The auditorium of Gaia – a net-zero building at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) – has installed Sennheiser’s TeamConnect Ceiling 2 (TCC 2) to support hybrid learning for students.
Gaia is home to NTU Singapore’s Nanyang Business School, one of the best recognised business schools in the Asia-Pacific region. At its 190-seat auditorium in Gaia, the school required seamless communication to support a hybrid learning.
The auditorium has a 9m ceiling height at the front, varying throughout the rest of the room due to the cascading seating arrangement. To fit this auditorium with an A/V system, the Sennheiser team had to calibrate the system and adjust for more than the recommended distance, while taking into consideration the differing ceiling-to-floor distance throughout the auditorium.
‘Physical microphones are a thing of the past,’ says AV Media General Manager, Eileen Goh. ‘They are inflexible and restrict the movement of the speaker. In addition, passing around a microphone also poses a huge hygiene risk. We knew immediately a ceiling microphone was the right solution, and we recommended Sennheiser’s TCC 2 for its audio quality and TruVoicelift functionality’
Given the size of the auditorium, multiple TCC 2 units were required. Over a period of two months, the Sennheiser team worked with the AV Media team to install 12 TCC 2 units with intricate planning, simulations, and calibration in order to achieve the desired outcome.
The initial design planned for 18 TCC 2s to be installed in the auditorium, and following a detailed analysis, the amount was later reduced to 12. Two TCC 2 units were installed at the front of the auditorium to serve as the pickup for the stage area, while the remaining ten were spread across the seating area for audience pickup. The team was conscious about installing just the right number of TCC 2s to cover all areas of the auditorium so that no devices were deemed redundant.
‘We also had to fulfil other requirements, like minimising unwanted sound in the auditorium and ensuring that the lecturer’s volume is prioritised when multiple persons are speaking in the room,’ Goh says.
TruVoicelift includes a noise gate that can be activated during pauses in speaking to prevent background noises from being amplified. In addition, priority zone and advanced exclusion zones can also be set via the Sennheiser Control Cockpit, so that audio at the front of the lecture hall can be prioritised and unwanted noise from air conditioning, other systems, doors and movement of chairs minimised. This is especially useful for a theatre with many such systems and a potentially large audience.
The TCC 2 was also chosen as it would work seamlessly with the Q-Sys auto tracking camera to track the active speaker in the auditorium, so that remote participants would not miss out on key moments during lecturers and discussions and will feel more engaged and involved.
With Sennheiser TCC 2, lecturers are free to move around without having to worry about compromising the audio quality. ‘Students can now enjoy excellent audio in class, where the speaker can be heard from every corner of the room’ Goh says. ‘Most importantly, the system is easy to operate, and the lecturers can do so without technical assistance. This saves time and reduces cost in the long run.’
Sennheiser Control Cockpit also permits the setting of different user profiles to accommodate the specific needs of diverse users, purposes and environments. ‘The lecturers have different preferences,’ says Sennheiser Business Development Manager, Spring Chong. ‘Some may prefer the audio to be amplified, while others might lean toward a more natural level. All these can be easily customised from the back end.’
More: www.sennheiser.com
