Yeah I was wondering if it was because the speakers didn't have something... But the old speakers don't seem to have an amp or anything, basically the connection comes in, goes to a little (incredibly crude) circuit board, then from there splits off to the batteries, and a power switch. I do know at least that the mics draw power from the speaker. I've confirmed with the IT department here though that the mics draw power from the speakers, but they're too busy to help us with anything else so they said we were on our own coming up with a solution. And I know that electret mics can be plug-in powered, but these are set up basically the opposite way, so that they draw power from whatever is plugged into them.
Do you think it would work if I rewired it so that the mic actually plugged in to the speaker, rather than the other way around? Not sure if that would work, or if its even possible, but I'm pretty much up for any solution at this point
Of course maybe the mics are set up to directly connect to the battery when the speaker hooks up... I'll have to check that out to see for sure... in that case, maybe just buying a small separate power supply for the mics would work best?
If pictures of the connections would help I can get those too