Radio Free Asia selects Axia... again

15 July 2008, Cleveland, OH USA

Radio Free Asia (RFA) has selected Axia Audio consoles and IP-Audio networking equipment to build new studios for their Washington, D.C. news bureaus.

The large-scale project will encompass 35 studios, including 35 Element audio consoles and Studio Engines and an IP-Audio routing network consisting of 99 Axia AES, Analog and Microphone Audio Nodes. Routing automation will be provided by Axia’s PathfinderPC™ Routing Control Software; network management by Axia iProbe, and program archiving by the Axia iProFiler automated logging suite.

The Washington, D.C. project will be Radio Free Asia’s third Axia build, following the five-studio installation in 2006 of an Axia IP-Audio network and consoles in their Bangkok, Thailand facility and a two studio installation in Seoul, South Korea. Radio Free Asia broadcasts in nine languages, via shortwave and the Internet; news programs produced at the D.C. studios are broadcast throughout Asia.

More than 1,000 studios worldwide are now on-the-air with Axia IP-Audio system, which allow broadcasters to build audio networks of any size using standard switched Ethernet to connect a few rooms, or an entire facility. Axia networks have a total system capacity of more than 10,000 audio streams, and can carry hundreds of digital stereo (or nearly a hundred surround) channels over a single CAT-6 cable, eliminating much of the cost normally associated with wiring labor and infrastructure.

Axia products include the popular Element modular broadcast console, a family of “audio nodes” that allow easy mixing and matching of digital, analog and microphone audio, and a comprehensive suite of network administration and routing control software.