Crestron has opened its Design Showroom in Houston, TX in a grand opening gala. Located in the Decorative Center Houston (DCH), the Southwest’s premier architecture and design center, the Design Showroom provides a location in which interior designers, lighting designers, builders, technology professionals, architects, and clients of Crestron dealers can experience Crestron automation technology blended into real-world settings.

“We create these elaborate, immersive spaces with our clients in mind, and work to ensure that each location is of the highest quality and provides the same elegant, world-class experience worldwide,” said Michael Short, Crestron global residential marketing manager. “We constantly maintain them so that all the very latest Crestron technology is on display, and provides clients with the best way to ‘see the future’ as they interact with the world’s most intuitive and innovative home automation technology.”

Crestron will be hosting events in the new showroom to introduce dealers to designers and architects in the Houston area. Interested parties can schedule a personal tour of the new showroom by sending an email to showroom@crestron.com.

If anyone tries to argue that the old proverb, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” is nothing but a pithy saying, point them to the example of QSC. Launched as Quilter Sound Things in a garage in Costa Mesa, CA in 1968, founder and chairman of the board Pat Quilter was simply trying to provide good solutions for local musicians—a far cry from the QSC we know today, 50 years later.

“When we started this company, we planned to take over the world with high-powered guitar amplifiers,” said Quilter, who built upon an interest in electronics when he launched the business with Barry Andrews, founder and board member. “Unfortunately, we were not the only company who vied for that position. A number of others were very successful early on, and it was depressing for us that we were not one of those companies. But not having early success was one of the keys to our ultimate success. It forced us to really learn how to run the business.”

While the team reworked their knowledge and expertise to develop power amplifiers, that focus on business operations was the real key to the company’s longevity, says Barry Andrews, who took an interest in the management side of the business.

“We all realized we had to become excellent operationally, excellent in our product development efforts, our sales and marketing, and we had to become excellent manufacturers,” he said. “And, at the beginning, we struggled with most of these things!”

John Andrews, Barry’s brother, the third founder and board member, joined QSC when he was still in high school. He agrees that the initial failure—and those smaller ones that, as in any business, inevitably followed—is why the industry is recognizing QSC during its golden anniversary year, including honoring its founders with the AVIXA 2018 Adele de Berri Award.

“We have a long history of learning from failures and successes, and have become stronger as a result,” John Andrews said. “If we’ve ever lacked the skills or capabilities to do something that we deemed critical to our success, we either learned how to overcome the deficiency, or we partnered with people who had the skills we needed.”

Technology Plus Time

While QSC’s success with power amplification technology may be somewhat overshadowed now by its broader developments in loudspeakers, DSPs, and more, it’s still what Quilter credits as the company’s legacy.

“Advancing that technology has left lasting impacts on the industry,” he said. “We really pushed Class-D switching power supply amplification technology, and established a new benchmark for overall quality in design and construction. We focused on solving the major problems in electronics all while delivering a clean, technically accurate output signal.”

On the loudspeaker side, Barry Andrews points to the K Series as another turning point for QSC. Still, while noting a “perfect balance of amplification, complimenting drivers, and on-board processing,” he says that its growth to the best-selling loudspeaker on the planet had a rocky start similar to that of the company. Strategically avoiding the loudspeaker segment for decades, they decided to listen to customer feedback and developed the K Series.

“We went from nowhere to the number one brand almost overnight,” he said. “The business wouldn’t be the size it is today if we hadn’t made that decision.”

Its early embrace of networked digital audio systems is another defining moment on QSC’s timeline. After becoming the first licensee of CobraNet in 1996, the company developed digital audio signal processing and networking solutions that ultimately led to the current Q-SYS platform.

“We saw the potential nearly 20 years ago for a software-based system that incorporated not only audio, but also made video and control more accessible, easier to deploy, and based on an IT foundation,” John Andrews said. “Our team developed Q-SYS as a real-time operating system, which allowed us to be the first manufacturer to decouple AV software and AV hardware. Now Q-SYS can run on commercial server hardware from companies like Dell, allowing audio, video, and control processing to become an asset in the datacenter.”

True Customer Service

The three founders point to customers as playing an enormous role in QSC’s evolution, beyond helping bring a game-changing loudspeaker to market. Customers have been the primary focus since Quilter developed his first guitar amp, and the same understanding from 50 years ago—that the person who’s using the technology is the one you should be creating for—has driven their mission ever since.

“We have always tried to focus on long-term strategies that produce lasting value for our customers,” Quilter said, “and we brought that philosophy to both product design and management practices.”

Barry Andrews agrees, adding that if customers don’t trust a brand, it certainly wouldn’t last for five decades. “Staying close to our customers and building their trust has always been our number one priority,” he said. “It hasn’t been a magical formula—it’s been about customer relationships and good business value. Even though our products in the beginning weren’t reliable, our customers trusted us because we always made good in the end. That is the hallmark of this company, and what will continue to drive innovation.”

The customer’s trust is part of a focus that values consistency over a quick success, John Andrews explains. “It’s a story of determination over failure,” he said. “We dealt firsthand with musicians and developed the ability—really a passion—for taking care of our customer.”

Innovations In Employee Satisfaction

QSC has presented so many creative innovations over the years that it’s almost become a symbol for what the company is—both externally and internally.

“When you are a small guy competing against the big guys, you have to offer customers a different approach,” Barry Andrews said. “That’s not only the case with products, but on the operation side of business as well.”

As part of ensuring its customers are getting the best experience across the board, the company has put ample thought into creating a work environment that reflects that commitment.

“The culture of QSC is one the most important assets and a key reason for the success of the company,” John Andrews said. “It is centered on respect, passion, personal responsibility, and constant improvement.”

That starts with building the right team. “It took us some years to put together the management team that carried us to our current success,” said Barry Andrews. “We really invested deeply over a long period of time to build both the talent pool and the market understanding that are required to be a leader.”

“QSC has always looked for better ways of doing things so we can get results with lower costs and impact,” Quilter said. “One of the key things we learned as managers was to understand and support the different personal temperaments in an organization and provide roles for those temperaments.”

Changing To Grow

If they’re going to make it another 50 years, the team knows change is inevitable—and that’s okay.

“The ability to recognize the need for change and to embrace it has been an important lesson,” John Andrews said. “If we continue to embrace change, improve, and understand the importance of having very passionate and capable people driving the company forward, we will continue to be the powerhouse we are today.”

“QSC has the resources to develop increasingly sophisticated system solutions, and our goal is to continue fostering our reason-based culture that relies on facts and analysis to make sound decisions,” Quilter said, noting that development like that sometimes requires even bigger changes: “We understand that the people who start a company aren’t always the best people to take the company to the next, higher level. It feels good to be able to hand it off and watch the company continue to grow and offer our employees more opportunity.”

The changes they’ve seen at QSC in the past 50 years couldn’t have happened without that sort of confidence in their decision making. Whether it’s been making a change from guitar amps to power amps, changing their minds about making loudspeakers, or changing the approach to signal processing, they’ve stuck with their choices—despite how scary those decisions may have seemed sometimes.

“There were a number of times we could have given up because of the potentially depressing circumstances and daunting road ahead,” John Andrews said. “We never lost confidence in our ability to become successful.”

As challenging as those moments may have been, this has always been better than the “alternative,” Quilter concluded: “Don’t underestimate the ‘fear of getting a real job.’”

It’s often said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes it’s what you don’t notice that makes all the difference. At the Sofitel Saigon Plaza hotel in downtown Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, what guests don’t see is the SpeakerCraft commercial audio solutions that deliver bold audio performance in the facility. According to Ms. Thu Ta, owner of DesignLive Technologies, the local integration firm responsible for designing the audio system, the success of this project came down to deploying cost-effective products that could supply the hotel banquet facilities’ guests with a high-quality audio experience.

“This project was part of a renewal initiative to renovate an old lobby, ballroom, and meeting and conference room facilities,” Ta said. “Tourism is growing in Vietnam, and most 5-star hotels have upgraded their facilities in the past two years as customers are demanding higher quality and more functionality. Sofitel Saigon Plaza now has one of the city’s finest lobbies, ballrooms and meeting room spaces, complete with the nearly invisible audio system we installed using state-of-the-art solutions from SpeakerCraft.”

While much attention is paid to the furnishings and redesign of a hotel’s common spaces, there is usually less said about the technology they choose to include. In this renovation, however, it was clear that the rooms’ electronics were behind the times and needed significant AV improvements to compete with other hotels and meeting spaces.

“Since its opening in 1999 the ballroom didn’t have a house AV system, and the meeting rooms were in a similar state,” Ta said. “The client recognized this and requested the highest performance value sound system possible. Having used the SpeakerCraft PRO Commercial Series successfully in other projects, we knew it offered an outstanding cost-to-performance ratio and had the added benefit of being nearly invisible, which is important for high-end hotel ballrooms and meeting rooms.”

• Currently, guests renting the hotel’s banquet facilities enjoy high-quality audio via the SpeakerCraft PRO Commercial Series solutions, where in-ceiling speakers provide playback and highly intelligible speech reinforcement for the ballroom and meeting rooms. A total of 56 SpeakerCraft PRO Commercial speakers are arranged in more than a dozen independent audio zones covering the hotel’s pre-function area, convertible ballroom, convertible boardroom and individual meeting rooms.
• DesignLive Technologies also upgraded the hotel’s audio distribution system to a fully digital Dante solution via Powersoft Dante amplifiers and Symetrix PRISM DSPs, with RDL’s Dante-enabled wall-plate solutions conveniently installed around the hotel’s facilities as input endpoints. A Fulcrum Acoustic PA system was included to provide live sound reinforcement in tandem with Sennheiser G3 wireless microphones and Yamaha mixers. All of these advanced systems ensure simple, reliable operation for event hosts.

“After this renovation and technology upgrade, it’s safe to say that Sofitel Saigon Plaza has one of the most high-tech, fully-digital audiovisual solutions in South-East Asia, and can now be considered one of the top hotel event spaces in Ho Chi Minh City,” Ta added. “The speakers may not be the most obvious part of this renovation, but that’s the whole point. They are a big upgrade that goes unnoticed, remaining out of view and providing incredible sound quality for all events and functions so guests can focus on having fun or getting business done without worrying about the technology that makes it all possible.”

We never expect to find ourselves in an emergency situation, especially in a school, house of worship, or airport. But crisis can strike at any moment and in any facility, as the tragic news cycle reminds us. How can AV integrators play more pivotal roles in helping the public plan for the unimaginable? What systems and strategies can be deployed to safeguard against disaster? While mass notification and emergency notification systems need to be assessed and designed by experts in the field, it’s useful to stay current with the latest safety codes as they pertain to AV and notable offerings in audiovisual technology, from IP-enabled audio alerts to instant visual announcements.

National Fire Protection of Association 72 (NFPA-72)

In 2010, the National Fire Protection of Association (NFPA) changed its code 72 from fire alarm only to include mass notification and the design, installation, and performance characteristics of audio and video components and systems.

David Smith, vice president of marketing at Lencore, a company that engineers and builds system solutions for sound masking, paging, announcements, audio, and mass notification and emergency communication (MNEC), points to this code update as a development that helped to innovate within this sector of the marketplace. This was a “meaningful evolution” that recognized the needs for emergency notifications for events beyond fire, he said. Whether it is a weather-related or human-related threat, NFPA-72 helps to guide integrators and security professionals as they provide reliable means to distribute life safety information via audio and video signals.

Fire Alarm, Life Safety, and Mass Notification Emergency Communications (MNEC)

A key element of the NPFA-72 is the change to fire alarm, life safety, and mass notification emergency communications. Chapter 24 is of specific importance for AV integrators and professionals: it requires fire alarm evacuation systems to produce intelligible announcements. Technology/facility managers and AV systems integrators need to stay current with MNEC regulations and guarantee that their buildings are equipped to meet the new criteria for emergency notifications and life safety.

According to Lencore, the code requires that audible messages must have “reach and clarity,” meaning that they must be clear and intelligible throughout a building or structure and meet specific requirements, as well as visible notifications as achieved through digital signage, strobes, textual, graphic, or video interfaces. An emergency communications system must quickly inform and instruct people of the threat(s) and direct them to safety.

Smarter MNEC

Where possible and where supported, modern MNECs can integrate audio, zoned paging, signage, social media platforms, email, strobe lights, and text messaging. Since failure is not an option, the more points of communication, the better, but only if they are absolutely synced and working together cohesively. When every second counts, a mass notification system can help prevent chaos.

That’s how Mark Rushton sees it. The business development manager of VITEC, a manufacturer of end-to-end video streaming solutions, signage, and IPTV, Rushton explained that, in crowded situations where an incident might occur, and despite the best training, there might be confusion and panic. Due to the nature of human traffic and swarming, people may start shouting or running.

“Most people find in an [emergency] situation that they forget everything that they’ve been taught, perhaps even only half an hour ago,” Rushton said. “But when there are visual cues and there is calm and collected information,” there is more order and efficient movement. When every second counts, this kind of streamlining is critical. “That’s what we’re suggesting you do with the digital signage platform,” he said.

Another scenario that is helpful to consider, Rushton suggested, is creating a “one-button scenario on an automated signage system.” If the system is connected to a fire alarm system, for example, it could automatically change all the signage into an information evacuation procedure. Signs could then indicate: “Your nearest exit is this way”; “Please leave this area while we investigate an issue that we’re experiencing”; “This area is now closed. Your nearest exit is in this direction.” Each digital display can ultimately become an instant “evacuation sign,” Rushton said. With the right planning and visual cues, an automated system can help to remove the guesswork from the process.

Redundancy

Even the best automation and programming cannot help if a signal is lost, which is why redundancy essential for MNECs. Some AV stakeholders in the industry view redundancy in two ways: planning multiple means of communication and also having a redundant signal with a failover capability in the signal pathway and redundancy of hardware. “We need multiple signals that are sent out to the different communication devices,” said Lencore’s David Smith. If there is a compromise or a break in the line of signal communication, it would have to be instantly picked up somewhere else. If an amplifier dies, it has to automatically switch over to a live one. If a speaker goes out, an alert must identify the failure.

AV and IT convergence is proving beneficial for system redundancy, according to Josh Srago, CTS, consultant, writer, analyst, and design engineer for TEECOM Consulting Group. Srago recently consulted on a high-level, wide-area mass notifications system for exterior paging on a school campus. “Through mesh networking and spanning trees, we have the capability of plugging it into the network and setting it up for redundant pathways that take place digitally [in separate pathways], as opposed to analog,” Srago said.

Intelligibility

The audio components of MNECs aren’t just extra loud speakers with incredible coverage patterns. Every MNEC system needs to be highly “intelligible” in relation to the space and users it serves. Intelligibility is paramount, but it has nuances based on user needs, specific venue locations (indoor and outdoor), and live events. The NFPA-72 code identifies acoustically distinguishable spaces (ADS) and requires that intelligibility requirements STI (Speech Transmission Index) are met for inhabited spaces. Annex D is dedicated to all the design, testing, and performance parameters of intelligible announcements. New systems can allow different information to be distributed to different paging zones if necessary.

Ultimately, when it comes to intelligibility, everyone must understand all words and sounds with total clarity, because in the event of an emergency, it is hard to predict how they may react. It’s also important to ensure there there will be no breakdown in the signal. There are increasingly effective ways, particularly via IP, to integrate a variety of third-party components, like audio, video, and lighting, to create a cohesive, time-sensitive MNEC.

Risk Assessment and Needs Analysis

It is critical for AV integrators and consultants to verify the completion of a risk assessment and correlating plan for deployment. From there, the AV professional can understand what that communication plan should look like and how to execute it. Just like any other project, the earlier the better to gather stakeholders at the planning table, including the IT team. Consultants can play a key role in exploring current systems, potential deficiencies, and future MNEC needs. There is another reality: some schools may need local law enforcement and first responders to provide buy-in about collaboration during a critical emergency.

Who, then, “owns” a mass notifications risk assessment? While consultants and integrators can join in collaboratively to help all parties understand the technological requirements and the interplay with AV, space, and design, ultimately the risk assessment responsibility falls to the owner of the facility, facility manager, or technology manager.

MNECs for a New Generation

As organizations explore the potential benefits of big data, and intelligent building automation becomes more robust, a new generation of room monitoring software dashboards can provide interfaces to view, monitor, control, and record information from integrated building systems, including MNECs.

Additionally, understanding the culture of a facility is important when planning the mass notifications systems of tomorrow. Think of how many ways there are to communicate and share protocol information. In a facility filled with Gen Z students or millennial employees, how would they want to be contacted? What are the most effective methods to reach them instantly? How can MNEC planning accommodate for the handicapped and or differently abled? What the NPFA-72 code does suggest is that an organization must have redundancy for communication; you cannot send out one audible message or rely on one digital signage display alone. Multiple means of communication are required to ensure that all organizations members receive that emergency message.

When it comes to text messaging, approval is a major challenge faced by universities. Who can utilize student information such as cell phone numbers? David Smith told SCN that he has heard of examples where universities have collected cell phone numbers and then misused that information. “The danger of this is that people will disconnect from that notification system, or ‘opt out,’ he said. “Therefore, you’ve just eliminated the means of communication that you thought was maybe your primary method.”

In that case, if SMS alerts were not possible, the strategic integration of IP-based audio paging, digital signage, and visual paging would help students stay calm and carry on.

Train Up

In the past few years, SynAudCon has held trainings on Emergency Communication Systems and Code Requirements for Speech Intelligibility. Stay current with SynAudCon’s training schedule via www.prosoundtraining.com.

Mass Notification Criteria

In designing a MNEC system, the four key elements, according to Lencore, are reach, clarity, redundancy, and reporting.

• Reach is about coverage to 100 percent of the intended audience to inform and instruct. Reach can be visual and/or audible throughout the entire facility.
• Clarity is the degree to which the intended audience understands the message they are receiving.
• Redundancy is the system’s built-in fail safes. A MNEC system should be able to not only notify you of a compromise in the system, but it should ensure 24/7 operability with a redundant signal.
• Reporting capabilities for the system provide real-time notifications should the system be tampered with, fall off-line, or if the integrity of a system component is compromised. Alert messages are automatically triggered so that issues can receive immediate attention.
—Courtesy of Lencore

The What: In an effort to provide security professionals with best-in-class signal management solutions, Nortek Security & Control (NSC) introduced an all-new line of Xantech HDMI Distribution solutions. The new line—including extenders, splitters and switchers, matrix switchers, audio distribution solutions, and a signal manager—was first shown at ISC West 2018 in Las Vegas, NV.

The What Else: “For years, security professionals have turned to Xantech for reliability. The Xantech commitment to high-performance solutions is at the heart of everything we do, and the new HDMI line is no exception,” said NSC product manager of new initiatives Neal Ellsworth. “As video distribution becomes a bigger part of surveillance installations and as more ‘security’ dealers are doing A/V projects, it made sense for us to showcase the launch at ISC West. This broad line of HDMI distribution products matches exceptional performance with affordable pricing, giving dealers solutions for every installation need.”

The Bottom Line: The new Xantech line includes: three extenders, five splitters, three matrix switchers, three audio accessories, and an HDMI signal manager.

“The new Xantech HDMI Distribution line continues the brand’s heritage of delivering solid connectivity solutions for all types of installations,” Ellsworth concluded. “We look forward to making installation easier and more profitable for security professionals with this significant introduction.”

Today’s AV system professionals face a unique set of challenges posed by integrated audio, video, and lighting systems combined with an expanding range of networking protocols and rapid advances in both hardware and software.

To help designers and installers meet these challenges, Allen & Heath's installation product manager Martijn Verkerk will present a special training session, ‘Designing Efficient, Cost-Effective Distributed Audio and Integrated Hardware Control,’ at InfoComm 2018 in Las Vegas, NV.

Verkerk brings 25-plus years of experience in real-world integration, training and the development of audio products. His session is designed for everyone from the casual non-technical user to the experienced audio engineer.

The session will present core concepts that are applicable to a wide range of products and applications from background music and corporate presentations through large scale live performances. Using Allen & Heath’s dLive Digital Mixing System as a sample platform, session attendees will learn to create scalable, distributed, integrated systems with versatile control options well suited for educational and sports facilities, houses of worship, live performance spaces, and more.

“As we see Allen & Heath audio solutions placed into a wide range of facilities around the world, it was a no-brainer for us to ramp up our presence in the pro AV space and offer comprehensive training of this type at InfoComm," Jeff Hawley, marketing manager for Allen & Heath USA said.

For more information:

Session 1
June 5, 3:00pm - 4:30pm
http://bit.ly/AHInfoComm1

Session 2
June 6, 3:00pm - 4:30pm
http://bit.ly/AHInfoComm2