The Business + Innovation Centre (BIC) Kaiserslautern technology and start-up centre offers consultation and office space for start-up and young German companies. A wide range of workshops, seminars and training courses are held in the in-house conference centre, comprising several combinable rooms, for both tenants and external clients. With those companies’ needs beginning to exceed the capabilities of its existing audio infrastructure, BIC was keen to modernise – with ease-of-use for non-technical staff the key requirement.

‘The whole thing should be operable with very little to no technical background,’ explains Martin Smarsly from VS Medientechnik, who was assisted on the install by freelancer Jens Ullmert. ‘For most events, no event technician should be necessary.’

With the requirement for eight wireless microphones, plus laptop audio output, to be routed to any combination of rooms, the VS Medientechnik team opted for an Allen & Heath AHM-64 audio matrix processor to handle audio routing and processing. An Allen & Heath DX168 expander was also specified, providing portable I/O expansion to meet more complex requirements in the future.

The conference facilities already benefited from Crestron control panels used in the previous install, and the AHM-64’s flexible control options allowed these to be re-used within the new install. ‘We integrated the AHM-64 into the Crestron control system using the AHM’s TCP/IP protocol,’ Smarsly says. ‘Since we installed the system, a dedicated Crestron driver has also become available which we can use for future installs.’

The most challenging aspect of the installation turned out to be the lack of documentation on the existing cabling in the building. ‘We had to re-crimp the screw terminals of the old system, that took us a whole day,’ laughs Smarsly. ‘Installing and setting up the AHM64 was the smoothest part of the installation. We were pleasantly surprised with how easy and intuitive the AHM64 is to programme.’

More: www.allen-heath.com