A recent installation of Shure’s Microflex Advance MXA910 Ceiling Array Microphone has provided audio clarity, along with flexibility, at KPMG’s U-Collaborate space in Canary Wharf, with MXA910 part of the company’s new Voice Lift system.
Unlike conventional sound reinforcement systems, Voice Lift boosts the frequency range most critical for intelligibility, restoring the natural speech level for far-end participants within a room by increasing speech level 3 to 6dB. The effect is so subtle that participants notice the difference as soon as the system is turned off.
KPMG’s U-Collaborate pace is a bespoke environment that combines problem solving expertise and powerful SME insights to help client’s overcome complex challenges, such as strategy, transformation delivery or a new operating model, with the ability to host live events of up to 120 participants all working rapidly in parallel to co-create effective solutions, delivering months of work in just one to three days.
“A lot of the work we do is actually conversation,” said Paul Guy, collaboration solutions engineer, KPMG. “It’s people talking to people, from different parts of the business, understanding their different vantage points. We need to make communication very easy.”
When it came to choosing a system to allow easy, flexible communication within one of the KPMG meeting rooms – which is a very large event space capable of seating 80 people at a time – the company approached AV specialist proAV to find a single solution that could cope with the complex issues surrounding the installation, with voice lift also a requirement of the project.
“KPMG contacted me to come up with potential solutions which would alleviate the requirement for handheld and lapel microphones during a normal session,” explained Jon Maguire, client direct sales manager, proAV. “The quality of the MXA910 in my mind is superior to anything out there on the market.”
“There’s a whole group of people that actually view a microphone with horror,” added Guy. “The great thing about using the MXA910s with Voice Lift is they take all of that away. You no longer have to give out microphones to people; all they have to do is talk and they’re picked up immediately. It’s made collaboration much easier.”
The flexibility of MXA910 means the system is also more than adequate for use in videoconferencing situations, especially when bringing in a remote participant, with the MXA910s used alongside Voice Lift system.
“That discussion is as though the person was in the room,” said Guy.
