Thirty voices in one room. A daunting audio conferencing scenario.

As audio conferencing scenarios go, it was, in a word, daunting.

Imagine 30 engineers in a single 25' x 30' (7.6 x 9.1 m) room in Sunnyvale, California, on a weekly conference call with their counterparts in Granada, Spain. They all want to be heard. Some are seated, some are standing, some are presenting or working at the room’s whiteboards and displays. The room is set up theater style – but that can (and does) change quickly because the chairs are all on wheels. How do you mic a room like that for conference calls? Daunting indeed.

The search for a solution

Solving this scenario was the challenge faced by Raymond Ng, IT manager at Real Time Innovations (RTI), a connectivity company for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), based in Sunnyvale. The IIoT is a highly technical field, and RTI’s clients include leading global organizations in critical sectors, like energy, health care, autonomous driving, robotics and aerospace. Clear communications and seamless collaboration between RTI’s teams of engineers are vital to their success.

Which is why their conference call technology needed to be upgraded. Their legacy system made it difficult for meeting participants to hear each other clearly, and there were frustrations at having to hand the system’s tabletop microphones around the room to be placed nearer to whoever was speaking. The search was on for a better audio conferencing solution.

Raymond first turned to an audiovisual integrator. The initial estimate for an all-the-bells-and-whistles audio and video solution was approximately $50,000. This was much more than RTI wanted to spend, especially since the most pressing issue was simply to solve the problem of bad conference call audio.

“I looked at solutions that would address the audio conferencing issue,” said Raymond. “But I was concerned about the cost of installing a ceiling mic array and the cost and inconvenience of having a technician to come in and fine-tune it. I also considered a multiple mic system, but then you have to move the mics around to make sure they’re in the right place.” Not satisfied, he kept looking.

Virtual mics

An internet search finally led Raymond to the Nureva® HDL300 audio conferencing system. What caught his eye? “The virtual mics,” said Raymond. (The HDL300 with Microphone Mist™ technology fills a room with 8,192 virtual mics that allow everyone to be heard no matter where they move in a room.) “With virtual mics, there would be no need for a complicated installation or to move mics around the room.”

With a MSRP of just US$3,599 in the United States, the HDL300 system solved RTI’s audio issues for a small fraction of their $50,000 estimate (which included some nice-to-have video components and other capabilities that just weren’t a priority for RTI at the time).

And the results have been excellent. “The feedback from the team on the quality of the audio has been great,” said Raymond. The 30 engineers in Sunnyvale can now be heard clearly no matter which one of them is speaking or how they move in the room.

The HDL300 has also made Raymond’s job easier. “It’s a simple, straightforward system. I don’t have to worry about a bunch of components or calibration as I would with a more complicated system. And installation was quick and easy.”

High performance, reasonably priced

Collaboration is vital to the mission of RTI. For Raymond, that means making sure his team members have the high-performance tools that allow them to connect and communicate. Raymond picked the HDL300 because it’s a high-quality, reasonably priced audio conferencing system with innovative technology that meets the demands of a difficult space and challenging meeting style. There was no complicated installation, and it is easy to operate. Perhaps Raymond’s challenge wasn’t so daunting after all?

Simplify your audio

Nureva has simplified everything about audio for hybrid meetings. Installation is an easy job you can do in under 60 minutes. You get true full-room coverage without the cost and hassles of multicomponent systems. And you can manage Nureva audio from anywhere.