Real World Experience with Alto Professional Presenter
Last week I detailed my quest to find a small public address system for our local civic association meetings. This week I got to try out my new solution at two separate events. I learned a few things along the way.
Meeting #1: Tuesday, Nov 12
At the meeting that I was responsible for organizing the Alto Professional Presenter handled the situation quite well. I used the Shure wireless microphones connected directly to the aux input of the podium.
In truth, I would have liked a little better control of gain. The restaurant patio where we held the meeting had some background music playing. If the person speaking held the microphone to distant they were not quite loud enough. In contrast, those who knew to address the microphone properly were easy to hear. Even over the background music.
One of the topics under discussion was a event involving a number of sponsors. To add value for the sponsors, I had a PowerPoint slides deck looping through the sponsors logos. This was run from my laptop, displayed on a 28” monitor sitting atop the podium.
The podium and microphones were battery powered. Then laptop would run for the requisite few hours on its battery. I settled upon using the small inverter mentioned previously to power the monitor. An 18v 4 Ah Ryobi battery kept it running without issue.
The inverter can deliver up to 150 Watts. As a test, I used a Kasa smart outlet with power monitoring to measure the power drawn by the monitor. It draws just 18.5 Watts. On that basis, I was confident the battery would last the duration of the meeting.
It was really very nice to have a setup that was entirely self contained. Not much to setup. No extension cords to run. Just plunk it down at the desired location and switch it on. Very convenient.
Meeting #2, Wednesday, Nov 13
Some weeks ago I had offered to lend the podium to another organization in the neighborhood. They’re a group that supports a local park. They have a genuine need for something simple, that can plopped down in the middle of a field or trail and be fully functional.
They took me up on the offer for a meeting they were having this week. On this occasion the arrangement was an evening setup in the back yard of a local dive bar. You can see the podium behind the speaker in the image below.
While there was power available, I did not partake. The podium has it own battery. The microphones and my little Soundcraft mixer drew power from the wee inverter. That all worked well enough. The podium has enough power to reach an audience of a few dozen, if the background music is subdued.
Adding the Soundcraft Spirit Folio mixer gave me better control of level. I could ride the levels as different speakers took the microphone.
Horse in front of cart
The podium is not as directional as the JBL 705P powered monitors I had used previously. Also, given a wireless microphone, presenters tend to step out in front of the podium. This can lead to feedback if the gain is quite high, as may be required for a presenter who does not address the microphone directly.
The podium is designed to be between the speaker and the audience, facing the audience. That puts the microphone behind the loudspeaker, as it should be. I should have offered guidance to the primary presenters. Hold the microphone close to your mouth and stand behind the podium.
Computer Audio
The event organizer surprised me. At the last minute, they wanted to play some computer audio from their Windows 11 laptop into the PA. I was able to pair the laptop with the Bluetooth interface on the podium, but I could not get the sound to actually play via the podium. With limited time, and no extra cables or hardware, there was no practical way to do this.
Had I known about this in advance, I would have brought a small USB audio interface. Connected to the laptop, it would have provided RCA outputs that could be fed into the mixer. When a new audio device is connected to a Windows computer the system will (typically) automatically make it the current active device. That limits fussing with device setup.
Also, being a digital connection, these USB interfaces don’t tend to have problems with hum and noise, which can often arise when connecting directly to the analog output of a computer.
Summary
The basics of these two events went well enough to think the purchase of the Alto Professional Presenter was a good idea. It does exactly what I had hoped. It’s very convenient and it sounds good.
Also, I’m surprised at how useful the little inverter has turned out to be. It’s just too appealing to have a compact, completely independent source of power. I suppose that means I might appreciate something like one of the Jackery portable inverters. Perhaps eventually, but for now they are bigger and more costly. Beyond my currently modest requirements.