A new purpose-built seminary building at Hirschluch, a youth training and community center in the rural town of Storkow, Germany, has been outfitted with a flexible sound management system incorporating an Allen & Heath AHM-64 matrix processor in a project directed by system integrator Brandenburg Entertainment.
The goal was for the system to be able to be operated by the daily staff at the center, which includes six seminar rooms on the ground floor and a large hall, nicknamed “Jupiter,” on the upper floor, offering almost more than 230 square meters of configurable space for theatre, music, meetings, and online conferences.
“The hall space can be divided by partition walls,” explains installer Tim Berker of subcontractor AudioVisionRent from Kaiserslautern, “so we have different situations in which we either use the whole hall with a main PA, or a number of separate rooms. To be able to achieve the required routing flexibility, we decided to use the Allen & Heath AHM-64 Matrix Processor to manage the audio.”
Partnering the AHM-64, an Allen & Heath DX012 output expander was specified to feed the PA system via AES, removing the need for a further stage of A/D conversion and the associated latency.
As with many fixed installs, it is common for non-technical staff to be on-site supervising the various events. To enable simple operation for the staff, Berker deployed iPads running the Custom Control App. “We have programmed various scenes on the AHM-64,” Berker adds, “so the respective configuration – separate hall, connected hall and outdoor area — can be called up on the iPads, via a clearly designated button in the app, recalling the appropriate input and output routing for the application.”
