The room is used by the volunteers and the community for gatherings spanning everything from lectures to parties and bingo to movie nights. In addition, the company uses the room to stage training and other educational events. A new Ashly Audio Pema 4250.70 combination 8x8 Protea matrix processor and four-channel amplifier has breathed new life into the system.
"Their old audio system was little more than a basic mixer-amplifier and a few wired mics," explained Karl Maciag, A/V integrations engineer at Toshiba Business Solutions in nearby Tonawanda, New York. Its AV solutions department designed and installed the system for the BVFD. He continued, "They had terrible gain-before-feedback and marginal intelligibility. Of course, budget was a big concern, which necessitated reusing the existing loudspeakers... but with a new Ashly Pema processor and amplifier.
"We sold the department's point-person on the Pema by bringing him to another fire company where we had installed a Pema. He loved it, along with the Ashly WR-5 remote control that made it easy to select sources and adjust volumes. In addition, the Pema was critical because it packs full DSP and four 250W amplifiers in just two rack units. That's exactly how much room we had - no more."
"The Ashly Pema is also a good size for jobs like this," added Leamon Hall, the technician with Toshiba Business Solutions who installed and commissioned the system. "It has eight inputs, which is enough to cover most input counts with a few to spare that the client can grow into. Ashly's control protocol is well constructed. It's easy to set up the network neWR-5 controller for a customized interface, and if I ever have questions, Ashly tech support staff are always ready with an answer. In short, the Ashly Pema is deeply functional, easy to configure, and quick to deploy."
(Jim Evans)
