard at work getting the new building ready for us.

There are only 22 days left...

until the move to our new location on Pomona Drive and although all of our old gear has been moving quickly we still have stuff to sell and I'm not moving it to the new building. To show how serious we are, I am going to lower our listed prices by 20% and unlike before you don't have to buy more than one thing at a time.

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You wouldn't believe what we have already thrown away.

If I plug it in and it doesn't work it gets tossed into that huge dumpster in front of the store. It's disappearing out of the dumpster as fast as we throw it away.

I have updated the list on the Sale Page that you will find by clicking here and have added some new items. You really owe it to yourself to check it out. We are accepting all reasonable offers.

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Also we are acting as the official broker for the disposal of the recently replaced gear from Mt. Zion Baptist Church. This gear is in incredibly good condition and you can find a complete list and pictures on the Sale Page as well. Please help us spread the word.

Rumba D'Cache

International Restaurant and Lounge


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Rumba D'Cache, one of the largest live music nightclubs in NC, is now open for business in Greensboro in the new International Mall on West Market Street. Its first big concert event will be on February 16 with Colombian international recording artists Grupo Niche.

We were excited when owner Edwin Dubon took us on a tour of the facility. This is a very large room and it needed a top notch sound system that had to come in within a very tight budget for what had already become a multi million dollar project. It needed a system that could satisfy the needs of the many international groups that are booked for the venue and the gear had to have a reputation within the Latin community.

The timing could not have been more perfect. Our large inventory of Electro-Voice Manifold loudspeakers was being sold in preparation for our move to Pomona Drive and they made for a perfect fit at the new club. In addition to he Manifold system they also purchased a 40/ch DDA QII FOH console with a matching DDA QIIM monitor desk with Electro-Voice FS 12-2 concert monitor wedges and DeltaMax DM 1152 delay speakers for the back section of the main room and sound in the large pool table room. Additional Manifold boxes have been bought for a large outdoor stage in the front of the club for use this summer.

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CareySound is proud to have played a role in this exciting new enterprise.

Read This First

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It is possible to buy the right sound system for your church the first time. Rick Earl just made me aware of the following article written by Jim Brown of Audio Systems Group. Mr. Brown is an acoustic consultant who is also is a member of the Technical Committee of the Audio Engineering Society for Architectural Acoustics and Sound Reinforcement and the AES Standards Committee. He has graciously consented to let us republish this article that perfectly articulates the concept that making the right decisions early on can save you big in the long run. This is required reading if a new PA System is your churches future.

Why Churches Buy Three Sound Systems, and How You Can Buy Only One


Copyright 1996 Jim Brown

There's a saying among the better sound contractors that they want to sell a church their
LAST sound system. That's because, strange as it seems, most churches are so afraid of
buying sound systems that they do it three or four times before they finally end up with
one that works well enough to meet their needs!

The first is purchased when they build the church, and the architect says he'll design it.
What really happens is that he passes the work along to a sound contractor, usually the
new kid on the block who's trying to get his foot in the door by doing the designs for free.
He prints up a list of whatever equipment he has the best deals on (and which his
competitors aren't franchised for), and sends it along as a specification.

The system goes out to bid. Often our hero is the low bidder, but nearly as often someone
who knows as little about things as he does proposes a different system that's cheaper.
And since there's no knowledgeable authority to decide which is the better deal, the lower
cost system often wins. No matter -- neither system is likely to meet the church's needs
anyway, and most are replaced in a year or two.

Why are these first systems replaced? Some of the most common problems are feedback
(howling), poor speech intelligibility and muddy music caused by too much reverberation,
the system can't be heard on the platform, dead spots, hot spots, and just plain unpleasant
sound quality. And so we move on to system number two.

There are several variations on system number two. Often, members of the praise and
worship team make exploratory visits to their friendly musical instrument and recording
equipment store, where everyone either is, has been, or knows someone who is or has
been a roadie for a band. And all of those folks know how to put together a sound system
-- after all, they did it every night for their bar band, and got paid for it! Add to that the
fact that they're on commission, selling all kinds of sound equipment designed to be used
in bar bands. And gee whiz, isn't a church system just like a bigger bar band system? So
we have another designer who doesn't know much of anything about sound systems for
churches, but he's selling his equipment.

A second common variation on system number two starts out with someone in the
congregation who is either a sound contractor or knows someone who is a sound
contractor. And because he's a friend, or a friend of a friend, he's asked to design the next
system. Maybe he's actually qualified to do it, but more often his specialty is paging
systems for offices and factories, or touring systems for rock bands. So here's another
designer who doesn't know enough to get the design right.

Other common variations on the theme are electronics engineers from industry who head
down to the local Radio Shack or music store, and stereo enthusiasts who think everything
will be fine if they just install the latest monster cables, and super exotic amplifiers,
loudspeakers, and microphones.

So this second time around, the designer is chosen because he's someone's friend, but still
not because of any proven ability to put together a good church sound system. System
number two is purchased and installed, and rarely works any better than the first. But it's
now a couple of years later, twice as much money was spent as planned, and attendance is
sagging because of the poor sound. The pastor still has poor communication with the
congregation, and the praise and worship team sounds more like noise than inspiration.
Desperate measures are called for. If they're lucky, the church comes to the realization at
this point that they'd better find someone who really knows what they're doing, a proven
expert with a track record. That someone is an acoustic consultant who specializes in
sound system design for churches and performance spaces. Someone who understands
how loudspeaker systems interact with large rooms, why feedback happens and how to
prevent it, how to get good sound and equal loudness to everyone in the congregation and
on the platform, how to prevent music from turning to mush, how to prevent hums and
buzzes from happening, and all of the myriad other things which can go wrong in a big
room. Someone who insists on coming in to meet with the pastor, leaders of the praise
and worship and technical teams, study the worship space, and measure its acoustics.
Someone who will have to be paid to design the system because they don't work on a
commission or markup from the sale of the system.

To read more, the whole article in titled 3Times.pdf can be downloaded from the Tech Files page of our Download section.

Moving Contest

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We would like you to share our excitement of moving to our new location at 301-E Pomona Drive so we have devised this simple contest. The first two people to correctly identify the most of the 10 previous locations will win a free Electro-Voice Raven. This microphone was originally designed by Blue Microphones for Fender as the perfect electric guitar mic and so guess what it excels at. It was never released by Fender but was picked up by EV as part of their EVBlue series. This is a great electric guitar mic, an interesting vocal mic, a good horn mic and not a bad kick drum mic. SoundMan has these in his personal mic drawer.

Name all ten locations and Ill throw in a $50 gift certificate for dinner at Ruth's Chris Steak House. Contest ends when we move in 28 days.

You can click on one of the photo's on the home page to see a larger image.

30 Days And Counting

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Lynn signs the new lease and makes it official, CareySound, after 14 years on Church Street, is moving to its new home at 301-E Pomona Drive on the 2nd of March. Let the countdown commence. A lot a new and exciting things are happening at CareySound and events are moving quickly.

There is not much of our old gear moving to the new building with us and the closer we get to moving day the cheaper its going to get (as if it's not already cheap enough).Things are selling quickly. Stay tuned to the website for new announcements.

Giving SoundMen A Bad Name

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Mike Sveda sent in this photo taken at a Lenny Kravitz show. Apparently the lighting crew was in charge of the PA rig that day. I hear they are taking applications for a new SoundMan. 220 - 221 - What ever it takes.