latest news headlines
Sennheiser Translates to Instant Success Across Wales
Powys-based installation company Sound Induction Systems has just completed the sale of Sennheiser Tourguide systems to two Welsh language translation companies, Menter Bro Dinefwr from Llandeilo and Trosol from Cardiff.
Menter Bro Dinefwr is part of Menter, a government-funded group promoting the Welsh language. The translation part of the organisation, Dewis, has four full-time translators providing live simultaneous translations for public meetings and conferences in Carmarthenshire. Dewis hands receivers to non-Welsh speakers at public meetings, ensuring that when someone asks or answers a question in Welsh, non-Welsh speakers can hear the translator
translating the Welsh into English.
Sound Induction Systems provided Menter Bro Dinefwr seven sets of Sennheiser 2020D digital Tourguides.
"They have seven boxes of headsets with transmitters," Philip Nicholes of Sound Induction Systems explains. "Each box can contain 20 headsets, but they're only putting eighteen in each case. As soon as the new version of the Sennheiser headset to assist hearing-impaired people arrives, they'll be ordering fourteen headsets to fill those spaces.
"There are huge benefits of the digital system. On the receiver itself there's an LCD display showing battery status. And with the digital, it's absolutely silent when there's no transmission. The cleverest bit is when you open the arm of the receiver to put it on your ear it automatically switches the receiver on. And after you take it off your ears, and the arms go back to the rest position, the receiver turns off. It's incredibly helpful. It's capable of six channels too, so you could have six translations going on in six different rooms in one building using the same receivers."
Trosol in Cardiff had different requirements. They already owned and used analogue Sennheiser Tourguide and infra-red systems, but wanted to expand their stock of translation equipment. They purchased a 30-way Tourguide system including a microphone, charger and 30 headsets and an infra-red system with 120 headsets that Sound Induction Systems modified to their particular demands, with a cluster of infra-red radiators on a stand with a Sennheiser radio microphone receiver on the back of it.
"We put a battery eliminator on it," explains Nicholes, "and we fit a circuit of our own, so we can power the battery eliminator from the same power supply that's feeding the infra-red cluster. You don't have to put batteries in the radio mic receiver. You don't have to switch it on independently. The whole thing is integrated.
"I spoke to one translator at Trosol. He used to have to plug his microphone into the cluster to use it. The infra-red cluster has to face the audience, so he had to sit next to it at the front of the room. Now we're using a radio mic, he can be anywhere in the room, because the mic is transmitting to the receiver on the back of the cluster. He was walking round the room saying 'this is fabulous'. Now he can be wherever he wants, not just sitting at the front feeling conspicuous."
The experience of selling and creating modified Sennheiser infra-red and Tourguide systems has resulted in Sound Induction Systems launching their own brand, Sennsis.
"Anything to do with infra-red or translation equipment we'll now be marketing as Sennsis," explains Nicholes. "We've become well known in Wales for providing Sennheiser systems so from now on everything with Sennheiser radio mic, translation equipment, infra-red or Tourguides that we work with or modify or send out as a kit, is going out as Sennsis."
In picture: Catrin Howells (Dewis), Philip Nicholes (Sound Induction Systems), Owain Sion Gruffydd (Dewis) and Catrin Parry Williams (Business Manager, Menter Bro Dinefwr).
19th May 2008
HEADLINES
news archive
search stories
FOOTNOTE: Select the news type you require in the red band above; this will enable you to see the current news stories from that section
© 1999 - 2012 Entertainment Technology Press Limited News Stories
