Apr 4, 2006 5:31 PM

Performing arts and convention center The Edge at the Aotea Centre in Auckland will become New Zealand’s first Harman HiQnet™ installation. The HiQnet system, featuring BSS and Crown components, will form the foundation of the new paging and background music system.

The Edge features five performing arts houses that function as an anchor for New Zealand’s arts community: the 2,200-seat ASB Theatre in the Aotea Centre, the 2,300-seat Civic Theatre, 1,700-sear Auckland Town Hall, 500-seat Concert Chamber and 190-seat Herald Theatre. In addition, The Edge hosts a number of conferences and conventions in its Aotea Square in concert with its numerous theaters.

The original background music system was installed by Jands Electronics New Zealand in 1989 and covered the Aotea Centre’s main theater foyer areas for all paging and fire evacuation duties. As part of the current upgrade requirements, the fire evacuation system is being separated and will become stand-alone. The new background music system will be used for recorded announcements, paging and music feeds to the ASB Theatre foyer, Herald Theatre foyer bar and convention room foyers over three levels, as well as the back of house theater paging.

The new system uses two BSS Soundweb London BLU-80 processors and nine Crown CTs600 amplifiers using Crown USP3CN cards. The Soundweb London BLU-80 units are configured to use 12 analog inputs and four analog outputs per device. The 12 analog sources are processed and prioritized before being transmitted to the amplifiers via CobraNet. The Soundweb London BLU-80 units are also configured as to operate as a redundant system, with the first unit acting as the master and the second as a redundant backup. The processing inside the BLU-80 units is mirrored and linked where required using the HiQnet London Architect software.

Two Soundweb London BLU-10 wall-mount remote controllers offer users interaction with the paging microphone in the ASB Theatre foyer and the Stage Managers Prompt Corner.

The HiQnet London Architect design and control software has been configured so that there are multiple operator levels for the foyer staff, technicians, supervisors and managers, with screens tailored for each technician or computer location. The main hardware and software design and commissioning is being overseen by Jands Electronics New Zealand, with onsite integration by Tony Blandford and his staff and the Aotea Centre technicians.

For more information, visit www.harmanpro.com.

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