Urbana Public Television Audio System Upgrade

The City of Urbana is looking to upgrade or replace the current audio system within the roughly 1,000 ft2 City Council chambers. The audio system provides sound both to in-room speakers and to the UPTV recording studio where video and audio streams are captured for live stream and recorded playback. There is a need to replace the current system that regularly encounters problems during use, impacting meeting flow and public engagement with open meetings. The new system should be designed to output sound to both in-room speakers and control-room capture systems. Replacement of the existing in-room speakers is optional and should be quoted as a separate line item in the overall bid.

The current system inputs are a collection of 12 wired microphones on the dais, two wired presenter microphones, two wireless table microphones for staff tables, one wired microphone in the control room, audio input from a computer, audio input from a desk IP phone, one handheld wireless microphone and 4 lapel microphones. These all run back to a pair of digital mixers in the control room. The current outputs are to 12 in-room ceiling speakers and the Urbana Public Television's broadcast system for recording and streaming the audio and video feeds. The current system includes an assistive listening system for hearing impaired individuals that uses a dedicated wireless receiver. There are also XLR outputs in the chambers for members of the media to connect to room audio when recording a meeting. We are not upgrading our video system at this time.

At a minimum the mixers, control board, and four of the wireless microphones need to be replaced. Additionally, the replacement system should have an integrated Teams or SIP (RingCentral) processing capability that could be used to replace the IP phone wired into the current system. We would prefer separate gain controls in the control room for in-room and recorded audio outputs. An initial calibration of the entire system is required before the project is considered complete. The control room will need a full control panel for all audio systems to be able to mute, unmute, and adjust individual line gain as needed. This project will be awarded to the proposer who submits the best overall proposal looking at both features and cost. We will entertain proposals replacing anything from the minimum requirements to a full room retrofit, and multiple price lists with various replacement options can be submitted.