PSAV Presentation Services, the world’s largest A/V rental supplier with more than 800 offices worldwide, many located on-site at major hotels, specializes in providing in-house audio-visual services to the hospitality industry for meetings and events, and maintains one of the largest, most up to date equipment inventories in the industry.
Since its introduction, PSAV has been using Crown Audio VRack, a turnkey amplifier rack system that includes three I-Tech HD I-T12000 power amplifiers, a versatile input panel with analog and digital connections, and a globally universal power distribution system that can be set to meet U.S. and international power standards.
All of the components are housed in a wheeled rack that can be flown in the same manner as a line array loudspeaker system.
“Typically, a hotel sells the meeting space and we work with the end client to provide the equipment and labor required to manage the event,” notes Jacob Ingle, audio product manager for PSAV. “Since we own all of our equipment, we have to select products that are cost-effective, efficient and reliable in order to maintain a profitable bottom line.”
“We have been using Harman products for quite a long time and even discussed building pre-configured amp racks with Crown before VRack was introduced. When they introduced the VRack, it was the perfect solution for a number of our amplification needs,” continues Ingle.
“One of our goals is to standardize gear as much as possible so our technicians can move from location to location and be familiar with the equipment they’re going to use,” says Ingle. “Having a unified amplifier package like VRack makes this a lot easier. We have many locations large and small, and VRack is adaptable to different situations because it allows multiple configurations for analog and digital inputs, for different types of speakers and for system networking.”
“Crown’s VRack is the perfect solution for the audio rental supplier because of its benefits as a plug-and-play solution for customers like Jacob who face an ever-changing set of challenges based on each event,” states Brian Pickowitz, marketing manager for Crown.
“Another major advantage is that VRack interfaces with Harman’s HiQnet Performance Manager system design and setup software and is specifically designed to work with JBL VerTec loudspeakers. Because we use a lot of JBL, Soundcraft and other Harman gear in addition to Crown, VRack becomes part of an all-in-one solution where all components ‘talk to each other’ using HiQnet. This makes system setup and operation much easier and a great deal more efficient,” adds Ingle.