Logitek launches new digital desk that breaks the $10K price barrier

At this week’s SMPTE09 Exhibition there were a few new radio products on show along with plenty of television and web broadcast technology. One interesting new product was a mini Logitek studio panel that is aimed at small stations and community radio stations which want to move to digital. Steve Ahern reports from SMPTE for radioinfo about this new digital desk that breaks a significant price barrier.

Logitek Australia’s Managing Director Paul Dengate says his company’s new Jetstream Mini desk and Jetstream router (pictured) will offer community broadcasters a digital studio solution for under $10,000, pitching this desk much below Logitek’s larger products and those of other competing brands.

These days, any digital studio desk is really a control surface, more like a mouse, than the old analog desks we used to know.

Analog desks do all the work inside them, switching and amplifying signals through circuitry in each fader.

Digital surfaces tell a computer how and where to switch the audio, with the work being done inside a computer server, usually located in the rack room. Some other brands do have models that integrate the computer functions inside the one box (see other story).

There are many advantages, and some disadvantages, with digital desks. The two most significant advantages are: the ease of installation, in this case basically plugging in one computer cable; and the fact that the signal is already digital and can be sent to digital transmitters or audio streamers more easily than an analog desk’s signal.

The Jetstream equipment consists of an IP based Router box with a built-in computer inside it, a panel and a control screen (all pictured below right).

The router sits in the rack room and does all the work, providing audio I/O (inputs/outputs), mixing, processing and other functions. It can be paired with any of the Logitek range of control surfaces (Artisan, Mosaic, etc), but the model on show at SMPTE paired it with the cost effective JetStream Mini model.

IP based desks and router engines have been around for a while, but this new generaton of the technology is designed to take advantage of new network protocols that make the system easy to set up, administer and use. Only the names of the channels need to be entered, everything else seems to be virtually ‘plug and play.’

Like other models, the desk can memorise various configurations so that announcers can have mics and inputs allocated on the faders that suit them.

The system will acquire all necessary IP addresses, advertise its shared channels to all linked devices and make a list of sources offered by other units on the network. Dengate says real time processing has improved significantly thanks to better chip technology.

The router engine can handle up to 24 faders, which means that it can power one studio of 24 channels, four studios of 6 faders, or combinations of 12 or 18 faders in different studios. The significance of this for broadcasters is that they can run four small studios with the one piece of core equipment.

The equipment on show at SMPTE could provide 4 mic preamps with phantom power, 4 stereo line inputs and AES or S/PDIF inputs and outputs, which are important for digital radio and streaming. Profanity delay and redundant power supplies are also included. The system on show could also interface with standard phone hybrids for talkback, but importantly, Logitek promises that it will also soon be able to connect directly to VOIP phone systems as they become more common in radio stations. For the technically minded, click here to see a brochure with full specifications.

The other component of the system on display at SMPTE was a screen, which can be located in the studio to show metering and console functions. A nice feature of the external screen is that it can also be hooked up to an external tv or display screen so that people in the foyer of the radio station, in training courses or at OBs can observe the console functions as they are happening.

All IP based consoles like this use protocols with numeric addresses to accomplish their work. IP Addresses are unique for each piece of hardware and each multicast audio channel.

While Logitek is not the only company with IP based studio desk offerings for radio stations, this new product combines the powerful features of IP Audio routing in a small system which is easy to install and use, and breaks the $10,000 price barrier.

Jetsream is very new, and is being used by a small number of stations in the USA so far. It is being shown for the first time in Australia at SMPTE. Logitek has about 100 of its other model desks in radio stations across Australia.

One radio broadcast technician who saw the Jetstream Mini desk at SMPTE summed up his reaction to the new product by telling me: “This may become my new favourite desk.”

For more information, Logitek can be contacted at 02 8882 7777.