Performance Audio has standardized on RF Venue Band-pass Filters across its wireless system designs to ensure reliable performance amid increasing spectrum congestion. The Salt Lake City integrator incorporates the filters, often paired with Diversity Fin antennas, into every wireless system design to virtually eliminate RF dropouts caused by 5G interference.
Reliable wireless audio depends on more than quality microphones and antennas, beginning with clean RF. After encountering intermittent wireless dropouts in increasingly congested RF environments, Performance Audio found that the filters dramatically improved system stability by rejecting unwanted RF energy before it reached wireless receivers.
Harley Anderson, integration manager at Performance Audio, said the cost of adding Band-pass Filters is insignificant compared to the investment clients are already making in professional wireless microphone systems. When such a simple addition delivers this level of reliability, it quickly becomes standard practice. They have become an indispensable part of every wireless system we build.
Performance Audio designs and installs professional audio systems for theaters, schools, houses of worship and performance venues across Utah. As Utah became one of the nation’s early adopters of expanded 5G wireless infrastructure, the company began encountering intermittent RF interference that traditional frequency coordination alone could not fully overcome.
One of the biggest challenges we faced was that every system looked perfect during commissioning, Anderson said. Then opening night would arrive, the auditorium would fill with hundreds of people carrying mobile devices, and suddenly we would begin seeing wireless dropouts. After installing RF Venue Band-pass Filters, those problems essentially disappeared. The improvement was immediate and today we won’t design a wireless microphone system without them.
RF Venue engineering staff explained that Utah had become one of the more heavily deployed 5G markets early on and recommended trying the Band-pass Filters. Anderson said the company installed them ahead of the antenna distribution system, and the difference was immediate. They cleaned up the RF environment and virtually eliminated the dropout issues.
By removing unwanted out-of-band RF energy before it reaches the receiver distribution system, the filters significantly reduce the impact of nearby cellular transmissions and other sources of interference. Performance Audio now specifies RF Venue Band-pass Filters on virtually every wireless installation, particularly projects utilizing multi-channel wireless microphone systems in schools, theaters and other performance venues where RF reliability is critical.
It has become company policy, Anderson said. If a customer does not want to include the filters, we won’t move forward with the wireless portion of the project because we know how much they improve system reliability.
As wireless spectrum becomes increasingly crowded, compounded by a hall filling with an audience carrying cell phones adding dramatically to the RF noise floor, integrators need practical tools that address real-world RF challenges before they impact a performance, said Chris Regan, chief innovation officer at RF Venue. Performance Audio’s experience demonstrates exactly why we developed our Band-pass Filters to provide integrators a simple and affordable solution that eliminates unwanted RF energy before it reaches the wireless system.
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