The Business + Innovation Centre (BIC), a technology and start-up enterprise in Kaiserslautern, Germany that offers consultation and office space for start-ups and young companies in addition to workshops, seminars and training courses, recently modernized its audio infrastructure with components from Allen & Heath.
The facility also includes an in-house conference center comprising several combinable rooms for both tenants and external clients. A key requirement of the upgrade was ease-of-use for non-technical staff.
“The whole thing should be operable with very little to no technical background,” explains installer Martin Smarsly of VS Medientechnik GmbH, who was assisted on the install by freelancer Jens Ullmert. “For most events, no event technician should be necessary.”
With the requirement for eight wireless microphones, plus laptop audio output, to be routed to any combination of rooms, the VS Medientechnik GmbH team opted for an Allen & Heath AHM-64 matrix processor to handle audio routing and processing duties. In addition, an Allen & Heath DX168 expander was also specified, providing portable I/O expansion to meet more complex requirements in the future.
The conference facilities already benefited from Crestron control panels used in the previous install, and the AHM-64’s control options allowed these to be re-used within the new install. “We integrated the AHM-64 into the Crestron control system using the AHM’s TCP/IP protocol,” Smarsly adds. “Since we installed the system, a dedicated Crestron driver has also become available which we can use for future installs.”
The most challenging aspect of the installation turned out to be the lack of documentation on the existing cabling in the building. “We had to re-crimp the screw terminals of the old system, that took us a whole day,” Smarsly laughs. “Installing and setting up the AHM-64 was the smoothest part of the installation. We were pleasantly surprised with how easy and intuitive the AHM-64 is to program.”