Germany - Klotz Digital was recently awarded a contract from North Rhine Westphalia's Parliament to replace the existing public address system with a Varizone announcement and evacuation installation at its facility in Duesseldorf. The building includes eight levels including a circular plenar hall, separated parliamentary party and administration areas, two basement garages and a variety of assembly rooms and offices, housing round about 500 employees and 182 members of the parliament. Klotz Digital's PA system will link 1,700 loudspeakers spread on all levels of the building.

The bigger areas such as the casino, entrance hall and car parks will be provided with a traditional 100V PA system from Klotz Digital, while Varizone will primarily be used for feeding the offices. A Vadis 880 main frame will control audio routing and signal processing throughout the facility. The installation will also include six amplifier and line monitoring units, 170 PAMs, 58 power bridges and five paging stations. The installation is intended to be put into operation in summer 2006.

Prior to Varizone the building was linked via a traditional 100V system, defining the cabling structure of the building. As Varizone is able to adopt the existing cabling structure it fits exactly to the requirements of the parliament. Furthermore, every office of the members of the parliament has to be accessible for personal announcements. As the office situation continually changes due to the partition of the political parties, the system has to be as flexible as possible. Transmitting eight different audio channels on one cable, Varizone offers a solution to this public address, evacuation and announcement system without the necessity of additional and extensive wiring.

(Lee Baldock)


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