Crown HiQnet Band Manager 2 aims to ‘provide the broad community of musicians, DJs, venue owners and managers with access to better sound through sophisticated system integration and optimisation technologies but also via a highly evolved user interface that is reliable, comprehensive and easy to navigate’.
HiQnet Band Manager is an iteration of Harman’s HiQnet system configuration and control protocol. The core systems integration and connectivity capabilities of Harman HiQnet have been customised and packaged for the systems integration, tour sound and MI markets respectively in HiQnet System Architect; HiQnet London Architect, JBL HiQnet Performance Manager and Crown HiQnet BandManager 2.
Band Manager 2 includes control and monitoring for Crown Audio’s XTi 2 product line. Users will be able to manage up to eight XTi 2 amplifiers via quick and simple USB interface. Crown will also have a new set of JBL presets for the XTi 2 product line that take advantage of the enhanced processing and Peakx Plus limiters. HiQnet Band Manager 2 will also include presets for all the JBL JRX, MRX, SRX, and VRX product families and continued support for the original XTi Series, now discontinued.
According to Crown Business Segment Manager for Portable PA, Andy Flint, its introduction will make DJs, engineers and audio rental professionals more efficient and effective at their job and will enable musicians, venue owners and managers to enjoy better performance – and better value – from their systems investment: ‘If you’re going to invest in an audio system and you’re genuinely interested in getting the best possible sound for your business or performance, then HiQnet Band Manager 2 is a must-have,’ he says. ‘HiQnet makes great systems sound even better without the hassle, without the programming and without the requisite setup time that traditionally comes with preparing for a gig.
‘Our first challenge in making HiQnet Band Manager valuable was first to make it accessible,’ Flint explains. ‘We worked closely with target end-users and also modeled it on a browser paradigm and some good ideas from consumer interfaces to make Band Manager 2 easy to understand and quick to learn. We put this front-end on a powerful, scalable engine and we’re offering it for free. This adds up to a very accessible, attractive proposition.’
‘No other manufacturer can offer this scale of integration, system performance or price leadership,’ he adds. ‘In today’s challenging economy, we’re not simply giving more – we’re also empowering MI customers everywhere to demand more of their systems and system manufacturers! In meeting with customers and dealers around the globe, I am consistently told that the investment that Harman made in developing HiQnet has paid a considerable efficiency dividend to our end-users in how they do their job and craft their art. We’re equally grateful for their input, ideas and adoption and we look forward to Band Manager 2 extending the franchise and usefulness to new communities going forward.’
More: www.crownaudio.com
