Hartlepool Borough Council
Looking to provide high quality, professional and portable audio reproduction for their newly refurbished chamber, Hartlepool Borough Council chose beyerdynamic’s MCW-D 50 Digital Wireless Conference System for the role.

beyerdynamic’s Conference Partner, Blaydon Communications Limited, was successful in tendering for the project which also required the supply of induction loop and infra-red facilities for the hard of hearing, plus a discreet high performance sound reinforcement system.

The Council has to cater for up to 40 councillors in each meeting, but it was felt that the layout of the room permitted the use of one microphone unit between two delegates; this was possible due to the characteristic pick-up pattern of the MCW-D microphone capsule and flexible microphone stem. A total of 27 MCW-D 521 delegate microphone units plus an MCW-D 523 chairman unit make up the system, which is supplemented by two hand-held radio microphones for members of the public to address the meeting if required.

An important requirement for the council was for the system to be able to be moved quickly and easily between other rooms in the building, as well as different venues. This meant that the system had to pack away with the minimum of fuss. As all MCW-D microphone units contain integral battery packs and fixed microphones, only two portable transport racks were required to do the job.

The first rack system consisted of one MCW-D CC10 and one MCW-D CD10 portable transport and charging case, stacked together to cater for 20 microphone units. A further CC10 provided the extra ten charging bays for the remaining microphones, with the matching MCW-D CM10 rack case being added to house the digital central control unit and radio microphone receivers. Due to the design of the cases, the whole system can be moved quickly and easily by a single person.

When asked about the portability and flexibility of the MCW-D product, Blaydon Communications’ Dave Chapman responded: “Detachable goosenecks and batteries are fine and can have advantages but we find more often than not they damage easily in a short space of time. The idea of a wireless system is that it is quick, easy and simple to put out and use. The beyerdynamic MCW-D systems come complete which means a 40 way system can be set up in 2-3 minutes, it really is plug and play. The councils and corporate companies that we have supplied all see the simplicity as a key reason for their purchase.

Two facilities were provided for the hard of hearing; an induction loop system was installed for open meeting use, with visual indication that the loop is operational. Whenever a meeting is to be held ‘in camera’, the loop is switched off and the infra-red system is then used with neck loop converters.

The installation of the sound reinforcement system required an even sound distribution, particularly for public and press seating areas. Bearing this in mind and coupled with the extremely high quality interior design, Blaydon Communications Ltd chose Amina Flat Panel loudspeakers to provide a unique and unobtrusive high quality voice reproduction.

To make the panel loudspeakers even more unobtrusive they were manufactured in a colour specified by the architect. Taking advantage of the unique characteristics of the Amina product meant that only two units were needed to give the required result.

back home