Sony Electronics announced the details Tuesday of a new beamforming microphone, the MAS-A100, designed for “hands-free” lectures and presentations. The ceiling-mount microphone is designed for both speech reinforcement and recording using both beamforming technology and an Intelligent Feedback Reducer function. The microphone has a dual-channel output for simultaneous recording that captures the speaker and student’s/participants’ voices and includes support for Dante2 and Power Over Ethernet (PoE).

The beamforming microphone has a dual-channel output that enables simultaneous speech reinforcement and recording. The microphone also has auto-noise reduction capabilities to minimize background sound from air conditioners and projectors, which makes it ideal for lecture capture and meeting recording. The microphone can be integrated into existing AV rooms using Dante and its Automatic Calibration function automatically optimizes the parameters of the audio processing for speech reinforcement by generating and capturing the test signal during the installation process.

The beamforming microphone is expected to be available in spring 2020.

Here are more specs.

Here’s a video we shot of the MAS-A100 Beamforming Microphone at ISE 2020: