The results of Sound Devices' 2018 acquisition of Audio Limited, the UK manufacturer and developer of high-performance wireless microphone systems, allowed the Wisconsin-based company to expand its portfolio with a new category of digital wireless solutions for professional production environments with industry-exclusive technologies. The combination of efforts between the companies, has resulted in truly stunning products, in line with the sophisticated engineering efforts of the Sound Devices range of multitrack recorders and mixers.
Since October 2021, Audiotonix, the group of companies comprising Allen & Heath, Calrec, DiGiCo, DiGiGrid, Group One Limited, KLANG:technologies, and Solid State Logic, is the owner of US-based Sound Devices LLC. This also enables further important integrations, allowing Sound Devices to expand its market from the traditional film and TV productions, where it leads, now also for live production events or theater. This new corporate context for Sound Devices is important to understand the scope and market importance of the new Sound Devices A20-Nexus digital wireless receivers.
The A20-Nexus is a compact microphone receiver that is designed to serve as the hub of the Astral wireless range which also includes the A20-Mini and A20-RX. The new design offers an industry-leading tuning range as well as NexLink integrated long distance remote control (up to 100 meters). The true diversity digital wireless receiver ships with 8-Channels and can be expanded via software to 12 or 16 channels for larger productions.
"The Astral Series is the culmination of years of research and development in wireless technology to design robust, versatile solutions for mobile RF professionals that can be used around the world," says Sound Devices CEO Matt Anderson. "With A20-Nexus, we sought to not only provide the ultimate portable receiver for our customers in film and television production, but also the Astral Series to meet the rapidly growing needs for wireless in live event production, musical theater, corporate AV, houses of worship, and more."
The A20-Nexus units feature Sound Devices’ SpectraBand technology to offer an unprecedented global tuning range of 470-1525 MHz and exceptional RF filtering capabilities which allow it to function in legal RF frequencies everywhere. The receiver also features NexLink long distance remote control of transmitters and integrated RTSA (Real Time Spectrum Analysis) - displayed in stunning color displays directly in the front panel. This allows users to instantly visualize the RF spectrum around the working environment in real time and coordinate frequencies all while monitoring audio. The visual overview can be expanded wirelessly to a larger screen on a tablet.
The A20-Nexus receivers can also be controlled with a mobile phone or tablet via web app, plus with Power via PoE and audio via Dante - perfect for productions requiring full remote operation. The combination of features allows it to replace multiple devices in any RF professional’s wireless toolkit, and its svelte form factor makes it equally at home in a bag, on a sound cart, or taking up minimal space in a fixed install. All detailed features are described in the Sound Devices' website and is quite an extensive presentations, including in terms of input and output and modular RF accessories.
Another truly important landmark in this type of professional technology is the fact that Sound Devices introduced the ability to convert an 8 channel receiver to 12 or 16 simply with an additional software license that the user can activate in the field. Sound Devices had already done that with its range of multitrack recorders and mixers, and now expanded the concept to microphone receivers. Also important, the design is easily docked to any Sound Devices 8-series mixer-recorder via the A20-QuickDock.
The new Sound Devices A20-Nexus range is available now from MSRP $14,495.
www.sounddevices.com
