Califone Blog

Partnership with Twin Sisters Productions puts award-winning children’s music on the portable Califone device for educational use

Califone International, Inc., has partnered with Twin Sisters Productions, LLC, the leader in children’s educational music, to provide educators, reading specialists, speech pathologists, and students with access to award-winning children’s songs by preloading them on the Califone MP3 Player. (more…)

Califone offers its congratulations to School Aids, which announced the opening of their seventh location on July 13th. (more…)

The 3068 delivers performance at an economical price for 1:1 instruction in listening centers and library uses.

One primary advantage of the 3068 is its ability to switch between typical monaural functions such as in English Language Learning / English Language Development, language labs and speech pathology applications. (more…)

The American Library Association just concluded its annual conference, this time in Chicago, with a flourish.

More than 28,000 enthusiastic library supporters attended seminars, workshops, and presentations throughout the six day conference. A notable series of speakers included National Public Radio’s Cokie Roberts, Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez, and authors Michael Connelly and James Ellroy. On the lighter side, librarians showcased their talents in the fifth annual Library Book Cart Drill Team Championship. (more…)

Serving Audiences of Any Size

When you want to play music or address an audience without shouting, turning to an amplification system is the logical thing to do. With so many different sizes and types to choose from, it can be a bit daunting knowing which one will do the job best. But then again, why stop at just one? Part of successfully amplifying sound has to do with ensuring that your collective audience can hear what is being emitted. But with just one portable speaker, regardless of the setting, usually those sitting closest to the speaker benefit the most. However, if you manage to incorporate multiple speakers throughout the environment, then all of your listeners will be fully focused on your presentation. You no longer have to choose between portable speakers, simply use them all! (more…)

If you’re new to working with portable PA gear or simply not used to it, some of the buttons, plugs, or switches may at first seem confusing or even a little daunting.

This series of non-sequential articles introduces many of them and explains how they work so you can sound your best. (more…)

Everybody uses headphones. They’re easy to use – just put them on and listen right? Using them should be and usually is that simple, but not always. While their use is probably more common than any other piece of audio equipment, there are subtleties behind the design of many features found on headphones and headsets which can help determine what’s “best” for your expected needs. While some features may not be readily apparent, they can have an effect on day-to-day classroom uses, so make sure the most appropriate model is selected for the job at hand. Think of it as choosing the most right tool for the job. You wouldn’t normally choose to use a high-performance race car to go off roading or wear sandals to go hiking in the snow just as you wouldn’t select expensive active noise-canceling headphones for story time in a pre-k listening center.

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6th in a series of articles about headphones and headsets.

The use of headphones in computer labs, in classroom or library-based listening centers is perhaps the most common of all school-based audio applications. But even in this simplest of uses, there can still be occasional questions. For instance, have you ever plugged in a headphone and not heard anything even though you know the media player or computer works? Or what if audio is coming out from only one of the earcups? How or why do these things happen? Don’t toss out any headphones just yet; the solution could be simply hidden in the nature of stereo and mono audio. (more…)