Flagstaff, AZ--With 39 satellite campuses throughout the state, Northern Arizona University (NAU) is a respected research university offering both undergraduate and graduate degree programs to approximately 25,000 students — 17,000 of which are enrolled at the Flagstaff campus.
At the Cline Library on the main campus, the University recently upgraded its Assembly Hall — a multipurpose space for lectures, presentations, meetings, movies, and more — with a new digital video and audio system. Encompassing a wide assortment of input sources that includes computers, document camera, VCR’s, DVD and Blu-ray surround sound playback plus microphones, the various audio feeds constitute a complex audio setup, managed by an ASPEN processing system from Lectrosonics.
NAU Cline Library contracted with its long time AV technology provider, Phoenix, AZ-based Intent Digital, to develop and install the AV system upgrade in the Cline Library auditorium. Intent Digital is a technology company that focuses on system design and engineering as well as the design and development of control systems used in AV projects for government, medical, house of worship, and institutional clients. Using the combination of its Energize configurable control system—coupled with a Lectrosonics ASPEN SPN1624 processor and SPN32i input expander, Intent Digital created a state-of-the-art AV system. Bob Ginger, Intent Digital’s Technology Partner discussed the project.
“This new system was designed to increase the auditorium’s audio and video input capacity and provide additional surround sound capabilities,” Ginger said. “All audio—from mono microphones to stereo sources to surround sound DVD and Blu-ray sources—are now handled by the ASPEN processor. This involves mixing, surround sound processing, crosspoint routing, presets, EQ, everything audio related. This, of course, includes audio feeds to the surround sound speaker system. While the audio system can be used unattended, our Energize software / hardware control system provides for live mixing and switching.”
“The Energize control system accommodates source selection and live mixing via a touch panel control surface,” Ginger continued. “There are two touch panels— a 12-inch panel in the control room and a 10-inch panel at the podium. From either location, operators have full control of everything in the room, including projector, the DVD and Blu-ray players, audio sources, etc. As the system is operated by both University staff and student workers, we implemented a combination of full operational and simplified operation of input/output audio mixing and muting. Some functions such as equalization are not accessible from Energize to minimize the possibility of something being inadvertently changed.”
Ginger reports that the combination of the Lectrosonics ASPEN processor and the Energize control system work beautifully together. “The ASPEN processor and our Energize control system make a great combination,” he said. “There is so much functionality in the ASPEN. I love the fact that you don’t need to create all the DSP routing, mixing, and EQ blocks to build a system. With its ability to be configured in so many ways, the ASPEN processor is a lot more straight forward than many competing systems I’ve encountered. We also have the entire setup programmed so that, in the event of a power failure for example, the Energize system restores system settings to the last known state—making the entire setup easy to manage and maintain.”
The close business relationship between Intent Digital and Lectrosonics is due, in part, to Lectrosonics’ first-class support and customer service. “We have a great relationship with Lectrosonics,” said Ginger. “Our products integrate very closely with Lectrosonics products and, as a result, we’ve developed a very good relationship with their engineering staff. Lectrosonics support is consistently knowledgeable and very responsive.”
“The combination of ASPEN processor and the Energize control system offers tremendous possibilities. Our client has been extremely pleased with the new system and all reports indicate the equipment is working flawlessly. The student staff is operating a very sophisticated AV system with a very clean, intuitive control interface and everything has gone very smoothly. Currently, we’re working on several additional Lectrosonics/Energize designs for other clients. When a job such as this leads to new business, that’s as good as it gets.”
