German Centre Shanghai installed five Sennheiser TeamConnect Ceiling 2 (TCC 2) array microphones across two of its conference rooms — “Munich” and “Berlin” — to enhance the audio experience during hybrid meetings and events.
Spanning 200 square metres each, the conference rooms can be used separately or combined into a 500-square-metre space that can accommodate up to 600 people for a stand-up reception.
Located in Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park in the heart of Pudong, German Centre Shanghai is a 33,000-sqm international office and service complex that offers modern facilities, commercial space, conference and meeting facilities as well as networking opportunities and advisory services for its tenants and partners.
The complex hosts nearly 130 companies, including small and mid-sized German companies and international corporations.
Due to the pandemic and the increase in demand for better audio solutions to support hybrid events that are becoming increasingly popular, German Centre Shanghai decided to install five TCC 2 array microphones to meet the needs of its tenants and partners.
“With the large meeting space and capacity that we can accommodate, we often needed to cater for staff to be on standby to pass microphones around the meeting hall,” said Christian Sommer, CEO and chairman of German Centre Shanghai.
“This is not only time consuming and inefficient, but also poses hygiene risks in the current climate,” said Sommer. “We realised that our old setup was outdated and due for an upgrade,”
TCC 2’s adaptive beamforming technology and TruVoicelift functionality can automatically detect and follow the active speaker, which greatly increases speech intelligibility, regardless of the room configuration, and allows participants to be heard clearly from every corner of the room.
This flexibility proved to be the perfect solution for the modular event space. Speakers now have freedom of movement and can interact with participants without barriers.
One of the highlights of the conference rooms is the semi-automatic glass ceiling, which allows natural light into the meeting rooms. However, the large area of glass on the ceiling also added many layers of complexity to the integration and audio solution design process.
Glass causes sound reflection and extends reverberation time, which can affect speech intelligibility. German Centre Shanghai said that, thankfully, TCC 2’s super narrow 30-degree automatic beam can perfectly pick up sound from the direct audio source and significantly increase speech intelligibility.
With Sennheiser Control Cockpit, users can also define advanced exclusion zones to eliminate unwanted background noise, as well as priority zones within the meeting room, for focused and uninterrupted speech pick-up.
