With videoconferencing becoming a “must have” feature in meeting rooms, it can be challenging to provide seamless audio capture of specific areas without picking up undesired sound from other areas. The solution is a ceiling array mic with precise coverage control that adapts easily to a wide variety of room layouts and situations.
Providing audio coverage in meeting rooms is always a challenge. In some rooms, you want coverage from wall to wall. In other rooms, you need to cover only part of the room and exclude the rest. And in some rooms you need to create a patchwork of coverage zones.
There’s no shortage of ceiling microphones that can be used in a meeting room, training room, or auditorium. Some provide a circular pickup pattern of varying sizes directly below the mic, while others form a beam that can point at a specific location. Some are easily adjustable and some aren’t.
The new Shure Microflex® Advance™ MXA920 Ceiling Array Microphone lets you choose between covering a wide area or specific locations, and can even handle more complex audio needs in larger rooms.
Cover Everyone Everywhere
In a standard meeting room, there’s a square or rectangular table. The goal is to cover everyone at the table and perhaps even those sitting in chairs along the side walls. The MXA920 is actually set up for this type of room right out of the box, with automatic coverage of up to a 30 by 30 foot area.
Even better, the microphone’s proprietary Automatic Coverage™ technology tailors its coverage to where people are actually sitting. In a large meeting, it distributes audio pickup evenly throughout the entire area. When fewer people are present, the microphone shifts coverage to those specific areas.
Here But Not There
In a lecture hall or training room where lots of question-and-answer is likely, you might need to pick up both the presenter at the front of the room and the people sitting at a number of tables arranged classroom-style. But you might not want to hear the sound of students coming in the doors at the sides or rear of the room.
The MXA920 lets you place up to eight distinct coverage areas to ensure that everyone is heard clearly. You can shift the automatic coverage to where you want it, just by clicking, dragging, and resizing to match the intended area, such as a 6-seat table. The mic will pickup any and all talkers in that area, while ignoring sounds from outside the area. You can also place a dedicated coverage area over priority areas like a podium or workstation to capture the presenter.
Being In Two Places At Once
Dynamic conversations often involve people talking over each other. Ceiling mics that have only one pickup beam can only pick one location at a time, but the MXA920 can pick up multiple talkers in different parts of the room without missing a beat. This lets a lecture or training seminar feel more like a lively discussion, which keeps participants fully engaged.
Voice Lift Makes Large Rooms Feel Smaller
In a large room, it can be difficult for audience members to hear what questions others are asking. The typical solution – passing one or two handheld wireless mics around – can be awkward and inhibits free-flowing conversation. The MXA920 includes the option of selecting Steerable Coverage™ technology with individual audio outputs for each pickup lobe, which can be routed to loudspeakers in different zones in the room (in addition to being fed to the video codec). This way, a ceiling mic can pick up the presenter and the audience for a discreet – and completely touchless — solution that allows people in the room to hear each other while keeping remote participants fully engaged in the conversation.
The demanding needs of today’s meeting spaces make it essential to choose audio components that can adapt to a wide variety of situations. By providing system designers and integrators with a full suite of options, the MXA920 ceiling array microphone – along with other Microflex Ecosystem components – make it easier to deliver the solutions that corporate, education, and government clients require that work seamlessly together for effortless collaboration.
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AUTHOR BIO:
Chris Lyons — Senior Manager / Integrated Systems Marketing, Shure Incorporated
Chris Lyons is a 36-year Shure veteran who has filled a variety of different marketing and public relations roles. His specialty is making complicated audio technology easy to understand, usually with an analogy that involves cars or food. He doesn’t sing or play an instrument, but he does make Shure Associates laugh once in a while.
