Available through Phonak's worldwide distribution partner Espro Acoustiguide, the all-new guide-U is a tour guiding system that is suitable for use at every type of visitor destination, from tourist attractions and museums to exhibition centres and production plants, says the company.
"This next-generation guide-U offers the best sound quality in the industry and with its flexible configuration options suits all group sizes and situations," says Evert Dijkstra, managing director of Phonak Communications. "We are confident it will more than meet the needs of tourist sites and visitor centers for many years to come."
guide-U employs Phonak's Dynamic Speech Extractor technology. Optimised for use with guide-U's new presenter boom-mic, this provides top speech sound quality, even in potentially noisy environments such as tourist hot-spots or factories.
Dynamic Speech Extractor identifies and separates out speech sounds from the surrounding ambient noise, automatically adjusting the output of each visitor's audio to provide the clearest contrast against these potentially distracting sounds.
guide-U now also enables interactive group discussion, allowing additional presenters and visitors to join in the discussion by broadcasting their comments directly to other receiver-wearers. Thanks to its support of Phonak's proprietary MultiTalker Network, up to nine additional transmitter microphones - including a new visitor-friendly passaround microphone - can interact alongside guide-U's primary transmitter (used by the group's guide or leader).
The full guide-U system features one or more speech transmitters (up to 10 in total), while visitors wear the elegant guide-U receiver around the neck and can choose between traditional headphones or guide-U's alternative 'around-the-ear' headset. Thanks to guide-U being a multi-frequency platform several guide-U groups can easily operate in the same area. A public area transmitter, the TX300V, is also available, allowing guide-U to be permanently installed in public venues such as theatres and houses of worship.
(Jim Evans)
