The event, which takes place over two days (3-4 March) with a Networking Dinner as its curtain raiser on day 1 and the exhibition on day 2, continues to expand. "This is one of the reasons we have upgraded the location this year to this luxurious four-star country house hotel," says secretariat manager, Ros Wigmore.
The seminar programme will open at 10am on 4 March, when Kevin Sherwood, sales director of CIE-Group, will posit Is the Market Really Ready for Audio-over-IP?.
It will ask whether the installation industry is ready to adopt a whole new way of thinking for public address and whether clients are generally ready to let the audio industry loose on their networks? With Air Command Headquarters - RAF High Wycombe - now entirely reliant on an Audio-over-IP PA system, this case study-driven seminar will address and overcome the perceived challenges of audio integration into a mission-critical network.
This debate will be followed at 11.30am by the Warren Barnett Memorial Lecture. The topic for Paul Scarbrough, Principal AKUSTIKS, is The Technology is Willing but the Spirit is Weak.
Its premise is that much is made of the convergence of audio and IT networks. Certainly in corporate environments, great progress has been made to rely upon a shared network infrastructure, but what of the performing arts and other high-end critical listening applications?. If the technology is willing, what holds convergence back? This lecture will explore the reasons and propose that the factors influencing convergence in critical listening applications, go beyond technology and often encompass issues of culture and control.
Wrapping up proceedings at 2.30pm will be Trevor Cox, Professor of Acoustic Engineering, University of Salford. His topic: Architectural Defects? A Celebration of Acoustic Aberrations.
Sound engineers often expend considerable effort fighting the effects of poor room acoustics such as focused echoes from domes, excessive reverberation and flutter echoes from parallel walls. But, he will ask, what if these acoustic phenomena were not viewed as defects, but instead celebrated?. This lecture will look at famous and less well-known examples of extraordinary architectural sounds.
Full details about the seminar programme, visitor registration and exhibitor bookings can be obtained by going to http://www.isce.org.uk/iscex-2015/.
(Jim Evans)
