Volume 15, Issue 22 — November 29, 2021

rAVe Rental [and Staging] — Volume 15, Issue 22

November 29, 2021 | Volume: 15 | Issue: 22

Happy Monday, AVtweeps! I hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful if you celebrated it, and if not, I hope you had a great weekend. I certainly ate my share of turkey for the year, and I’m excited to be back to work.

We’re kicking off our columns with a piece by Bryce Dunn over at Audinate. We’re all familiar with the supply chain issues, so how can we protect the supply chain in a way that will serve integrators and end users? Bryce’s piece discusses how Audinate is trying to alleviate some of the stress on the supply chain in ways such as finding alternate parts where applicable and investing in software-based offerings.

Our second column looks at cycles in the AV industry market. Did you know our industry goes through a typical rotation of innovation and iteration before facing a disruption? Well, now you do, and you can read more about it in Mark Coxon’s latest piece. Mark discusses how periods of iteration can create an environment for disruption, and sometimes, the disruption is right up our alley — AV solutions have helped us enormously throughout the pandemic!

Lastly, we’ve got a technical piece on loudspeaker directivity by Mike Sims of QSC. As someone new to AV, I had no idea what directivity even meant. Mike writes, “Directivity calculates the difference between the on-axis response and the off-axis response of a loudspeaker.” From polar plots to frequency responses, this piece covers the engineering side of the optimal way to set up speakers.

That covers it for today! P.S., make sure you register for Almo Pro A/V’s E4 Experience tomorrow! Get a look at this truly hybrid event to see tour guides, Holopresence Technology, exciting speakers and more. Gary Kayye and Megan A. Dutta will both be in Dallas for the in-person portion of the show as well. Have a great evening, as I’ll see you next time.

— Katie Clark

COLUMNS

+ Protecting the Supply Chain to Serve Integrators and End Users [Bryce Dunn]

Supply chains — once solely the domain of product managers and procurement specialists — are now being discussed in the evening news as disruptions impact the availability of a wide range of consumer and commercial goods. Semiconductors, in particular, have been affected by a significant uptick in demand that has not yet been met by a corresponding increase in supply.

+ Innovation, Iteration and Disruption [Mark Coxon]

We had our first major return to trade shows this year in Orlando. It was a victory for AVIXA in that over 7,300 attendees and about 280 exhibitors showed up in person for the event. For those of us who couldn’t make it this year, social media brought us a lot of images from the floor, but one thing that was glaringly missing this year was the new product announcements that we usually see.

+ A Deeper Dive Into Loudspeaker Directivity [Mike Sims]

There are a number of variables involved in measuring and displaying directivity measurements. Frequency, amplitude, off-axis angle and loudspeaker orientation all play a role. Showing a complete picture of a loudspeaker’s directivity on a single graph becomes quite a challenge. We’re going to look at common graphs used to display this data so we can assess and gain the best insight into a loudspeaker’s directivity performance.