In my eternal quest for the perfect classroom speaker system, I'm now evaluating the Creative T20 Series 2 system.
A bit of background first. Throughout the school we have a mixture of classroom audio systems, from basic 2 channel speakers that sit on the teachers desks, to big, overblown 'surround sound' amplifier/DVD/VCR systems that were fitted before I started here.
To make things consistent from one classroom to another, I'm trying to standardize the systems in the majority of classrooms. The first thing I'm doing is removing the surround sound systems where I can. Most of the teachers find them too confusing to use and my technician spends an inordinate amount of time explaining (yet again) how to switch from the DVD input, to the laptop and back again. I'm working on the premise that all of our full time teachers have laptops with DVD Players in them and they simply don't need stand alone DVD players any more. So out they go. VCR's are a bit more troublesome. As of yet we don't have a 'video on demand' system across the school network, and a number of departments still use VHS tapes. So for now, I'm leaving those classrooms alone. Each of our classrooms has a docking station for the HP laptops, a projector (some ceiling mounted, some not; more about that in another post I think). My aim is to have a simple system whereby each and every time a teacher docks their laptop they are automatically connected to a wall mounted sound system and the projector. Sounds simple enough, and not unreasonable for teachers to expect I think.
There have been a few issues with achieving this though, including screen resolution problems (solved with Windows 7, the latest Intel drivers and a bit of tweaking). The biggest problem has been trying to find the perfect speaker system. After considering things carefully, I decided that the speakers needed to be:
1) Powered (i.e active 'computer' speakers)
2) Wall mountable
3) Of sufficient quality to fill a room and not distort
4) Ideally 2 speakers with no sub-woofer
I wanted to get away from amplifiers and switches (just another thing for the teachers to have to think about) so the speakers had to be 'self powered'. They need to be able to be mounted up on the wall with brackets or a home made shelf. They obviously need to be able to do the job, and ideally I want a 2 speaker system.
There are a plethora of active speakers on the market, from cheap $20 tinny boxes to $1500 B&W systems. The budget was really no more than $200 per room, and in that range the the Creative T series fits the bill well. I have used the T10's previously in smaller classrooms and they have been good. They manage to fill the room, they are relatively easy to install and power, and they don't 'boom' until you push the volume over 75%. The T20s cost approximately twice as much, and early testing makes me think they are definitely better than the T10's, but not twice as good. They still boom a little at high volume but they definitely hold it together better than the T10's when say playing a DVD in class. I'll get them mounted up over the next week and will post more when I do
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