Ingo Arnarson, president of ID Electronic ehf, doesn’t deny that he had his doubts
about whether or not the project would meet Speech Transmission Index for Public
Address (STIPA) systems. The Iceland-based distributor, installer and retailer was
hired to lead the upgrade of the PA system at the Smaralind Shopping Mall, one of
the country’s largest, located in Kopavogur, Iceland’s second-largest city. Currently
boasting more than 70 shops and restaurants, the mall had been plagued by a
subpar public address system since the facility’s doors opened in 2001. With the
goal of putting problems such as amplifier failures in the past, the mall’s
management set out to overhaul the system. The problem, as Arnarson saw it, was
that the upgrade plans did not include replacing the loudspeakers. The solution,
however, not only met the STIPA standards but also significantly improved the
quality of the old loudspeakers. This seemingly impossible feat was accomplished
by deploying HARMAN’s IDX system, a hardware-software offering that takes
HARMAN audio components and combines them with the information delivery
system.

For configurable signal processing, Arnarson selected HARMAN’s Soundweb London
BLU-800s, all of which are served by the IDX controller. There are also three DT-
715 paging stations and a DCi8|300 network. The IDX 200 server, which is the
system’s core component, provides four channels of simultaneous message
playback to different zones, is central to all paging commands and hosts the
message announcements.

Having worked with HARMAN for more than a decade, Arnarson said that selecting
components offered by a single vendor helps simplify installations, ultimately
making them more affordable and user-friendly. “The more simplified, the better it
is for everybody,’ he said.

Accordingly, Arnarson said that IDX very quickly became the clear choice for the
project. Prior to the upgrade, the system was used primarily for courtesy
announcements and evacuation directives. The upgrade plans, however, called for
more advanced capabilities. With the safety of shoppers in mind, the system
needed to support an A/B network with interleaved loudspeaker circuits that
ensured the entire system would not be brought down due to a single point of
failure. The goal, according to Arnarson, was to create a system that would, in the
case of an emergency, continue to convey critical safety information to people
within the facility even if one component failed.

“Obviously there is a ton of choices on the market, but the HARMAN solution
provides a premium paging communications system,’ he said. “IDX uses CobraNet,
the digital audio distribution protocol. That allows audio to be streamed over
Ethernet, which is a key advantage because it makes it possible to connect the
paging system to the existing network infrastructure. Also, this is all relatively easy
to install.’

Another of the system’s key advantages, Arnarson said, is the level of support
provided by HARMAN. “Justin Hankey, application engineer for HARMAN Professional
EMEA, flew out and helped us program the IDX system,’ he said. “The system was
the most competitively priced and the most streamlined. And thanks to Justin, it
was the system most supported by the vendor that developed the technology behind
it. He took a personal interest in the project’s success, and that’s one of the main
reasons we have such an impressive installation.’