Audio has often been the overlooked partner to video. With the myriad of microphone and speaker solutions available at various price points, technologies, sizes, and distribution capabilities, this is changing. Microphones designed to capture voices from participants seated at movable desks, digitally steerable column loudspeakers to overcome acoustic obstacles, soundbars for small meeting spaces, or in-ceiling systems have changed the collaboration and meeting room landscape. Today, there’s no shortage of solutions tailored to specific use cases.
We reached out to AV/IT industry thought leaders to share their insights and best practices on achieving high-quality audio.
Randall Lee, Vice President of Marketing and Product Management at Bogen Communications
In today’s educational and corporate environments, audio solutions have evolved into powerful, intelligent systems that drive communication, collaboration, and safety. Designing audio for today’s meeting rooms, classrooms, and flexible workspaces should include everything from speaker placement and mic pickup to acoustic treatment, mobility, and system integration.
The best room audio setups start with a thorough understanding of how the space will be used. Microphones may need to capture voices from participants seated at movable desks or tables, while some spaces require sound reinforcement for presenters, particularly in large or acoustically challenging environments. Speaker placement may be fixed or adaptable based on room configuration. Additionally, paging, intercom, and panic button systems are often necessary and may need to connect with other rooms or administrators. These considerations are important when evaluating audio solutions for today’s audiovisual environments.
Beyond traditional analog systems, IP-based audio platforms offer the scalability and flexibility that meeting rooms, classrooms, and flexible workspaces require. Systems like Bogen Communications’ Nyquist deliver clear, consistent audio across a wide range of environments, from classrooms and conference rooms to lobbies and campuses. With support for virtually unlimited zones and endpoints, IP speakers and microphones can be deployed where they’re needed most while remaining centrally manageable through a unified interface.
IP-based solutions are especially powerful because of their ability to serve multiple roles, including reinforcing sound during instruction or presentations, enabling paging and intercom communication, supporting ADA accessibility features, and serving as the backbone for emergency notifications. With built-in support for cloud-enabled services such as email and SMS alerts—and integration with phone systems, access control, and video surveillance—platforms like Nyquist are a key part of a comprehensive safety and communication infrastructure.
Tyler Troutman, Strategic Market Development at Shure
AV and IT teams managing today’s modern meeting spaces are tasked with delivering consistent, high-quality audio in any circumstance. Whether participants are dialing in remotely or joining a meeting in person, high-quality audio has evolved from a nice-to-have to an essential component of productive and engaging meeting experiences. To create these meeting experiences at scale, IT teams need a combination of the right equipment, flexible design, and streamlined workflows.
Taking a room-first approach to setting up spaces is a good starting point. Evaluate the acoustic environment and room size before selecting the technology for the space. By evaluating the room first and paying attention to a room’s acoustic profile, IT professionals can tailor the microphone and speaker placement to the space while minimizing the impact of reflective surfaces, rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all solution. This helps to ensure speech intelligibility and minimize distractions from background noise.
Scalability is another critical component for consideration when setting up today’s meeting rooms. Building systems with interchangeable components that can scale across multiple rooms offers more flexibility and makes ongoing maintenance more manageable. This leads to faster deployment for IT teams and more consistent performance for end-users.
Supporting modern meetings means planning for flexibility. Spaces need to be adaptable to accommodate both in-room and remote participants. In physical spaces, equipment needs to be set up to capture audio clearly for those dialing in remotely. Prioritizing speech clarity helps to ensure everyone is present in a meeting, regardless of where they are located.
By focusing on flexibility, scalability, and providing equipment that meets the needs of the end-user, IT teams can create spaces that deliver high-quality audio experiences without increasing the complexity of their installations.
Jack Horry, Product Manager, Quorum at Ross Video
Good audio has always mattered, but in today’s meeting and learning environments, it has to do more than just sound clear.
At Ross, we’re thinking about how sound systems can work smarter to serve both in-room participants and those joining remotely. Modern audio technologies like ceiling microphone arrays, fixed mic positions, and AI-driven speaker identification are transforming spaces. This enables automation, reduces operator burden, and creates seamless experiences. That’s how we’ve approached Quorum. Because people speak from known positions, we can assist with switching and audio handling without needing deep operator knowledge.
AI and automation often trigger Orwellian anxieties, but we must consider the tools they provide. A moderator in a large discussion can instantly see who said what and when. Real-time captioning and speech-to-text have largely replaced stenographers—not because the role was unnecessary, but because the original goals of speed, accuracy, and accessibility are now better met through shared, real-time data. It’s not about replacing people; it’s about empowering everyone in the conversation with immediate access to what’s being said.
The more metadata your system captures—from speaker ID to location to timestamp—the more valuable your content becomes. It can be searched, archived, translated, or captioned in real time, improving inclusion and comprehension for everyone. Historically, this meant removing variables—fixing seating, and tuning rooms. That still helps, but modern systems can adapt in real time, offering a smarter path forward.
Ross is designing with this future in mind. You’re not just investing in sound quality; you’re future-proofing your environment. We believe the best systems don’t just hear the room; they understand it.
David Missall, Insights Manager, Consultants and Technical Application Engineer Manager at Sennheiser
Even with crystal-clear video, the past five years have underscored how critical distinct, reliable audio is for effective communication. Whether in a classroom, meeting space, or hybrid environment, poor audio—dropouts, echo, or unclear speech—can quickly derail engagement and productivity. But great audio doesn’t happen by accident; it requires upfront planning and coordination between AV professionals, IT departments, and architectural teams.
Effective audio planning starts with understanding how a room will be used. A two-person huddle space has vastly different needs compared to a 50-seat lecture hall, and this context informs decisions around integrating soundbars, ceiling array mics, or voice lift systems. Acoustic treatment is just as essential, as hard surfaces create reverberation, reducing intelligibility. Carpets, curtains, and acoustic panels help maintain clarity, especially when paired with a layout designed for optimal listening zones.
Additionally, voice lift technology is increasingly being adopted in meeting spaces to improve local speech intelligibility. By reinforcing voices just enough to make conversation feel natural and effortless, voice lift can reduce fatigue and support inclusive communication in large meeting spaces.
Equally important is device interoperability. Today’s AV ecosystems feature equipment from different manufacturers, and they all must work together seamlessly. Open APIs and brand-agnostic solutions support long-term flexibility are making it easier to evolve with user needs.
Platform certification is another critical piece. Sennheiser’s solutions are certified for Microsoft Teams and Zoom, ensuring dependable performance and a consistent user experience.
For those looking to streamline the planning efforts, Sennheiser’s free, browser-based Room Planner tool allows AV teams to map out room layouts and identify the right microphone and speaker configurations for each space.
Michael Bridwell, Vice President of Commercial Audio Sales at AtlasIED
Speech intelligibility is the foundation of effective communication in meeting rooms, classrooms, and corporate or higher education spaces. If participants can’t clearly hear and understand what’s being said, the purpose of the gathering is lost—whether in person, virtual, or hybrid.
Modern architectural trends present unique acoustic challenges, particularly with highly reflective surfaces such as glass, marble, and stone. In these environments, simply increasing volume isn’t enough; it’s about precision. That’s where beam steering technology comes in.
Digitally steerable column loudspeakers, such as AtlasIED’s Aimline ALX-D Series, are specifically designed to overcome acoustic obstacles by directing sound only where it’s needed—on the audience—while avoiding ceilings, floors, and other reflective surfaces. Each transducer in the ALX-D Series has its own DSP and amplifier channel, enabling precise, software-based sound targeting. This results in significantly improved direct-to-reverberant ratio and enhanced speech clarity.
The beauty of beam steering is that it eliminates the need for mechanical tilting or repositioning of loudspeakers. This means integrators can maintain clean architectural lines by wall-mounting or recessing loudspeakers, while still achieving pinpoint coverage. For reverberant or acoustically complex rooms, beam steering often isn’t just a best practice—it’s the only viable solution for delivering intelligible audio.
By embracing digitally steerable loudspeaker technology, AV integrators and facility managers can transform meeting and learning spaces into environments where communication is clear, engagement is higher, and outcomes are stronger.
Joel Mulpeter, Senior Director, Product Marketing at Crestron
The industry is moving in a very clear direction when it comes to audio-over-IP.
Commercial audio is a discipline in itself. Customers expect audio signals to be available on the network, where they can be routed and processed between audio-over-IP endpoints and controlled and configured remotely. We took that trend as an opportunity to not only develop video products with audio support, but also create an entire portfolio of comprehensive, flexible, and scalable network audio products that make deploying and managing large-scale audio systems as simple as possible.
The move to network audio from the old cabling of the past is a huge benefit, especially for commercial deployments. Network-based audio systems allow for the best scalability and the most flexibility in routing, processing, and distribution. Audio-over-IP solutions deliver sound at near-zero latency. They’re often interoperable with audio industry standards, easy to install, can support enterprise-grade network security standards, and can offer a wide array of streaming service capabilities. They’re often very energy efficient, to boot.
Whether it’s the sound system for a single hotel or company lobby, or a centrally controlled campus audio system, an AoIP ecosystem can make powerful audio systems a reality. There’s a long and growing list of potential use cases: Retail, hospitality, corporate campuses, higher education, training centers, conference rooms, bars, restaurants, and fitness centers can all benefit from audio-over-IP commercial audio systems. As for Crestron, our DM NAX technology audio systems are 100 percent scalable and can therefore cover a wide range of applications while allowing for future growth. And there’s another plus: These systems can be remotely managed and monitored, enabling support teams to troubleshoot and solve problems without putting a truck on the road.
Joe da Silva, Vice President of Marketing at Extron
Places where people gather for classes, meetings, and other events now require audio systems that have a considerable amount of flexibility. Extron solutions are a key part of spaces that are designed or retrofitted for flexibility in terms of audio connectivity and divisibility.
From a signal flow point of view, flexible designs often start with beam-forming microphone arrays such as those available from Extron partners. These microphone arrays easily handle a person speaking in any part of a room, and even actively track them as they move around. As powerful as that is by itself, it’s in the DSP audio processor where the real magic happens.
An Extron DSP audio processor is able to route any input signal to any output, with the capability of utilizing networked audio connectivity. That routing is managed by a matrix mixer that includes essential signal processing such as compression for evening out audio levels, filters for adjusting the tonal characteristics of the audio, and acoustic echo cancellation (AEC) for eliminating the echo that can otherwise come from the far end of a VoIP call.
When large spaces get divided into smaller rooms, or participants’ locations vary from day to day, Extron DSP audio processors support preset recall that quickly and accurately reconfigures the audio routing for each configuration. Preset recall and real-time changes, such as volume, are driven by intuitive Extron touch panel or button control systems.
A variety of Extron speakers get divided into zones, driven by Extron network audio power amplifiers, to cover different areas within the overall space. The audio assigned to each zone is separately managed by the DSP audio processor for optimal sound in any chosen room configuration.
A successfully designed space can handle practically any scenario that comes along, and Extron products are designed with the flexibility needed built right in.
Nancy Knowlton, Chief Executive Officer at Nureva
In today’s corporate and educational environments, design aesthetics often take center stage. Sleek modern furniture, bold color palettes, and open layouts dominate the conversation. Amid visual planning and transformation, one critical element is frequently neglected: acoustics.
Modern meeting rooms, classrooms, and hybrid collaboration spaces are increasingly designed with hard surfaces, exposed ceilings, concrete flooring, minimalist décor, and one or more glass walls. While visually appealing, these materials reflect sound, creating echo, reverberation, and poor speech intelligibility. The result? In-room participants struggle to hear clearly, and remote attendees are left with distorted audio, undermining the very purpose of these spaces: namely, to foster effective communication.
The rise of hybrid working and learning models has only amplified the need to prioritize acoustic design. A space that looks cutting-edge but doesn’t deliver a great listening experience fails to support productivity or engagement. Poor acoustics can lead to fatigue, miscommunication, and disengagement, especially in environments where clarity is crucial.
Fortunately, solutions exist. Carpeted floors, dropped ceilings, acoustic panels, ceiling baffles, sound-absorbing furniture, and strategic room layout can dramatically improve the sound quality without compromising on aesthetics. Advances in acoustic materials now allow for integration into design elements—things like decorative wall treatments that double as sound absorbers and sculptural ceiling clouds that enhance both form and function.
Designing for optimal acoustics should be as fundamental as choosing lighting or furniture. It’s time for architects, designers, and facility managers to give top priority to sound as the key user experience they’re creating. And it’s not just new spaces being designed from scratch that need to be considered; rectifying existing acoustically deficient spaces should be made a priority. After all, a space that sounds as good as it looks is not just beautiful—it’s functional.
