With hybrid work environments becoming the new norm, the need for reliable audio solutions is increasing greatly. The market is filled with accessible one-on-one solutions, but what about the need to transmit audio picking up multiple people at once, populating larger spaces such as meeting rooms or lecture halls?
ADECIA, the new audio ceiling solution by Yamaha, is meant to do just that.
The advanced ceiling microphone conference system provides a complete audio solution for meeting rooms, classrooms or any other medium-to-large spaces. It comprises of a number of basic components: a ceiling microphone, a core processor, a set of two Dante VXL1-16P speakers, and a PoE+ switch.
All you actually need to bring is your laptop or PC – ADECIA brings all the rest.
How Does It Work?
The ADECIA microphone has 64 capsules, which work together to create four beamforming dynamic microphone arrays. This means that if four people are sitting around a table, each one will have a beam locked onto them, clearly transmitting whatever they say.
If a fifth person comes into the conversation, the oldest unused beam will be repurposed to them.
Other than its microphone, ADECIA has quite a few other attractive sound features.
It has automatic gain control, adaptive echo cancellation and active noise reduction; it’s software-agnostic, which means it plays well with Microsoft Teams, Zoom or any other UC platform; and it’s Plug-and-Play.
It also has three different mounting options: you can go for flush mount, suspend it from a pole via a VESA mount, or suspend it from wires.
“These are quite important in today’s design world,” explains Scott Coltham, Application Specialist at Yamaha.
“With COVID, designers are trying to create more volume in spaces for airflow, so a lot of meeting rooms are actually going up rather than out. This makes the suspended microphone extremely relevant”
Quality and Accessibility in One
ADECIA provides its user with a top-notch, comprehensive audio experience while still being extremely easy to install.
“Many solutions out there are quite complicated in terms of being installed,” explains Reece Stead, Business Development Manager for Yamaha Unified Communications in the UK. “So it can take quite a bit of time and training to understand how the system works, and to be able to make it flexible in the way that the customer needs.”
“We took our expertise in audio for conferencing, and combined it with the requirement for a much easier-to-install solution. This is how we came up with ADECIA”
In fact, the first time a user connects their device to the ADECIA system, it walks them through an intuitive setup wizard. The setup wizard allows the user to auto-tune their room, analysing the acoustics within the space and providing the best audio properties.
“There’s no in-depth acoustic or networking knowledge you need, so it’s incredibly simple and straightforward to implement. Even if you’re an IT technician with no AV expertise, you can definitely do it on your own,” says Coltham.
A Variety of Audio Expansions
The ADECIA solution is easy-to-implement for non-experts, but some may still want to expand it further and combine it with other bits of equipment. So, no worries: Yamaha’s solution is definitely scalable – it just requires some additional expertise.
That’s where AV integrators come in.
“The speakers, the microphone, the core processor, and the switch – that is a self-contained unit, and it’s very easy to install,” explains Stead.
Where the real AV expertise comes into it is in programming more complex things, like those having to do with Digital Signal Processing”
“ADECIA can work with as many microphones as required, all connected back to a central DSP, and they don’t even have to be in the same room,” says Coltham. “As long as they’re Dante enabled, the network will be able to handle multiple channels.”
ADECIA is available as of January 2021, either directly through Yamaha or through its local UC distributors.
