Broadcaster Updates Congress Hall Control Room

Rastatt, Germany (September 3, 2024)—With the renovation of the Congress Hall in Saarbrücken in Germany, built in 1967, the conference and convention center’s broadcast control room now features a modern, AoIP infrastructure.

Saarländischer Rundfunk (SR) replaced the previous analog system with a console that meets the public broadcaster’s quality standards in terms of performance, flexibility and efficiency. The heart of the audio equipment is a Lawo mc²36 MkII production console with integrated processing. Two additional Lawo A__stage64 AoIP stageboxes support ST2110-30/31 and AES67 / RAVENNA and ensure the integration of audio signals.

“With the new audio technology in our control room in the Congress Hall, we have taken a first step into the IP world, which gives us considerable freedom in production,” explains Ralf Schnellbach, head of radio production technology at SR and project manager for this installation. “It makes many things easier, faster and clearer, such as switching between 48 and 96 kHz or signal management with the new user lists.”

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SR opted for a setup from Lawo based on many years of experience with the Rastatt-based manufacturer’s products. “In addition to performance, sound characteristics and compactness, the system’s comprehensive flexibility also played a major role when deciding on the equipment. The capacity allows a whole range of configurations for a wide variety of productions, and the extended matrix and control options as well as the integration of external panels, in this installation, make an external talkback infrastructure obsolete,” Schnellbach says.

“With this installation, a smart and economically very lean sound control room was created, whose components can be moved for mobile use without great effort, like for festivals during the summer break,” he concludes.