Voice Lift System Design

Troy Jensen, CTS-D – Shure Market Development

Gino Sigismondi – Shure Applications Engineering
Course Objectives

At the end of this training, you should be able to:

• Determine if your facility is a reasonable candidate for a voice lift

system.
• Select a microphone system that will allow you to obtain your desired
results.
• Calculate the amount of gain you can expect to achieve as part of your
system design.
• Determine if the performance benefit justifies the cost of
implementation.

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Module 1
What is Voice Lift?
Definition of Voice Lift
• Voice Lift: an attempt to provide just enough sound
reinforcement into a room so the farthest listener can hear as
well as the closest.

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Definition of Voice Lift

• Only compensates for inverse square law

• Often deployed in AV conferencing rooms
• Requires DSP for signal routing and system adjustment
• Much more complex than traditional speech reinforcement
systems.

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Determining if your facility can benefit from Voice Lift

• Existing facility with installed system?

• Does the room need reinforcement?
• What microphones are used in the space? What is acceptable?
• What are the environmental conditions within the space?
◦ Acoustics
◦ Background Noise

• The introduction of voice lift into an existing conferencing system

will affect the performance of the AEC. You will need to make
additional adjustments to your system.

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Module 2
Doing The Math:
Inverse Square Law
and PAG/NAG
Inverse Square Law
• 6 dB level drop for each doubling of
distance from the source.

• Assumes omnidirectional components!

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Inverse Square Law

• 20log(R1/R2) where R1 is your first

distance and R2 is the second.
74dB SPL

+6
• If we calculate or measure an SPL for a
dB specific distance we can use the inverse
square law to determine the SPL
80dB SPL difference when the distance between
talker and microphone changes.
-6
dB
• This works in both directions, whether
86dB SPL the talker gets closer to or farther away
from the microphone.

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Doing the Math: PAG-NAG

• PAG/NAG Potential Acoustic Gain (PAG) and Needed Acoustic

Gain (NAG)

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Doing the Math PAG-NAG

20log10(D0/EAD) < 20log10(D0D1/D2Ds)–10log10(NOM)-FSM

NAG PAG
Where NOM = Number of Open Microphones
FSM = Feedback Stability Margin
EAD = Equivalent Acoustic Distance
D0 = the distance between the talker
and the farthest listener
D1 = the distance between the closest
loudspeaker to the microphone
D2 = the distance between the loudspeaker
closest to the farthest listener
Ds = the distance between the sound source
(talker) and the microphone

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Doing the Math PAG-NAG

• Conference Space

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Module 3
Loudspeaker
Considerations
Loudspeaker Zones

• Voice lift requires that the loudspeaker output in any given zone
is devoid of any microphones that are active in that particular
zone.
◦ Often referred to as mix-minus.
◦ Requires DSP that provides a separate output for each zone.

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Loudspeaker Zones

• Voice lift requires that the sound output in any given zone is
devoid of any microphones that are active in that particular zone.

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Loudspeaker Zones

• In the simplest of voice lift systems

a minimum of two loudspeakers
zones are required.

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Loudspeaker Zones

• The greater the number of zones

the better the ability to achieve
maximum gain before feedback
from the system.

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Loudspeaker Types and Location

• Ceiling loudspeakers typical.

• Need amplification for each run of loudspeakers (zone).
• Dante (PoE-powered) loudspeakers make the creation of zones a
much easier process than traditional distributed loudspeaker
systems.

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Module 4
Microphone
Considerations
Microphone Types – Gooseneck/Boundary

Z1 Z2 Z3

9’ 5’

2’
M NOM=? M M M

6’
18’

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Microphone Types – Ceiling Flush

NOM=?
M 7’ M M M

Z1 Z2 Z3

6’ 5’

6’
18’

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Microphone Types – Ceiling Flush

NOM=?
M M 11’ M M

Z1 Z2 Z3

6’ 5’

6’
18’

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Microphone Types – Ceiling Pendant

Z1 7’ Z2 Z3
NOM=?
M M M M

4’ 5’

6’
18’

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Microphone Types – Ceiling Array

• Provides more gain

before feedback
than traditional Mics.
• Great care in aiming
lobes.
• Do not aim a lobe
into an active zone
in which it is routed.

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Microphone Types – Ceiling Array

Super-Cardioid Polar MXA 910 Polars

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Microphone Types – Ceiling Array

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Module 5
Other Considerations
Equalization

• EQ can help achieve better gain before feedback.

• EQ used to improve intelligibility often aids in improving gain
before feedback.
• Notch filtering of specific frequencies to increase gain is helpful
…to a point.
• Dynamic feedback suppression not recommended when
deploying voice lift in a conference system with AEC.

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Equalization

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Environmental Considerations

• Size of room
◦ Larger spaces have higher decay times (RT60) and may not
be suitable for voice lift.
• Ambient Noise Level (NC)
◦ High NC level (>NC35) requires more gain to overcome the
noise level in the room.
• Interior Acoustics
◦ Poor acoustics = poor results for voice lift.
◦ Use absorptive material, such as carpet, acoustic panels,
acoustical ceiling tile, to improve acoustics.

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Review: Key Concepts

1. Determine suitability of the room for voice lift

a) Size
b) Acoustics
c) Client expectations
2. Calculate PAG-NAG
3. Employ loudspeaker zones (DSP)
4. Select microphone type
5. Apply equalization

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Technical Training

Shure PAG/NAG Calculator:

http://www.shure.com/americas/pagnag

Webinar: Maximizing Gain-Before-Feedback:

http://blog.shure.com/maximizing-gain-before-
feedback-in-your-sound-system-a-webinar/

How to Use MXA910 Ceiling Array for Voice Lift:

http://www.shure.com/americas/support/downlo
ads/publications

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