A Sound Experience has installed a Symetrix SymNet Edge DSP with AEC in Duke Energy's conference room.
- Duke Energy’s Cliffside Steam Station dates back to the 1930s. It was renovated several times over the decades. It’s most recent renovation, costing approximately $2 billion and incorporating advanced pollution control technologies, went online recently.
- The project also included major upgrades to the 1930s-era office space and conference room. The 75-seat venue is now modernized based on a teleconferencing system built around a SymNet Edge Dante network audio DSP, with four-channel AEC card providing acoustic echo cancellation and noise reduction.
- AV integration firm, A Sound Experience of Boiling Springs, NC, designed and installed the system.
- “Duke is an enormous company and they perform training in different locations,” said owner, A Sound Experience, Preston Hinson. “They required an easy way to assemble people and the conference room was the place to do it.”
- Even before Duke officials requested teleconferencing capabilities, Hinson had planned to use a SymNet Edge DSP for the room’s audio processing and sound reinforcement. His decision was based on the design and configuration with SymNet Composer software and the fact that SymNet Edge is Dante network enabled.
- “It’s a large building and there were a lot of scenarios they want to explore in the future,” Hinson said. “We wanted to give them a Dante system so that we can move audio with simple CAT5 wiring which, combined with SymNet Edge, future proofs the system.”
- A video presentation system for training was the driver for the conference room renovation.
- “They didn’t think they had the budget for teleconferencing, but with the SymNet Edge frame as the basis for the design, it was a simple and cost-effective to add a SymNet AEC Card to the Edge frame’s modular I/O structure," said Hinson. "That relatively small addition gave them all of the hardware and software necessary for state-of-the-art teleconferencing, including acoustic echo cancellation. The result was clean, clear, intelligible audio in the Cliffside room and in the remote locations it connects to.”
- Inputs to the system include wireless lavalier and handheld microphones, remote location audio, a DVD player, and VGA and HDMI video. URC KP 4000 in-wall touch panels control AV source selection, as well as individual and overall volumes.
- Self-powered ISP Technology SM 650B/W loudspeakers fill the room with sound, and a BenQ 6000 lumen projector delivers video. A Furman sequencer powers the system.
- “The system was designed to be simple and end-user friendly – it’s transparent and straightforward,” Hinson said. “There’s a lot of processing going on inside the SymNet Edge and the AEC card that makes it simple and robust. If Duke wants to expand the system in the future, it will be easy for us to move audio via Dante on CAT5 cable.”
