SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — One of the world’s major producers and marketers of food, agricultural, financial and industrial products and services, recently completed a large auditorium for its Minnetonka, Minnesota corporate offices that includes a sophisticated audio/video system based around HARMAN’s BSS Audio Soundweb London networked signal processors. The system was installed by AVI Sytems of Eden Prairie, MN, a systems integrator that specializes in professional A/V installations for business, commercial, educational and government clients.
The auditorium’s BSS Audio equipment includes two Soundweb London BLU-160 signal processors with digital audio bus and two BLU-120 I/O expanders with digital audio bus. One BLU-160 is configured with four analog input cards, and the other BLU-160 is configured with a telephone hybrid card, AEC input card and two analog input cards. The two BLU-120 devices are configured with four AEC input cards and four analog output cards, respectively.
“Because we were outfitting a large auditorium, the A/V system needed to accommodate and route a large number of audio and video sources,” noted AVI design engineer, Joshua Peterson. “The audio system needed to have a full palette of processing tools available, and more importantly, have the processing power to seamlessly and noiselessly bring all program audio into the room through a high-fidelity, full-range speaker system. In addition, the system needed to manage multiple wireless and wired presenter microphones in the auditorium, with reinforced audio going through a distributed audio custom speaker system.”
“Additionally, telephone conferencing and video conferencing needed to be an integral part of the system, for meetings with large numbers of people both on- and off-site,” continued Peterson. “A streaming audio/video connection was also needed between the auditorium and the company’s existing office center several miles away. All of these conferencing options had to be available and have the ability to interact with each other – which the BSS Audio hardware made possible.”
Peterson pointed out some unique challenges when designing the installation: “The BSS Audio components needed to interface with the control system for volume and routing, as well as for multiple preset recalls. In addition, the system needed to operate in both automatic mixer mode as well as a full-manual control system.
“We were able to achieve this by creating presets for automatic and manual mixing, essentially enabling the BSS Audio components to serve a two-fold purpose. First, the system serves as an automatic mixer for all local and far-end audio. Secondly, the system functions as a speaker management and output management processor to handle either automatic (all internal to BSS Audio) mode or manual mixing mode.”
“I chose the Soundweb London BLU-160 and BLU-120 for their flexibility, robust processing capabilities and excellent signal quality throughput,” commented Peterson. “This project also gave me the opportunity to try out the new BSS Audio Acoustic Echo Cancellation algorithm, which worked extremely well.”
“I had been very pleased with the results we achieved with BSS Audio components in the past, and wanted a strong DSP-based solution for this auditorium/conference room. From a technical standpoint, the project was a huge success,” concluded Peterson. “The Acoustic Echo Cancellation has proven to be ready for our clients, and the system has plenty of ‘breathing room’ in terms of processing power. The type of processing and logic objects the BSS Audio hardware provides, and the total configurability of the Soundweb London platform, gave us the ability to overcome any of the challenges that were presented to us in setting up this installation.”
For more information about AVI Systems, please visit www.avisystems.com.
HARMAN (www.harman.com) designs, manufactures and markets a wide range of audio and infotainment solutions for the automotive, consumer and professional markets – supported by 15 leading brands including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon® and Mark Levinson®. The Company is admired by audiophiles across multiple generations and supports leading professional entertainers and the venues where they perform. More than 20 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and infotainment systems. HARMAN has a workforce of about 11,800 people across the Americas, Europe and Asia, and reported sales of $3.5 billion for the twelve months ended December 31, 2010. The Company’s shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol NYSE:HAR.
