NBC Olympics Selects Microphone and Headphone Provider for Its Production of Olympic Games in Tokyo

NBC Olympics, a division of the NBC Sports Group, selects Audio-Technica to provide microphone and headphone equipment for its production of the Games of the XXXII Olympiad, which take place in Tokyo, Japan, from July 23 - August 8. The announcement was made today by Karl Malone, director, sound design, NBC Sports & Olympics, and Manabu Aoki, president and CEO, Audio-Technica US.

Audio-Technica products will help capture and monitor the audio aspects of the Olympic Games, from the detailed sounds of the competition itself, to the related crowd noise, expert analysis, and athlete interviews. Audio-Technica's BP4027 and BP4029 Stereo Shotgun Microphones will be mounted on cameras to closely follow the action; AT4050ST Large-Diaphragm Stereo Microphones and BP4025 X/Y Stereo Microphones will capture ambience from the Games' various venues to create a realistic surround bed for the broadcast; BPHS1 Broadcast Stereo Headsets will be worn by announcers in audio-over-IP venues to provide considerable separation between their voices and the ambient sound; and ATH-M50x Professional Monitor Headphones will be used in edit rooms, for monitoring RF mic receivers and submix consoles, and for other critical listening applications. These are just some of the equipment and solutions that Audio-Technica will supply.

"Audio-Technica microphones have been NBC Olympics 'microphones of choice' since the Olympic Winter Games Salt Lake City 2002," says Malone. "No matter how much of our 'modern' infrastructure is now Digital or AoIP, the initial capture of the sports audio is still the most important aspect of good quality sound. We are fortunate that Audio-Technica will enable us to capture the 'immersive' sounds of the Tokyo Olympic events in all their clarity. Audio-Technica's ATH-M50x professional headphones, distributed throughout the International Broadcast Center in Tokyo and Olympic Games venues, will be the only broadcast headphone monitoring we trust to accurately reproduce audio coming off recording and playback equipment."

"We are proud of our role in the continuing development of broadcast audio technology, an evolution that has made stereo microphones an integral part of broadcast audio capture," says Aoki. "We look forward to providing new solutions for capturing high-quality audio in the future, as the industry continues to raise the bar."