Blue Sky has debuted the Star System One 2.1 monitoring solution, comprised of the Sub 12D digital powered subwoofer and Sat 6D digital satellite speakers for broadcast, film postproduction and game sound design.
The Sat 6D satellite speaker uses an HF driver from Denmark with a custom mid-bass driver from the US, which employs a radial neodymium magnet structure. Integrated DSP permits optimisation of the system’s performance, including correction for various baffle and driver characteristics and time-alignment of the drivers. The system employs class-D amplifiers that ‘maintain audio performance at levels that are equal or superior to high-quality, yet much less efficient, class-AB amplifier designs’.
The Sat 6D is primarily designed as a 2.1 or 5.1 system, but can also be used as a full-range system due to its DSP and sealed port design.
Like the Sat 6D, the Sub 12D is equipped with DSP, parametric EQ and Burr Brown converters.
At the heart of the Star System One 2.1 is the new Audio Management Controller (AMC), which optimises and controls functions across the entire monitoring system. The AMC is a 5.1/7.1 digital processor with 31-band parametric EQ on each channel, time delays for channel alignment, as well as lip-sync, sample rate conversion and both analogue and digital inputs and outputs.
The AMC's hybrid touch/hardware remote control provides solo, mute, presets, master volume and other functions. Some set-up functions, including room EQ, are accomplished with a PC attached via the AMC’s USB port. The measurement and room EQ program uses a proprietary equalisation optimisation system called BOO (Binary Organic Optimization). Room measurement can be accomplished with the built-in measurement tools or imported from systems like Smaart.
‘We knew that an advanced monitoring system had to be able to adapt to acoustical environments ranging from extremely good to quite poor, such as the typical audio area in a mobile production unit,’ says Blue Sky/Group One VP of Sales, Chris Fichera. ‘Thanks to the efforts of Rich [Walborn Blue Sky CTO] as the lead acoustical, electrical and software designer, we are confident that the Star System One will reliably provide significantly improved monitoring accuracy across a very broad range of environments.’
The Blue Sky Star System One 2.1 (single sub and two satellites) carries a list price of US$5,385, with additional Sat 6D and Sub 12D units sold individually for US$1,695 and US$1,995, respectively.
More: www.abluesky.com
