The University of Edinburgh is a public research university with five campuses that support more than 42,000 students, placing the university among the top ten largest universities in the UK. Challenged by coronavirus pandemic lockdowns, the university’s School of Engineering turned to its Learning Spaces Technology team for a way to share audio between its three instruction labs, and also share audio with students attending remotely. The solution involved Dante-enabled audio components connected via the university’s regular network, switches and cabling on the same VLAN as all its other A/V and managed by Dante Domain Manager (DDM).
The school had previously installed Extron A/V control and Sennheiser in-ceiling and wireless microphone systems, so Learning Spaces Technology Team Manager Stephen Dishon and his team assessed what these manufacturers and their existing equipment had to offer.
‘I spoke with our Sennheiser associate about their intelligent ceiling mics and learned that the system is Dante enabled and that we actually had a demo unit on campus – so we borrowed the unit, popped it into the ceiling in one of the Engineering labs, connected it to the network, and it worked. We made a few network connections with lab techs on campus and with some users connected remotely, and everyone was impressed with the quality. The Dante connectivity made our audio network test a quick and easy success, so we were off and running.’
The Extron control/DSP and HDMI switch units, and the Sennheiser multichannel wireless microphone receivers were all out-of-the-box Dante equipped. Each lab and overflow room also had a pair of Monacor Dante connected speakers as well as Yamaha and Lightware equipment to complete the audio set-up.
‘One of the key trends we have seen in the last few years is more and more Universities adopting the use of Dante as an audio transport standard,’ says Sennheiser Business Development Manager, said Inesh Patel. ‘Much of the reason for this is down to the general adoption of Dante throughout the A/V industry, the guarantee of interoperability and the incredible variety of Dante products available. Sennheiser’s TeamConnect Ceiling 2, with its integrated Dante and support for DDM has helped many universities improve their sound reinforcement and remote/distance learning delivery.’
For the Engineering Labs, the digital audio signals run from the ceiling mics to the signal processor over the network, then from the signal processor — also Dante-enabled — to a pair of network-ready loudspeakers in each room. Additionally, the speakers and microphones are powered via the IP network connection. For the hybrid learning structure, each Engineering Lab has an instructor and around ten students spaced properly within the classroom, with 30 students attending remotely. The labs are used for instruction for six hours each day, five days a week. At any one time, there are roughly 90 to 100 remote students.
‘We keep growing our audio network system, and everything keeps working,’ Dishon says. ‘There’s no need for long, multiple runs of analogue cables, we just plug our equipment into data points on the network — which we have everywhere — configure the workflow with Dante Controller software or Dante Domain Manager, and we’re good to go.
‘We also have a few Dante AVIO USB adaptors in each space in case the instructor or a guest needs to connect their laptop or device to the audio network; the adaptors are easy-to-use, plug-and-play devices, and we can add nearly anything to the audio network with them. We have many instruction spaces with audio equipment that is not Dante-enabled, so we’ll be relying on AVIO adaptors in those situations. We’re also looking at getting some of the Bluetooth adaptors because a couple of our instructors would like a cable-less connection.
‘As we moved the Engineering lab systems over to the network, all users were impressed with the performance; and as the scale of the pandemic became more apparent, we started to look at how we could continue to grow our audio network,’ Dishon adds. ‘We next set up a couple of larger lecture spaces for the Edinburgh College of Art, where they were using a Dante-enabled Bose Panaray steerable array loudspeaker system, and it connected as easily as everything else.’
A large College of Art seminar room also needed to move to a hybrid learning model. The room features cameras and a pair of projection screens that display the remote students. The department needed complete audio interaction and question/answer responses between instructors and students in-class and remote. Similar Dante control, DSP, microphones and the Bose sound system are all connected over the department’s IP network.
‘This seminar room is larger than the Engineering labs but, again, everything worked perfectly,’ Dishon reports. ‘We’re still figuring out some design elements with our campus-wide network, and the general A/V equipment shortage hasn’t helped, but I see nothing other than the continued growth of Dante at the University of Edinburgh.’
