One of the more unusual hallmarks of ICE Design’s approach to projects is our high level of laboratory testing of the products and systems that we specify. With almost every type of hardware that is used in sound and video systems, ostensibly-equivalent devices that compete in the market place can show remarkably different performances when tested under laboratory conditions. In some cases, we have found the performance to be not fit for purpose! Although they are often dismissed by manufacturers and consultants, these differences do matter when it comes to meeting our customers expectations of speech intelligibility, acoustic and visual comfort.
Items that ICE Design tests in our laboratory before specification are:
- microphones – frequency response, polar pattern and listening tests
- digital signal processors – audio performance
- digital signal processor algorithms e.g. automixer, ambient noise control, and echo cancellation
- loudspeakers -frequency response, polar pattern, sensitivity and listening tests
- amplifiers – frequency response, linearity, noise-floor
- video – latency and bandwidth
- acoustic absorption
We have an arsenal of test equipment, including time/frequency domain acoustic analysers with calibrated microphones, turntable, plane-wave tube, Audio Precision analyser, oscilloscopes and waveform analysers.
