The company had been seeking a fibre system for audio distribution and freelance sound engineer Steve Ayres was asked by Gearhouse Broadcast's group technical director, Kevin Moorhouse, to investigate the options. "We always listen to the engineers we use, as in the end they have to physically use the kit on site," said Moorhouse. "We already had the M7CL desks - so this was a good solution."
Moorhouse arranged for Marquee Audio to lay on a full Optocore demonstration at the Gearhouse warehouse to ascertain "whether the product would actually deliver the solution we required."
Marquee Audio recommended five Optocore DD32E Digital I/O units as the core of the optical fibre network system, along with three sets of Optocore's YG2/YS2 interface cards residing in the rear of the M7CLs. Remote mic and line inputs then connect to the system via a mixture of Optocore's X6P and Yamaha's AD8HR preamps, wired to the DD32E devices. Both types of preamp are directly controllable from the mixing consoles in all locations, while the X6 devices also provide remote analogue outputs to a number of locations.
The M7CL/Optocore combination will now become Gearhouse Broadcast's standard rig for future sports productions (which will mainly comprise tennis tournaments).
Summarised Kevin Moorhouse, "Marquee Audio were extremely helpful in setting up both the original evaluation and the final system preparation and configuration. We feel there is a definite improvement in signal-to-noise levels using the Optocore system over the analogue audio multicore path and our set-up times have been reduced - as well as our shipping costs. On top of all that, the Optocore system allows us an unprecedented level of patching and connectivity."
(Jim Evans)
