NYC production-giant Sound Associates has been providing innovative audio and video products and services for over 60 years. Their specialties include: professional rentals and sales, consultation and design, entertainment production services, systems for special-need audiences and translation. Given their expertise in these areas and their central office location at 424 West 45th Street (besides offices in Yonkers, NY and Atlanta, GA), it comes as little surprise that Sound Associates works extensively with key broadway productions. And, when it comes to the seamless integration of communications in these productions, they turn to Telex.



Sound Associates Incorporated Project Manager, Tim Mazur, explains:

“Primarily, the only intercom communications product that we use in the theater market is the Telex product -- the BTR-800 wireless base receiver and TR-800 bodypack transmitters. We currently own about two dozen base units and tons of beltpacks. At any time we might have a dozen productions going simultaneously, doing 8 shows a week, most doing full-year runs. Depending on the size of the show, we might have anything from a single four-pack to five or six four-packs of Telex wireless com. Almost every Broadway show has one of the BTR-800s. The BTR-800 is one of the most robust wireless receivers out there, especially with the dual channels, which is a pretty important thing for the world of theater.“

Sound Associates RF technician, Chad Lawrenz, continues:

“The BTR-800 system is perfect for Broadway because of it’s true diversity and frequency agility. We find them extremely stable. Likewise, we’ll use the ClearScan™ function when we do corporate events downtown, that’s also a big help.“

In cooperation with sound designers ACME Sound Partners and experts Steve Kennedy, John Shivers and Andrew Keister, Sound Associates recently put together two highly critical production com systems, for The Lord of the Rings in Toronto and The Lion King at the Minskoff Theatre on Broadway, respectively.



Lawrenz comments: “The biggest system we’ve built for wireless com is the recent The Lord of the Rings production in Toronto, which featured (8) Telex BTR-800 base receivers and 32 beltpacks. Now, combine that with the fact that there was another 50 channels of wireless RF and that’s amazing. And everything played together really well. No problems. It all worked flawlessly.“

Key Broadway Productions that Utilize Telex Intercom

• The History Boys
• Drowsy Chaperone
• Hair Spray
• High Fidelity
• The Lion King
• Beauty and the Beast
• The Lord of the Rings (8 systems, 32 channels simultaneously)
• Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
• The Moving Out Tour: Billy Joel