Although we are seeing smaller and smaller speakers, they are able to reproduce sound with great clarity and efficiency, allow to cover larger areas with a reduced number of speakers and a faster and easier installation.
By Richard Santa
One of the sectors of the economy that is most marking the growth of the countries of Latin America is construction. The governments of the region sought to avoid the collapse of the economies during the economic crisis by doing public works.
Now, when the crisis is part of the past and the world has its eyes on Latin America, construction continues with an important boom, because the governments of the region are looking to get out of the backwardness in road and housing infrastructure.
This infrastructure includes the remodeling of airports, as is the case in Colombia and Panama, which have two processes underway.
But the private sector is not far behind, and the construction of public buildings such as hotels and shopping malls is also growing, with a sustained pace, making an encouraging outlook for manufacturers and installers of high-performance loudspeakers for commercial buildings.
And that optimism is perceived when talking to entrepreneurs in the sector. Alejandro Escobar, manager of Echo, maintains that "during 2010 the slope in the curve of the construction business in countries such as Colombia was positive despite the global economic crisis. The trend continues for the following two years equally positive."
On the market for loudspeakers for commercial buildings, he adds that the leading country in Latin America in installation is Brazil. "They have been submitting to the rules for several years, complying with them to the fullest. In addition, the most important firms in this market have chosen this country to locate their operations centers for the entire region."
It is followed, in its order, by Argentina, Colombia and Chile, countries to which new generations of professionals in these branches have entered their communities, creating more and more needs and technical requirements.
New developments
And precisely the industry responds to these new requirements for high-performance speakers. Juan Carlos Yepes of Meyer Sound argues that there is a new series of self-amplified airship column arrangement speakers that offer unprecedented control and a low-key aesthetic.
This company offers in the market CAL speakers and products such as the MM-4XP in its various versions MM-4XPD and MM-4XPV, equipment that provide good intelligibility in highly reverberant environments.
"Cal airship column array speakers feature unparalleled vertical coverage control and low-distortion sound developed and refined over years of scientific research in airship sound technology," says Juan Carlos Yepes.
In this regard, Alejandro Escobar states that the market for large surfaces for commercial and institutional use is on the trend of implementing loudspeakers complying with the aesthetic and electroacoustic efficiency requirements raised by the builders.
"These places are where manufacturers have done their best by proposing speakers with low energy consumption, high sensitivity and low visual impact aesthetically speaking."
Oliver Baumann, VP of Marketing and Sales for Latin America and the Caribbean at Sennheiser Electronic, indicates that there are two interesting developments in this field: the first is the higher efficiency and quality of speaker systems and the second is the use of smart grids for the transmission of the audio signal.
Features
Baumann reports that smart grids are increasingly in use. "The idea is to use network cabling, in many cases CAT5, to send various video and audio signals. Formats such as Cobranet allow you to use an Ethernet network to connect a large number of speakers."
The wiring is simpler than in a conventional system, which allows to save costs in the installation. Another advantage is that the configuration of zones can be easily altered and in case it is necessary to add components such as microphones and speakers, this is simpler than with traditional systems, in which a separate cable line would have to be thrown for each new component.
Meyer Sound products are designed by engineers looking to make them useful in sound field synthesis applications and optimized to enable directionality and a dedicated amplifier channel that empowers each unit to accurately control vertical behavior.
The CAL provides 120 degrees of horizontal coverage and is available in three different column lengths ranging from less than 90 cm to 1.8 meters to fit the power and coverage requirements of a facility, operating over a frequency range of 150 Hz to 10 kHz.
In addition, the CAL supports digital AES/EBU inputs, Ethernet AVB, analog inputs and is equipped with the RMS remote monitoring system.
Alejandro Escobar says that currently the speakers have high resistance to environmental conditions such as humidity, dust and solar rays, which guarantees a longer service life than traditional equipment that does not have these preferences.
The new equipment has a more discreet design, in order to generate less visual impact and adaptation to spaces. The most important feature of the new generation has to do with the requirement of the highest possible compliance with global evacuation standards.
"Intelligibility, in this case the most relevant acoustic characteristic, is achieved with certifications that guarantee compliance with its electroacoustic properties such as sensitivity, radiation patterns, frequency range and consumption power. Traditional speakers in the region rarely meet these qualities exposed in their technical sheets and in the worst case some do not exhibit the most important ones."
Installation difficulties
For Juan Carlos Yepes, all types of facilities present a set of challenges that must be carefully addressed using the best tools at hand.
"The MAPP Online Pro (Multipurpose Acoustic Prediction Program) tools is the Java-based cross-platform application that accurately predicts the coverage pattern, frequency and pulse responses, and maximum array sound pressure of Meyer Sound speakers."
He concludes that his company has a goal to simplify our tools and make them more intuitive and easy to use. "Most people are not power users, and we want our products to be usable by everyone."
The Echo manager maintains that the new generation speakers are designed to be implemented in two types of construction: HiTech, where finishes are in sight and clean constructions of false sky.
"In Latin America the quality of the constructions is very low, the consistency of the material is porous, therefore the anchors of the satellite speakers are defective and not very resistant to weight. The use of materials such as Drywall is very new, for this reason installation accessories are scarce."
Finally, Oliver Baumann points out that the new developments simplify the installation and operation of sound systems in commercial buildings.
"The installer will need to understand some basic concepts about data networks, in order to find possible faults, such as latency issues. Even PC control is relatively intuitive and requires nothing more than a brief training."
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