"The advanced performance, connectivity and control that is enabled by the HiQnet protocol has been a goal of this organization since I first set the agenda for the group in 2000," Terry said today. "Every acquisition has been driven by this vision, every research effort influenced by it and every product development informed by it. Today's introduction is an important milestone in the evolution of the Harman Pro Group. We've managed to successfully keep the independence and energy of the individual brands while at the same time achieving a shared brain trust and commitment to advanced integration and control."
According to Terry, the benefits of such an achievement are significant. Installers no longer need to configure each and every component in a system for the medium chosen for the system's signal-path backbone; HiQnet's intelligent software will sense the types of connections and do the configuring for them automatically. Signal paths can be greatly reduced in complexity since all audio and control data can share a common "pipe", significantly reducing installation costs and time. In addition, system diagnostics will be considerably enhanced because all information pathways - audio and data - will always be consistent.
Harman's press release says: "Systems designers, installers and operators will see the benefits at every level of installed sound. Be it theatres, restaurants, sporting arenas, office buildings, malls, or in live and touring sound system scenarios, they will no longer be burdened with the need to manage multiple disparate operating systems or be responsible for programming individual signal processors, speaker controllers, wireless microphone systems, or mixing consoles. The aggregate benefits and the extensive features of the HiQnet protocol are massive, ensuring real cross-brand benefits in a single design/control application."
These benefits include: unified layout of on-screen product configuration; simple preset configuration of an entire system of products across multiple brands and product classes; common configuration of networked audio-routing across all components of an entire system; custom control panel creation consisting of controls from multiple products across multiple brands; copy/paste of like parameter values from, and to, multiple products across Harman Professional brands; unified event logging and error reporting for entire system; advanced remote control and diagnostic capabilities; HiQnet is compatible with the UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) standard; configurable cue list within Studer Vista 8 or other future HiQnet-compliant consoles allows simple recall of presets on all connected HiQnet devices; and an accessible set of JBL speaker DSP tuning files, which can be loaded into any suitable product for consistent performance.
HiQnet data command and control can utilize any major networking modality, individually or collectively, including serial, Ethernet and USB connections. HiQnet capability will be engineered into many new products from all the Harman Pro Group brands. The first products to implement HiQnet protocol are the AKG Acoustics' WMS 4000 wireless microphone system, BSS Soundweb London, Crown International's I-Tech and ITS Series amplifiers and PIP cards, dbx ZonePro range and DriveRack 4800, JBL Professional's
