BVE showcase for Sonifex commentary, talkback units

On display at this week’s BVE North show, the CM-CU1 Commentator Unit is one of the latest additions to the Sonifex range of commentary products. It provides a fully featured commentator position with a line-level input and has an individual commentator output, with an additional output providing a mix of commentator and line input audio.

The line input can be configured to remain present at the mix output even if the commentator is off air, making it useful for routing crowd effects or pre-recorded material to the programme feed. Its presence in the commentator’s headphones is also configurable to suit the application.

Four talkback output channels, with a built-in limiter, are available to the commentator and can be linked to provide simultaneous operation. Activation of one or more talkback channels removes the commentator audio from the main output until all talkback channels are deactivated.

The specification includes a wide input gain range and switchable phantom power, allowing support of a variety of microphone types including low output ribbon mics, headsets and high output phantom powered microphones. There are five transformer balanced return audio inputs which, along with the commentator input, are routed to the headphone monitor controls.

Also on display at BVE North, the CM-TB8 8 Channel Talkback Control Unit is a self-contained communications unit providing eight channels of four-wire communication, housed in a 1U rack mount enclosure. It has individual connections for both a headset on five-pin XLR and microphone/headphones on XLR/stereo TRS jack, with the current selection indicated on the front panel. The gain setting for each input type can be individually set between +6dB and +68dB, allowing for a wide range of microphone types, while +48V phantom power is also available.

The unit provides a wide range of user configurable options and there are six configuration templates that allow settings to be stored and recalled at a later date. Two of the configuration sets are read only and cannot be changed, while the other four can be used to store customised settings.