Rental company Stage Sound Services (SSS) has recently invested in Sennheiser’s new Digital 6000 microphone system, citing it as the ‘perfect solution’ in today’s crowded RF environment.

SSS provides technical solutions for sound and video projects for large-scale musical theatre productions and corporate events.

The company’s main motivation for investing in Digital 6000, which offers the same audio quality of Sennheiser’s Digital 9000 in a two-channel receiver, is the future opportunities it will provide for sub-hire and its rider/specification friendliness.

“A large proportion of our business is professional theatre, from small plays to full-scale musicals and, in recent years, our stock of Sennheiser and Neumann wired microphones has increased dramatically to accommodate these shows,” said SSS commercial manager James Lewis. “Last year we started to add Sennheiser wireless into our rental stock, with the purchase of 32 channels of its SK 5212 system for the Funny Girl UK tour. Sennheiser is on many specs, so it wasn’t a hard decision to make.

Lewis added that the sound quality was also a major factor, as well as the system’s environmental credentials. “As with most companies, we are keen on green energy,” he said, “so the rechargeable battery and the neatness of the charging system is also important to us.”

Dan Samson, sound designer for Cilla (pictured below) and Cabaret, had used digital radio microphone systems on a number of previous shows and specified them again for both productions, where SSS’s Digital 6000 systems were immediately put to work.

“The timing of Cilla and Cabaret coincided with Digital 6000 coming on to the market,” explained Lewis. “The system is based on proven technology in the Digital 9000 system, so any questions about reliability, RF performance, or audio quality etc., were quickly answered. Cilla has over 45 channels of RF including IEMs, so the licensing cost of touring that particular show also played a major part in the decision.”

By using Digital 6000, which is intermodulation-free and therefore allows frequencies to be placed in an equidistant grid, SSS is able to get these 45 channels of RF into just three TV channels.

Concluded Lewis: “The shows have only just loaded in, so we haven’t tested them out on an extensive run. But they are performing well so far and everyone is very pleased with them.”