Audio

By SVG Staff Friday, January 28, 2022 - 7:10 am Print This Story | Subscribe

Audio-Technica has launched its new ATND1061 Beamforming Ceiling Array Microphone, designed as an ideal solution for conference rooms, boardrooms and other meeting spaces.

The Dante-enabled ATND1061 has six individual output channels, with up to 32 user-defined pickup zones delivering the flexibility to cover a wide variety of room sizes and meeting types. Zones can be configured to ensure coverage of priority participants in known locations, or unplanned and non-priority parties (exclusion zones can also be set in software to avoid sources of unknown noise such as air-handling systems).

Output Channel 1 can be configured with 16 user-defined Coverage Zones, within which a meeting participant may be seated or moving while speaking. The beam will track and keep the microphone focussed on the speaker’s voice, minimizing any room noise. Only one of the 16 Coverage Zones can be open at a time, with the microphone automatically selecting the zone with the strongest signal identified as speech. Audio-Technica’s voice activity detection (VAD) technology enables the microphone to discern between a voice and unwanted noises such as paper shuffling.

Room configuration, zone setup, and other settings are handled through the user-friendly Digital Microphone Manager software application. For integrations without external digital signal processing (DSP), the ATND1061 features powerful onboard DSP, including automix, acoustic echo cancellation (AEC), noise reduction, automatic gain control (AGC), and 4-band EQ.

The Dante-enabled ATND1061 has two network ports which can be configured to fit any installation requirement. In “Single Cable Mode,” Dante audio and microphone control data are sent together over a single standard category cable. In “Split Mode,” Dante audio and microphone control data are sent separately over two category cables.

The ATND1061 can be flush- or surface-mounted in a drop ceiling or hard ceiling, or mounted in open architecture spaces via a standard VESA mount. The ATND1061 is UL 2043 compliant for installation in plenum spaces. All mounts, safety wiring, mounting hardware, and accessories are included.