AV
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Easier Set Up While Shure can supply the right solutions to the customer they can only do so much. Installation is a factor that not many hardware manufacturers can control, however, Smith says that’s where he and his team are looking to innovate. “We’ve been providing technically- engineered solutions that require a high skill level to install,” said Smith. “So what we’ve been doing over the last five years is making these solutions easier to install, provide equity of experience for everyone taking part in a remote meeting, and provide the experience that my boss’s boss has to every single meeting room. “The next thing is making systems that self-adapt to the room they’re installed in. It’s quite easy to establish what the acoustically perfect room needs to look like. Unfortunately, architects don’t give us that. They do like a concrete box with glass everywhere, and to be honest, I quite like the aesthetic myself, but it’s not the best for an audio room. “Our goal is for IT technicians to be able to put the microphone in a room, push a button and it figures out that room and sets itself up to provide the best audio performance. Our current range of products do that to a certain extent, but we want to get it so you can put the right microphones in the worst room possible and it gives you the best possible solution. “There will always be a space for those multipurpose rooms needing someone to program the microphones. But for 90% of the rooms that are a single space, we need to make systems that set themselves up much quicker and much easier.”
installed after the pandemic. In short, after slinging a camera and a mic into a meeting room to ‘video-enable’ it, it’s time to find a longer-term solution. So what does that look like? According to Smith, it doesn’t have to be a complete rip- and-replace job. “We’ve got a family of microphones called the MXA series which uses array technologies with over 100 individual microphones built into a single unit. These fit in the ceiling, keeping a low profile, and can pick up audio in the entire room. “The secondary thing is, particularly for the larger room, just using the speakers on the screen or a couple of speakers at the front generally means that the people at the front will end up going deaf but the people in the back still can’t hear. What you have to do is place speakers throughout the room and then you start to create an easy listening experience at both ends.” While Smith will emphasise the ease at which businesses can put together an effective meeting room solution, the essential feature that he mentions is keeping a low profile. “People say ‘it’s got to be easy to use’, what we’ve got to aim for is ‘it’s got to be invisible’ to the user.” “You should be no more aware of the audio system in a meeting room than you are of the carpet because it should just work. All you should ever have to do is turn the volume up, turn the volume down or mute it, and
You should be no more
aware of the audio system in a meeting
room than you are of the carpet because it should just work
frankly, if you’ve engineered it properly, you probably shouldn’t even need to adjust the volume.”
MXA Series
41640
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