Performance Audio Standardizes on RF Venue Band-pass Filters for Utah Installations

	RF Venue Band-pass filters installed inline between antennas and distribution and receivers reject unwanted RF energy.

Salt Lake City, Utah-based Performance Audio has incorporated RF Venue Band-pass Filters into its wireless system designs. After encountering intermittent wireless dropouts in increasingly congested RF environments, in no small part due to 5G interference that accompanied the audience into a venue, the company found that the filters dramatically improved system stability by rejecting unwanted RF energy before it reached wireless receivers.

For Performance Audio, the results have made the decision straightforward. "The cost of adding Band-pass Filters is insignificant compared to the investment clients are already making in professional wireless microphone systems," says Harley Anderson, integration manager at Performance Audio. "When such a simple addition delivers this level of reliability, it quickly becomes standard practice. They've 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," says Anderson. "Then opening night would arrive, the auditorium would fill with hundreds of people carrying mobile devices, and suddenly we'd begin seeing wireless dropouts. After installing RF Venue's 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's engineering team, Anderson recalls, "explained that Utah had become one of the more heavily deployed 5G markets early on and recommended that we try their Band-pass Filters. We 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 we'd been fighting." 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 while improving overall wireless system performance, the company says.

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's become company policy," says Anderson. "If a customer doesn't 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."

The company reports several measurable benefits since adopting the filters, including dramatically fewer wireless dropouts, improved customer satisfaction, fewer service calls, and consistently stable wireless performance during live productions -- even in challenging RF environments with multiple wireless channels operating simultaneously.

In addition to the Band-pass Filters, Performance Audio regularly incorporates RF Venue's Diversity Fin antennas into its wireless microphone system designs, creating comprehensive RF solutions that maximize wireless performance.

"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," says 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, allowing microphones to perform as intended in today's increasingly complex RF environments."

For more information:
Band-pass Filters
Diversity Fin Antenna