Beamforming technology describes the way in which the spatial response of any wave-based propagation is manipulated. It can be used across RF applications, lighting applications, and, in our case, acoustic applications. Beamforming technology helps manage the directionality of various sound behaviors to ensure the acoustic waves are pointing in the intended direction—and not pointing where it is not intended.

At Shure, we employ beamforming technologies across countless audio devices and microphones to ensure voices can connect regardless of location in a room or conferencing space. Here's how to use beamforming technology to enable better communication within your organization.

Technology Evolution

Beamforming technology can be implemented in several ways—geometrically, physically, in the analog signal domain, and with digital signal processing (DSP). Geometrically, beamforming is attained using the shape of the object. Physically, it’s done with an interference tube and a single condenser microphone. In the analog signal domain, beamforming is realized using analog signal processing and solid-state components, resistors, capacitors, and conductors. We use DSP to achieve beamforming in our Microflex Advance portfolio of ceiling, wall, and table array microphones (including the newly launched MXA902 integrated ceiling array microphone and loudspeaker), and that’s accomplished with many signals that are manipulated to manage directionality in a conference room or other space.

Today, you tend to see beamforming technology with DSP. Physical, interference tube beamforming is mostly seen today in shotgun microphones, but the industry is largely moving away from the physical domain and toward digital with DSP architecture and processing blocks that enable the manipulation of signals for communication.

With DSP-based beamforming technology, the directivity of the microphone can be changed dynamically without altering the physical position of the microphone. It is simple to notice a difference when using an array microphone versus a shotgun microphone. With a shotgun microphone, you must physically point it in various directions to pick up sound.

With an array microphone integrating DSP-based beamforming technology, you can alter the processing program to point to the area of highest sensitivity in one area of a room, while still managing the areas of lowest sensitivity in other parts of the room. The DSP-based technology enables the microphones to seamlessly adjust to pick up the necessary pieces of conversation and determine the areas of highest sensitivity that require manipulation.

Beamforming Benefits

Beamforming technology is optimized in a situation where there are various speakers whose voices must be heard, such as a conference room or office meeting space. It provides the ability to direct the intended area of pickup to a specific speaker or area of the room, while lowering the sensitivity in other positions in the room. This ensures speakers in certain areas of a room are highly intelligible, while other noises are minimized.

[On Higher Ed Tech: Shure]

In reverberant spaces, like a large conference hall or presentation space, beamforming technology can isolate direct sound. As a result, it blocks out the reflected energy and noise circulating around the room for a clear conversation. In larger rooms, beamforming technology can reduce noise and assist with noise isolation. It minimizes air handling and stationary noise in the signal chain to increase intelligibility.

Beamforming technology also results in a more aesthetically pleasing environment. While traditional single-element microphones may be peppered around a conference room or scattered across a surface, beamforming technology allows you to remove the microphones from the tables and still maintain high levels of intelligibility.

Devices with beamforming technology are well suited for a number of environments. We have mentioned use in conferencing and office spaces, as well as larger reverberant spaces filled with hard surfaces. Classrooms prove to be another prime use for beamforming technology, as classroom spaces are often large and require isolated voices. Students want to clearly hear a teacher at the front of the room, and the teacher needs the ability to easily pick up voices in the back of the room.

Whether integrating into a classroom or a meeting room, beamforming technology allows you to isolate the voices of individual speakers and form a room response that directs the sound or audio to the intended listener.

As we continue developing devices with beamforming technology, we constantly come across new use cases. There are still areas, of course, where we don’t recommend beamforming technology, as it won’t be as effective as intended. For example, the technology doesn’t perform best in high sound pressure level (SPL) environments where it will interfere with linearity, such as a large sports arena. We also tend to not recommend beamforming technology for studio recording use, as that is a scenario where you want the true-to-life, uncolored sound.

[Q&A: Environmentally Friendly Packaging Part of Shure Sustainability Efforts]

While certain scenarios are not always ideal for beamforming technology, it is inspiring to see how the technology comes to life across new applications. Shure launched its MXA910 beamforming ceiling array microphone in 2016, and several years since that initial innovation, beamforming technology continues to evolve for use across applications.

With many employees returning to a hybrid office arrangement, the demand for conference room microphones is rising at an unprecedented rate.

“The pandemic has moved us all quite a bit forward with regard to videoconferencing. Pretty much everyone has had time on a video call. Global acceptance of the technology may be a stretch, but we are pretty close,” explained Dave Garlett, key account manager and consultant liaison at Audix. “That said, we are seeing an inversion of the corporate use case. Before the pandemic, the typical videoconference room was generally a luxury for corporate leadership or executives. The rooms had large budgets—$25,000 to $150,000, typically. In these rooms you would find a local group of users, say six to 16 members, reaching out to an individual or a small far-side group.”

“Today, we have an acute need [to support] lower ranking staff members reaching out to a remote team—say a sales manager managing a remote team of account managers, for example. Obviously, an executive boardroom is not the right answer for a single middle management member to enable his or her team,” he added. “There is a strong need for very cost-effective microphone solutions like the Audix M70 for these much smaller rooms.”

While rooms of all sizes are currently being designed, Garlett stressed that the demand for high-performance, low-cost microphones for smaller rooms will continue for some time. “The demand for our microphones under $400 that deliver a professional, broadcast level of low noise and the highest vocal intelligibility possible is keeping us very busy here.”

[ The Best Conferencing Microphones for 2020 ] 

Another significant trend has been the need for more unified communication. “We’ve experienced strong demand for conferencing solutions throughout the pandemic,” said Chris Fitzsimmons, product marketing manager at Biamp. “In particular, solutions that pair with the UC platforms our customers are deploying more widely in their organizations in response to the need for effective remote or hybrid work environments. Complementary solutions to platforms such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom continue to drive growth.”

Digital Array Microphones

When it comes to conference room microphones, Fitzsimmons asserted that digital array microphones of various types rule the roost.

“Biamp’s Parlé Beamtracking microphones are an example of how beamforming technology is evolving into an even smarter solution that actively tracks voices as people talk and move around a space,” he said. “This supports a much more agile meeting room than a fixed-beam solution, which would need reprogramming to account for changes in room usage modes. It also makes for a more rapid room deployment because there is no need to steer or program the mics after installation.”

[ Selecting the Right Microphone for Your Conference Room ] 

“The pandemic has driven massive growth in the number of remote participants in meetings. Even as people begin to return to offices, many meeting attendees are still not present physically. To ensure that remote team members are not disadvantaged, companies are carefully evaluating their meeting room technology to create the best experience for all participants,” Fitzsimmons added. “Ensuring that remote attendees can hear in-room contributors is an essential part of hybrid collaboration, and so microphones and room acoustic performance in general are being scrutinized more than ever before.”

What’s Next?

The increasing demand to deliver requisite technology fast and cheap inevitably places pressure on integrators to make good recommendations and deliver them as quickly and efficiently as possible. What does the future hold for conference microphones?

“Conference room microphone technology will evolve in several different directions. The use of array microphones will likely continue to dominate, and vendors will continue to innovate microphone form factors as they identify new customer needs,” Fitzsimmons said. “Additionally, UC platform vendors’ vision of the conference room will continue to evolve, driving manufacturers to innovate and deliver microphone solutions that customers are seeking to complement their UC environments. Microsoft recently laid out a very strong vision for the future of hybrid work and it will be interesting to watch how hardware manufacturers respond to it. Different companies are working on solutions for similar customer needs and will arrive at different answers. Integrators also have an opportunity to align those different answers into solutions that are optimized for their own customers.”

Like many areas of pro audio, ease of use remains a persistent theme for optimum efficiency.

“Aesthetics and design are playing a key role in how end users interact with their technology. End users want the technology to turn on right as they walk in the room. They want any interaction with the technology to be minimal—or entirely touchless,” shared Troy Jensen, senior manager, global accounts, Shure.

“Moreover, they want the tech to be discreet and, in many cases, off the conference room table,” he continued. “Shure’s Microflex Ecosystem solution, specifically the MXA710 Linear Array and MXA910 Ceiling Array, meets this customer need by allowing microphones to be positioned unobtrusively on ceilings and walls. They also employ autofocus technology to fine-tune each microphone lobe position toward speaking participants, even when they shift in their seats. This is useful for organizations aiming to keep collaborative spaces socially distant without sacrificing audio quality.”

[ The Future of Conferencing Audio ] 

Intelligent and Secure

Looking forward, Jensen anticipates large conference rooms will continue to be used for smaller meetings to support social distancing.

“As a result, microphones will need to be adaptive and intelligent, covering more ground as necessary based on the size of the meeting, without necessitating any preconfiguration from the end user,” he said.

Security is another essential consideration. “Prior to 2020, many companies had been hesitant to shift to software-based codecs because of security concerns,” said Jensen. “However, the pandemic expedited adoption of software-based codecs, and required businesses and conferencing technology manufacturers to address security issues promptly and preemptively. Our Microflex Ecosystem devices offer unique Shure Audio Encryption between Shure devices, so users can have peace of mind knowing that communications are secure, enabled with one click, and at no extra cost.”

It’s an area many other manufacturers are focused on, too. “Conference room audio devices must allow remote access for device maintenance, updates, and monitoring—which usually means being incorporated into an enterprise network. As it is now plugged into the larger network, we have increased our focus on security within our product groups,” said David Missall, insights manager consultant and technical application engineer manager, Sennheiser.

[ The Hybrid Workplace: Trends in Acoustics and Audio ] 

Innovation and Interoperability

While innovation has suffered in some technical sectors as a result of the pandemic, the opposite is true when it comes to conference room technology.

“We have seen a clear shift in the industry as meeting and classroom technology now must be inclusive to allow in-person and remote participation. To ensure inclusivity and give all participants a consistent experience, audio and video technology has become incredibly important, and with it there have been some crucial innovations in a short period that are on their way to becoming industry standards,” said Missall.

“Visually, there are more cameras in conference spaces and classrooms that are able to auto-switch and focus on who is speaking or presenting at the given time. With this, as audio is the primary communications interface, there is no longer room for subpar audio quality in hybrid environments,” he added. “Sound quality must be held to a high standard, and audio levels of each participant regardless of where they are sitting must be equal.”

Another impact has been the importance of interoperability, according to Missall. “As an audio manufacturer, Sennheiser has worked hard to partner with other AV ecosystems to seamlessly integrate our technology with theirs, giving customers multiple solutions for their needs, and the ability to scale as needed.”

With hygiene being an important factor for all organizations in the wake of COVID-19, there is the added need to eliminate AV integrations with shared microphone and headphone technology. Missall referenced Sennheiser’s TeamConnect Ceiling 2 microphone array technology as an example of how beamforming and TruVoicelift technology are being used to maintain social distancing as they eliminate the need for multiple mics.

[ Product Review: Shure Conferencing Audio Ecosystem ] 

In many respects, COVID-19 has pushed IT to the forefront of design, and integrators and consultants are now being forced to adapt, learn, and design IT infrastructure.

“We’ve seen a rising trend where integrators now offer managed services, bringing together hardware and cloud platforms. This not only creates another revenue stream for integrators, but also benefits the end user, who gets access to instant technical support should a need arise, reducing downtime,” concluded Missall.

Click here to read more stories from the September 2021 issue of SCN.

With more professionals returning to the office, conference rooms are starting to see use again, though the meetings that take place are usually of the hybrid variety, with some colleagues in the office but most collaborating from at home or another remote location.  As the hybrid work model continues to evolve, AV systems, particularly the audio component, have become a focus for improvement. Without intelligible audio, communication is tremendously difficult.

The quality of the audio remote participants receive relies in great part on the microphones in the room—not only what kind of microphones are used but where they are placed in the room.

The first place people can go wrong is using the wrong type of microphone. The key is choosing the right one is understanding how it will be used. Only when you understand the application can you define your performance targets and figure out which microphone within the given budget best suits your needs.

[ The Hybrid Workplace: Trends in Acoustics and Audio ] 

I have long believed the best type of microphone for a meeting setting is the head-worn microphone. Head-worn mics sit close to the speaker’s mouth and stay at a consistent distance, providing what I believe is the best and most consistent audio to participants both in the meeting room and away from it. Unfortunately, participants have generally been reluctant to wear headsets during meetings—until the COVID pandemic, that is, which turned most of us into remote workers and opened our ears to the importance of sound intelligibility during meetings. During the past year, most professionals have grown accustomed to using earbuds and headphone mics in meetings, which could gain this type of microphone a wider acceptance moving forward.

The next best mic option for audio performance is the gooseneck microphone. The flexible gooseneck stand holds the microphone close to the speaker’s mouth, providing a consistent audio experience for the listeners. This option is a little less forgiving than the head-worn mic in that it won’t pick up audio as well if the speaker turns their head away from the microphone or moves back in their seat.

[ Best Conferencing Microphones ]

Gooseneck mics are mounted on the desk or podium in front of the speaker, which takes up space on the tabletop and may interfere with the placement of laptops, papers, phones and other items necessary to meeting participants. There is often pushback for aesthetic issues as well with gooseneck microphones because they’re large and don’t blend into any décor.

Alternatively, button-type microphones (or boundary microphones) have been used in these applications because of their lower-profile aesthetic. Situated on the tabletop, these microphones have a little more distance from participants’ mouths than a gooseneck microphone, but they are able to provide good audio performance. However, they are susceptible to tabletop noises (coffee cups, finger tapping, typing) and can be inadvertently obstructed by objects.

That brings us to ceiling microphones. Admittedly, I have been hesitant to specify ceiling microphones within meeting spaces for many years. In the past, this type of microphone suffered from lower audio performance for reasons including high ceilings and environmental interference. Older, less sensitive ceiling microphones were really challenged by high ceilings, which put them further from speakers’ mouths than they were able to handle, and proximity to ceiling HVAC ducts, which made them prone to mechanical noise interference.

Fortunately, technological innovations over the last few years have vastly improved the quality of ceiling microphones. My opinion about their suitability for conference rooms changed when manufacturers started offering multi-element options, which combine the coverage of multiple mics into one package. Their strength is their ability to pick up sounds from identified directions while rejecting sound from other directions, and they are often “steerable,” or able to actively change those directions. Coupled with digital signal processing that has improved ambient noise reduction, ceiling mics have become a viable alternative for me.

[ The Future of Conferencing Audio ]

What doesn’t fit the bill for a conference room microphone? Wireless lavalier microphones and handheld microphones. While these are effective tools in some contexts, they generally have more negatives than positives in a conference room environment. Placed on a speaker’s shirt or lapel, wireless lavalier mics have the benefit of location near the speaker’s mouth, but their disadvantages include degraded performance when the speaker turns their head, susceptibility to picking up clothing noises, a higher price point, and more demands for charging/power.

The performance of handheld microphones relies entirely on the skill of the speaker. If the user is well practiced in holding the microphone a consistent distance from their mouth, they work well. Unfortunately, this is not the case for most meeting participants.

As much as I believe that head-worn microphones still provide the best performance, and probably enjoy a wider level of acceptance, I acknowledge that the multidirectional beamforming microphones offered by several manufacturers provide high-quality performance and seem invisible to meeting participants. Within the physical constraints for good performance relating to ceiling height and locations, I believe these types of microphones will become ubiquitous in conference rooms and collaboration spaces.

Click here to read more stories from the September 2021 issue of SCN.

More About Conferencing Audio

Sound Reinforcement Remedies • James Careless, Nov. 12, 2018 • Few things can hamper a meeting with remote participants more than bad sound. Here are some solutions to common audio ailments.

The Future of Conferencing Audio • Ledetta Asfa-Wossen, Sept. 18, 2020 • With meeting rooms at the nerve center of many companies, understanding the shifting use and technical requirements of the workspace is essential. So, what does the future hold for conferencing audio and specification?

Hot Mics: The Latest in Conferencing Audio Capture • Matt Pruznick, Nov. 6, 2019 • Unlike many other tools of the pro AV trade, the goal of microphones in conferencing rooms is for users to not even notice they’re there. We examine the ways leading manufacturers are innovating in this critical category.

Acoustics and the Modern Meeting Room • Carolyn Heinze, Aug. 24, 2018 • How to successfully sell the importance of acoustics to clients who place more emphasis on design aesthetics.

Challenged with a year like no other, University of North Carolina Greensboro (UNCG) needed to accommodate an intuitive and immersive HyFlex model of teaching and learning. Through monetary support enabled by the CARES relief fund, UNCG installed 16 of Sony’s MAS-A100 beamforming ceiling microphones across its campus, with plans underway to implement 40 additional units for the college’s new nursing building.

The pandemic made UNCG accelerate their plans to update their learning environments and make them hybrid friendly. All 250 of the school’s classrooms were evaluated throughout the summer of 2020 and Larry Darling, classroom technology manager at UNCG, was tasked with ensuring each room met a basic level of standard and leveraged UCC technology to ensure better outcomes for students and educators. His primary object was to outfit at least one room in every building with transformational technology to enhance the in-person and remote educational experience. 

Related: The Technology Manager's Guide to Audio in the New Era of UC

Darling started out by addressing classrooms’ lecture capture capabilities, which is when he honed in on Sony’s touchless MAS-A100 microphone, which is optimized for lecture and presentation environments. “As we sought a more conversation-driven pedagogy, we recognized our lecture capture rooms just weren’t equipped for that type of teaching style,” he said. “I recalled a demonstration I’d seen of Sony’s beamforming microphone during InfoComm and quickly knew that it was just what UNCG needed. Since it would be difficult to virtually test technology and with a universal need for more accommodating equipment at the forefront, I knew time was of the essence and we placed an order for 16 microphones right away.”

The flexible MAS-A100 microphones feature clear audio for speech reinforcement and the ability to suppress unwanted feedback. As professors adapt to the new educational paradigm and fewer in-person classes, Darling has found that the rooms with the beamforming microphones are the most requested among faculty. He said, “Despite remote learning, many professors are coming into the classroom to teach and take advantage of the tools and technology in place. With the MAS-A100, the sound quality is so much better than a standard ceiling microphone or any other type of in-classroom audio system. With the changeover to a HyFlex model, you need to account for conversations among students at home and in class. Using this solution, we’re easily able to pick up both sides of a conversation, so that students at home can hear what’s going on in the classroom and partake in the conversation via Zoom and vice versa. The beamforming microphones have really enabled that interactive, conversation-based pedagogy.”

Speaking to the benefits of the microphones, Darling noted, “When we first selected them, it was primarily focused on the value. When you factored together their cost with their coverage range, it was a hard microphone to beat. Another reason we found these mics to be cost-effective is due to the built-in processing. We can put a Dante USB connection on the computer and there’s enough EQ and noise reduction in the mic itself, which has eliminated the need for DSPs. In using the MAS-A100, we've been really impressed with the sound quality and the built-in features of the mics, especially for the price.”

Another key reason UNCG standardized on the MAS-A100 is due to Darling and the school’s relationship with the Sony brand. “Due to the challenges of the pandemic, I had to go with a company I trusted,” Darling said. “I had already built a relationship with Sony and I knew they would support me if there were any issues. It was a pretty quick decision to go with Sony and I was thrilled that the product worked as well as I expected it to, considering it's not the way I typically like to try a new product on campus!”

As we make our way back into offices and classrooms, one thing is for sure: people won’t be very comfortable touching microphones. Capitalizing on this is ClearOne’s BMA 360 ceiling tile beamforming mic array. Designed to provide uniform gain response across all frequency bands, the solution simplifies audio pickup with precision beamforming, advanced ambient noise rejection, and Voice Lift to enable local participants or the presenter's voice to be heard well not only by the far end, but also in the local room. So, just how well does it perform?

The BMA 360 comes with a built-in amplifier that provides power and can be configured as 4x15 watts or 2x30 watts for driving loudspeakers. Optional accessories for the BMA 360 include a 90-watt PoE power injector kit, brackets that convert 600 to 625mm, and a conduit box. It features Acoustic Echo Cancellation (AEC) that delivers incomparable per-beam full-duplex audio performance and onboard audio algorithms, like noise reduction, filtering, and automatic level control (ALC), which eliminates the need for per-beam processing in a DSP mixer. 

Related: Shure Conferencing Audio Ecosystem Review

I was also issued the Converge 2 pro 48VTD, a multi-channel microphone automixer with built-in support for Dante audio networking, VoIP conferencing, a Telco interface, C-Link, and P-Link to facilitate the addition of DSPs and peripherals. It also features built-in USB audio, four mic/line inputs, and eight mic/line outputs. Further, the device can be arranged to connect up to three ceiling tiles via P-Link, which would be well served in divisible rooms or larger conference setups. It offers the ability to add and configure additional mics like handhelds and lavaliers.

Using ClearOne’s software, CONSOLE AI, I could connect to the Converge 2 either locally by USB or via the network. Using this software, you can configure the BMA and the loudspeakers, and any additional microphones. The software also provides different views of the connection diagram, allowing grouping of similar devices. Furthermore, the software will enable you to select settings and make adjustments for multiple room designs, including circular, square, rectangular, or semi-circular classrooms/conference rooms—providing coverage from small (10 foot by 10 foot) rooms up to extra-large (36 foot by 20 foot) spaces with ceiling heights from 7 to 20 feet. You can also set the number of open microphones (NOM). This function, along with all the other ALC and the noise canceller, provided a fantastic experience in my test environment, a smaller conference room with an AC window unit. During the testing period, I joined multiple virtual meetings, and no one could hear the window unit. When I changed the microphone to the built-in mic on the laptop, the reaction was that a whirlwind had entered the meeting.

Overall, the ClearOne BMA 360 ceiling tile beamforming microphone provided a very natural experience. My voice was captured clearly from any location in the room. I found connecting the loudspeakers to BMA 360 and bridging to the Converge 2 Pro very straightforward. The console AI software-rendered options to configure all the inputs and output devices were intuitive, as was the intelligence for microphone gate grouping and gain controls. I appreciated the built-in auditing feature for checking on changes and ensuring that devices are all connected properly, as well as the capacity for making live adjustments for any last-minute troubleshooting. Additionally, the ClearOne support team provided me with the right resources and materials for training, and was responsive to my questions as they arose. I would highly recommend using this product in any space due to its versatility, range, and the added value to more complex systems. 

Emil Delgado is the director of client services at St. Peter’s University in Jersey City, NJ.

Professors strive to engage and inspire students, but sound intelligibility isn’t usually their top priority. Ensuring audio quality is the domain of campus AV specialists, and that task is evolving.

Technology is, by nature, a moving target, but the rapid shift to remote learning in 2020 required many AV stakeholders to rethink classroom audio. The focus has moved to meeting the critical audio needs of teachers and learners on site, in HyFlex (hybrid-flexible) setups, and helping Zoomers hear clearly. New sensibilities and new solutions are needed as virtual learning modalities become commonplace.

Amplify Every Voice

Physical classrooms and online channels present various acoustic challenges, from reflective surfaces to spotty Wi-Fi. To guarantee intelligibility for all students, even those in the virtual back row, tech teams hope to provide consistent audio reinforcement. Audio signals from—and to—remote learners must be pristine to foster a sense of class cohesion.

“You want every student at home to feel like they’re connected, and a lot of that has to do with audio clarity and intelligibility,” said David Missall, technical application engineer manager at Sennheiser.

To track a teacher as they move through a space, or where there is a mix of on-site and mobile participants, a stable system is needed with proper microphone pickup and adaptive echo cancellation that can handle multiple speakers and changing dynamics in a room.

[ Why 2021 Will Be the Year of Touchless Audio ]

Touchless Audio and Beamforming

Ceiling array technologies have been growing in popularity for years, but the pandemic inspired many to take a closer look at smarter arrays and automatic beamforming systems. When installed in ceiling tiles, these audio applications, some equipped with artificial intelligence (AI), provide design flexibility. A touchless system—such as Sennheiser’s TeamConnect Ceiling 2, which features Sennheiser’s patented beamforming technology—also frees the teacher because they “don’t have to always hold a microphone to be heard clearly,” said Missall. “Participants in the classroom can hear interactions from students, wherever they are, in the room and off site.”

Array technology has been a boon for delivering better audio in classrooms by, paradoxically, becoming invisible. Students and teachers can simply “forget about the microphone, because you don’t have to touch it,” Missall said. “You don’t have to worry about turning it on or finding the right levels. You don’t have to think about it. You just talk normally, and wherever you are in the room, you will get picked up.”

Microformat DSPs

Some audio specialists cite new demands for audio digital signal processing (DSP) in classrooms. “As universities continue to rapidly deploy technology into small- and medium-sized classrooms to support UC applications such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, AV technology managers are looking for audio solutions that are cost-effective, simple to install, and do not take up a lot of space,” said Shaun Robinson, vice president of product management with Xilica.

To integrate everything together, including analog or networked microphones and speakers, along with echo cancellation and other features that improve audio clarity for the remote student, DSPs are seeing significant growth in the education market vertical.

[ Installing AVoIP Systems Today Affords Future Expansion Possibilities ] 

Xilica manufactures networked digital signal processors for live and installed sound. The education sector, generally perceived to be a budget-conscious market, is even more financially prudent during COVID. Robinson is excited about solutions that innovate while also adding value. “We have seen strong growth this past year for our Solaro QR1, a microformat DSP that is very cost-effective and yet quite powerful,” he said. “Unlike a DSP that takes up a full rack space, it has a compact form factor, and yet it’s also modular, so you only pay for [the features] you need.” With a compact chassis that fits in a quarter rack unit, the QR1 features a dual core, 40-bit floating point DSP engine, networked audio, and acoustic echo cancellation capabilities that can support an entire classroom.

Indeed, an uplift for Xilica in 2020 was in university spaces, where the “Solaro QR1 was even installed in ceiling tiles to reach out to analog ceiling microphones, and enable UC platform integration as a simple retrofit in traditional classrooms,” Robinson stated.

DSP with Camera Control

To enhance interactivity for remote students, there is a push to add PTZ and smarter camera control within the DSP to show each person speaking. Missall noted, “We’re seeing multiple cameras in the same room, with wide shots of the classroom as well as close-up coverage of the teacher. If a student raises their hand and starts talking, the camera focuses on them and you can see—and hear—who’s speaking.”

Vendor Investments

An unexpected benefit of the pandemic has been the increased collaboration among audio and control manufacturers. The strategic alliance between Sennheiser and QSC is one example.

Hardware and software vendors are upping their game, too. Zoom Room software audio processing builds in native echo cancellation, noise reduction, and automatic gain control. “If the microphone in use includes built-in audio processing, this setting can be disabled to avoid the Zoom Room audio processing interfering with the built-in audio processing,” according to the company. For a microphone that includes its own audio processing, Zoom users can disable the software audio processing option.

Personal Audio on Campus

BYOD (bring your own device) is another method for providing audio coverage for every teacher and student. Holger Stoltze, director of product management at Yamaha UC, appreciates how a BYOD design and personal microphones let teachers capture their own audio. “It doesn’t matter if it is for remote learning or a mixed environment, teachers need their audio to be captured,” Stoltze said.

He pointed to a Yamaha project in a Japanese school where wireless mics integrate with audio playback and capture in the whole room. Students—at home or on site—can be sure their voices will be clearly heard in larger rooms and via video playback, Stoltze said.

[ How Room Monitoring Can Help Solve Workplace Uncertainty ] 

With ever-changing user needs and school reopenings influenced by fluctuating COVID infection rates, educational audio systems should be scalable and flexible.

Future-Proofing Classrooms

How can institutions stay on budget while also staying relevant for years to come?

Invest in the network and the cloud. With a strong IT infrastructure in place, and cloud-based AV offerings, a BYOD scenario becomes possible. Students can bring their own laptops or iPads, connect into the existing infrastructure, and start collaborating.

The solid IT infrastructure will also prove useful when considering on-ramps and off-ramps for networked audio. Many components can be wired directly in, but for long-distance transmission, more integrators are implementing network-equipped audio for easier ingest and distribution throughout a university.

Vendors are getting more inventive in their approaches. The Beamforming Microphone Array Ceiling Tile (BMA) 360 by ClearOne, for instance, touts deployment ease. Competing products require integrators to program multiple components with different tool sets: “Ethernet switches, ceiling tiles, DSP mixers, and the Dante controller,” according to the company. ClearOne’s single-workflow configuration is provided via ClearOne’s CONSOLE AI software.

Accessibility and ADA

Captioning lectures and observing universal design principles will help make classrooms more accessible and compliant with ADA regulations. Tech teams are also being asked to specify assistive listening and audio solutions for the hearing impaired. According to the World Health Organization, by the year 2050, more than “900 million people will have disabling hearing loss.”

With voice assist via the Wi-Fi network, tech managers won’t need to dispense additional devices. This is one of the ways AV teams can help hearing-impaired students and teachers feel more confident while leveraging the existing infrastructure.

Prioritize Flexibility

Another pandemic takeaway: audio systems must be adaptable.

Classrooms can vary dramatically, even on the same campus; there is no cookie-cutter audio solution. The flexibility of a system like Yamaha’s ADECIA, Stoltze explained, will let users toggle effortlessly from in-room to HyFlex/hybrid and remote applications as needed.

The Yamaha ADECIA suite introduces the RM-CG ceiling microphone and RM-CR room control processor and includes Yamaha’s PoE switches and VXL Series line array speakers. Together, the system supports multi-beam tracking, human voice activity detection, noise reduction algorithms, speaker tracking, adaptive acoustic echo cancellation, and more.

“We believe schools are looking for systems like this because, in the long-term, they will provide cost savings,” Holger said, “and inevitably perform better than tabletop microphones.”

Silver Lining: Audio Matters

Video all too often dominates the AV conversation, but the COVID crisis has foregrounded the need for good classroom audio.

“A silver lining this year is the renewed focus on audio and how important audio is for any type of production, application, or classroom solution,” said Missall.

With the crop of new technologies and modes of implementation, there’s no longer an excuse for “I couldn’t hear,” Holger concluded.

For more resources or to read the first post in this series, visit the channel page, Audio Collaboration Resources.

In the AV world, we’ve all seen a back-and-forth between the importance of the “A” (audio) versus the “V” (video) over the years. It’s easy to say that in “AV” both sides are equally important. And they are. But not only has the video side seen a greater surge of new technology in recent years—audio and video have always been, and will continue to be, very different animals.

We’ll look at new audio world developments like innovative new microphone technologies that are rebalancing the equation. But first, let’s step back from specs and marketing language laden with layers of complexity and get back to the basics of physics for a moment.

Light (that comprises any video image) travels at, well, the speed of light. Technically, that’s called fast. It’s so fast—299,792,458 meters per second (670,616,629.3844 miles per second), to be exact—that the dynamics of any particular room or space don’t wreak havoc with how the video image gets from a display or a screen to your eyes. Video images don’t bounce or reverberate around a room in odd and unpredictable ways. It’s a clean path from the display to you—and it’s so fast that, aside from line of sight, the room architecture does not come into play.

Nureva Audio Manager Delivers New Functionality to the HDL300 System (Jan. 24, 2018)

Audio could not be more different. Sound travels, in most conditions through air, at 343 meters per second. That’s why designing audio systems for everything from an outdoor concert to conference rooms is really more complex than providing video signal or video display for the “V” in AV. And that’s why, historically, it’s taken much more craft, and experience, to set up audio systems. It’s really not rocket science to provide video images for an audience or conference attendees. To do that well is by no means easy, but it’s getting easier and easier all the time. Doing audio well has perplexed many an AV pro, IT manager, and end user, and it has traditionally required much more hands-on system configuration, ongoing tweaking, and maintenance.

Even as audio has moved to digital platforms for transmission from location to location (inside a stadium, or across the country), that “last mile” or, better said, last few feet, of the audio path is the part that is still tricky. Because nothing changes the basic laws of physics that define the painfully slow speed of sound and what different architectural spaces do to sound’s path.

Nureva Announces Dual HDL300 Audio Conferencing System for Larger Spaces (Feb. 5, 2018)

So let’s turn back to audio conferencing, and some really interesting new microphone technologies. If you’re looking at different audio conferencing solutions, you’ve probably heard of beamforming microphone technology—the technology featured in some in-ceiling installed systems. In the beamforming system, beams from the mics in the mic array are aimed at specific zones in the room where the meeting participants are expected to be—that is, in their chairs in predetermined locations. When nobody moves and everyone speaks within range of a beam, performance is OK. But an audio conferencing system based on beamforming still carries the inherent disadvantages of traditional ceiling mics or tabletop mics. The “mics” are still oriented towards rooms and meetings in which everyone sits around a single table and faces in the same direction—usually towards the display. It’s still not enough craft, art, or science to produce the best solution for the highest level of audio conferencing.

Thanks to efforts to achieve better audio conferencing, there are now alternatives to using beamforming. Nureva has taken a bold step and has developed its new Microphone Mist™ technology in their HDL300 audio conferencing system with 8,192 virtual microphones that tame some the challenges of, well, physics. Dedicated processing harnesses the capabilities of those mics, and additional critical processing handles acoustic echo cancellation and noise reduction, while integrating with codecs, and particularly soft codecs.

Here is some interesting information about the new alternative to beamforming, in the links below.

For more resources or to read the first post in this series, visit the channel page, Audio Collaboration Resources.

Beyond Beamforming—Some Reasons to Consider Other Options

AV Network article: “A New Breakthrough in Audio Conferencing Solutions”

A new e-guide: “A Brief Guide to Audio Conferencing Technologies: How to Get the System that Enables More Dynamic, Collaborative Meeting”

How Advanced Audio Conferencing Solutions Meet Today's Demanding Applications