8 May 2009, Cleveland, OH USA
PowerStation, the new integrated console engine just introduced by Axia, gathered awards from two major broadcast technology magazines at the 2009 NAB convention in Las Vegas.
Radio World's Cool Stuff award and Radio's Pick Hit award are given to the best new products shown at the NAB. PowerStation, called a “studio in a box” by some show-goers, earned awards from both publications for its ease of deployment and advancement of IP-Audio technology.
There are two products in the PowerStation family. PowerStation Main combines audio I/O, console CPU, logic GPIO, mixing engine and Ethernet switch into a single 4RU chassis; PowerStation Aux doubles the Main’s audio I/O and GPIO capacity, while adding a redundant power supply with automatic switchover, all via a simple two-cable connection. In addition, PowerStation can be easily networked – up to 4 can be daisy-chained without the need for an external core switch – or deployed to power standalone studio consoles.
PowerStation works with Axia Element mixing consoles, and supports console sizes of up to 40 faders. Element consoles have become the fastest-growing brand in the industry, with over 1,000 studios online worldwide. Element users can choose from a large number of studio accessories, including a family of rack-mount Routing Control Panels with OLED displays, film-legendable button controllers, programmable SmartSwitch studio accessory panels with backlit LCD displays, GPIO switch panels, desktop and rack-mount clock/timer accessories and a variety of headphone selector and mic control panels for talent and producers.
The Axia IP-Audio system allows broadcasters to build audio networks of any size using standard switched Ethernet to connect a few rooms, or an entire facility. Axia networks have a total system capacity of more than 10,000 audio streams, and can carry hundreds of digital stereo (or nearly a hundred surround) channels over a single CAT-6 cable, eliminating much of the cost normally associated with wiring labor and infrastructure.