Audiologic has designs on NUBS event space
- Details
Newcastle University Audio Visual Department consulted with Audiologic on the design and equipment specification for this space based on previous hybrid teaching solutions. GVAV won the tender exercise and subsequently outsourced the equipment supply, design and commissioning expertise to Audiologic.
Facing challenges such as a room layout with two glass walls and an awkward shape, making acoustics difficult to negotiate and sightline and speaker positioning challenges due to the lectern position, the team embarked on a mission to create a facility tailored to meet the evolving needs of the students and faculty.
The large space is also divisible into three areas, depending on use, and it was an essential requirement that content could be routed from anywhere, to anywhere.
Darren Mitchell, technical lead at the university for the project, specified a spread of equipment based on the Q-SYS Ecosystem, driven by a Q-SYS Core 8 Flex, conferring with QSC technical support directly to confirm suitability. Given the requirement for high quality aesthetic finish to the room and the amount of speakers required to provide the best audio solution throughout the space, it was decided to opt for 15x Q-SYS NL-C4 ceiling speakers that work over a network, rather than direct cabled speakers.
This also meant that the room audio could easily be routed to anywhere, satisfying the requirement to be divisible. Darren adds: “The speakers selected are mostly being used to route far end participant audio and are working very well for that purpose, providing clear audio.”
Diogo Scutti, application support engineer at Audiologic led the project design, noting “Using Q-SYS, the design allows for a huge amount of flexibility - not only within the room but with the ability to route control, audio and video feeds between systems.”
For the front of house speakers, Darren again opted for a networked amplifier for similar reasons, with Q-SYS speakers as that had the correct output for the size of the space. Darren continues “I am very happy with their treble and bass outputs as a great all-round speaker.”
For the ceiling microphones, Sennheiser TCC2s were selected to maintain continuity throughout the university, with Darren confirming their confidence in them. “We are very happy with their performance in this and other spaces across campus - they work well with the rest of our Sennhesier mic systems in the Cockpit software, allowing remote monitoring and control which is important to us, being a large estate.”
Sennheiser Speechline series microphones were used for voice lift, routed to ceiling speakers for clarity throughout the room.
Diogo added: “The space was designed from the outset to have future-proofing built in, spare amplifier and Flex audio channels on the core and plenty of DSP headroom - the system will be suitable for many years to come, while being able to accommodate any changing needs within the space.”
