Understand, specify, and install corporate audio that performs, from a compact huddle space to a flagship executive boardroom.
30+ years of professional audio engineering | Designed and manufactured in Italy | Solutions from 15 to 600+ square meters | 5-year product warranty
The meeting room has become the most consequential room in the modern office. It’s where decisions get made, where client relationships are built or lost, and where those folks remote or in-person either come closer together or grow further apart.
As hybrid and remote working have become standard practice across nearly every industry, the quality of audio in that room has become a direct factor in business outcomes, not just a facility afterthought.
Poor audio doesn’t just cause frustration. It causes mistakes. When remote participants cannot hear clearly, they disengage. They misunderstand. They may stop contributing altogether. When voices echo or drop out, points get repeated and meetings run over. Ultimately, that ensuing mental overload increases for everyone in the room and on the call. Research in workplace acoustics consistently links poor speech intelligibility to reduced productivity, elevated stress, and lower meeting effectiveness overall.
High-quality meeting room audio solves one specific problem. It makes every voice, at every seat, equally intelligible to everyone else, both in the room and on the call.
The business case is straightforward:
For IT directors and AV specifiers, this means audio is no longer a line item to be minimized. It’s infrastructure.
A corporate meeting room audio system is the complete collection of hardware and software that manages audio capture, processing, and reproduction in a professional meeting space. Unlike consumer audio, it is engineered specifically for speech intelligibility, feedback rejection, and integration with video conferencing platforms and room control systems.
The term covers a wide range, from a single column speaker and a table microphone in a four-person huddle room to a multi-channel line array system with per-seat microphones, digital signal processors, network audio distribution, and centralized building management in a 50-person boardroom.
The main categories of meeting room audio systems are:
This is a single bar that combines camera, microphone, and speaker in one unit, typically mounted above or below the display. It’s quick to deploy and straightforward to manage. They work well in small, geometrically simple rooms. Limitations appear in larger rooms, reverberant spaces, non-rectangular geometries, and in any environment where a visible device at the front of the room is acoustically or aesthetically unacceptable.
This includes separate, discrete components. That means loudspeakers, microphones, a digital signal processor, and an amplifier. Each is positioned where acoustic coverage is necessary, rather than where cable ports allow. This approach delivers the best results across the widest range of room sizes, shapes, and finish requirements. It is the foundation of professional corporate AV.
This is a single architectural fixture that integrates a professional speaker system with a luminaire inside one housing. There are no visible speakers and no separate amplifier racks to coordinate. Audio and lighting is unified in a single designed object. This is best suited to premium boardrooms and executive spaces where the design brief does not tolerate visible AV equipment.
In practice, most large corporate installations combine types. That can look like using all-in-one bars in small standard rooms, installed systems in medium and large meeting rooms, and architectural systems in flagship boardrooms. A unified platform, including shared amplifiers, a single control software, and consistent DSP architecture, allows all zones to be managed from one infrastructure.
Not all meeting rooms are equal. The right audio solution depends on room size, headcount, usage patterns, and the design brief. Here is a practical breakdown of the most common corporate space types.
These small, informal spaces are perfect for two to six people. They’re the most common room type in modern office design and the most frequently underspecified for audio. The challenge is not volume. It’s intelligibility. A small hard-surfaced room with a single point-source speaker produces reflections that muddy speech, particularly for remote participants who experience the reverb most acutely.
A wall-mounted column speaker with controlled vertical dispersion, paired with a close-range table microphone, solves the core problem without oversizing the system.
Four to eight people, used daily for internal meetings and video calls. All-in-one bars can work here but begin to show limitations when room surfaces are hard, when the table is longer than average, or when the brief calls for a cleaner aesthetic. Installed column speakers with a subwoofer deliver noticeably better results in terms of fullness and remote-participant experience.
The 35 sq m room is the most commonly specified size in corporate fit-outs. Two wall-mounted column speakers, one on each long wall flanking the display, or a single linear fixture suspended above the table provide even coverage across all seats. A subwoofer is important at this size. It adds fullness to voice reproduction that participants experience as more natural, less fatiguing audio.
These are rooms for up to 16 people. Four speaker positions are typically required for even coverage. Longer column speakers with greater vertical coverage handle the increased ceiling height and throw distance. Microphone selection becomes more critical at this scale. Per-seat table microphones or a high-performance ceiling array are both viable, but a single ceiling microphone at the center of the room is not.
This is the room that represents the entire organization. Audio quality is non-negotiable, and the design brief almost always prioritizes invisibility. Technology has to perform without imposing on the architecture. Wall-mounted stainless steel column speakers, architectural light-and-sound fixtures, or a combination of both with zoned control are the appropriate solutions at this level. Per-seat microphone capture ensures consistent pickup quality across all participants regardless of table length.
Custom finishes, like polished and brushed stainless steel, 24K Gold, and full RAL color matching, allow audio hardware to become part of the room’s design language rather than an interruption to it.
These rooms are divided by acoustic partition walls into two or more independent spaces. The audio system must work correctly in every configuration with no sound spillover between zones. Each bay requires its own speaker pair, its own DSP zone, and its own control logic. Additionally, these are ideally linked to a partition sensor or room management system so the zones switch automatically when the room is reconfigured.
A meeting room audio system is a signal chain with several distinct stages. Understanding each component helps IT directors make informed procurement decisions and helps AV integrators avoid common design gaps.
Per-seat table microphones are positioned on the table surface for close-range, consistent pickup. These are used with one microphone per seat, placed within 50-80 cm of the speaker’s mouth. They deliver a level of consistency that ceiling-based systems simply cannot match. The signal level stays stable regardless of posture, body position, or table length. In long boardrooms, this is not a premium option. Simply put, it is the technically correct approach.
Ceiling microphone arrays are suspended from or recessed into the ceiling and use multiple cardioid capsules for wide room coverage. Most modern ceiling arrays include beamforming DSP that electronically steers the pickup pattern toward whoever is speaking. These work well in medium-sized rooms with normal table dimensions. Their limitations increase with table length and ceiling height.
Beamforming microphones are a specific subset of ceiling arrays that create and steer multiple simultaneous pickup beams using advanced signal processing. They have excellent isolation of individual speakers (meeting participants) in reverberant or noisy rooms. Typically, they come with higher cost and complexity than standard ceiling arrays.
Wireless microphones (handheld, lapel, or boundary) supplement fixed microphone systems in larger spaces, presenter-focused rooms, or configurations where participants move around rather than remain seated.
Wall-mounted column speakers are mounted on the walls flanking the display and produce a controlled, directional sound field. Line array column speakers use closely spaced transducer arrays, a technology called Pure Array Technology (PAT), to deliver a consistent sound level from the front row to the back of the room with minimal reflections off the ceiling and floor. This is the most acoustically effective loudspeaker format for most meeting room applications.
Ceiling speakers are recessed into the ceiling for visual unobtrusiveness. They produce a more diffuse, less directional sound than column speakers, which reduces intelligibility in reverberant rooms. They’re better suited to background music and paging than to primary conferencing reinforcement.
Architectural light-and-sound fixtures integrate professional audio drivers inside a linear luminaire suspended above the table or recessed into the ceiling. Sound and light from a single fixture, no visible speakers anywhere in the room.
Subwoofers extend the low-frequency response of the system, adding fullness and warmth to voice reproduction. In a meeting room context, a subwoofer is not about bass-heavy music playback. It is about making voices sound natural and present to those participants who are most sensitive to the thinness of a speaker system without low-end extension. That means they’re a tool for connection, bringing closer those participants who are in the room and those who are remote.
DSP is the intelligence of the system. It handles equalization, compression, feedback suppression, delay alignment between speakers, routing, and auto-mixing. Without proper DSP, even well-positioned hardware will underperform.
Here are key DSP functions in a meeting room context:
Dante is the professional standard for distributing audio over an IP network without dedicated audio cabling. In a corporate environment, Dante allows audio to travel across the existing data network between amplifiers, processors, and conferencing codecs. This simplifies installation and enables large-scale distributed audio without runs of analog cable.
Control systems range from a simple wall panel for preset recall to fully automated room management linked to calendar systems and occupancy sensors. Integration with Crestron, AMX, and Q-SYS allows audio to be embedded in the room’s broader AV control architecture.
Even well-intentioned installations fail when common challenges are not addressed at the design stage. These are the problems IT teams and facilities managers encounter most frequently.
Echo is the number one complaint in corporate meeting rooms. It occurs when loudspeaker output reaches the microphone via direct path or room reflections, causing remote participants to hear a delayed copy of their own voice. Hard surfaces, like glass walls, polished concrete, or hardwood floors, compound the problem by extending reverberation time.
The solution? Acoustic echo cancellation in the DSP removes the speaker output from the microphone signal before it reaches the conferencing codec. Well-positioned column speakers with controlled vertical dispersion minimize direct spill onto microphone positions. Acoustic treatment at reflective surfaces reduces overall reverberation time.
A single speaker at the front of the room produces significantly higher volume at the near end than at the far end. In a six-meter conference table, the difference between seat one and seat twelve can be 10 dB or more. That’s enough to make the meeting experience fundamentally unequal depending on where you sit.
The solution? Use line array column speakers with Pure Array Technology to maintain consistent sound pressure level from front to back. Two column speakers on opposite long walls, or a linear fixture suspended above the table, ensure even coverage at every seat.
This is the loud squeal that occurs when a microphone picks up the loudspeaker and amplifies it in a loop. It’s typically triggered by speakers positioned too close to microphone pickup zones or by gain structure set too high during installation.
The solution? Carefully determine speaker positioning during design, enable feedback suppression algorithms in the DSP, and correctly set gain structure during commissioning. This is why professional installation and commissioning matters. Feedback is almost always a preventable system design issue, not a hardware limitation.
Open-plan offices adjacent to meeting rooms allow conversations to bleed through in both directions. HVAC systems contribute broadband noise that microphones pick up and transmit to remote participants.
The solution? Sound masking, a background acoustic signal introduced into the office environment, can render nearby conversations unintelligible to those outside the meeting room. In well-designed systems, sound masking is delivered from the same amplifier infrastructure as the room audio, eliminating the need for a separate system. For the microphone side, close-range per-seat pickup dramatically reduces the amount of ambient noise captured compared to ceiling arrays.
Rooms that require participants to manage multiple remote controls or navigate unfamiliar interfaces before a meeting starts create friction, wasted time, and generate IT support calls.
The solution? Use integrated control systems with one-touch meeting start, automated room detection, and standardized room templates across a building. The best-designed systems require no interaction from participants at all. The room configures itself when it senses occupancy and a connected device.
Many organizations retrofit audio into existing buildings where cabling routes are constrained, ceiling voids are shallow, and the brief prohibits surface-mounted equipment. Heritage and listed buildings add further constraints around fixings and visible hardware.
The solution? Leverage ultra-slim wall-mounted column speakers with minimal projection from the wall surface, flexible speaker formats that follow architectural curves without structural drilling, and fixtures that replace existing ceiling light fittings without additional ceiling penetrations.
The best audio system will underperform in a room with poor acoustics. Acoustic design and audio system specification should be addressed together, not sequentially and not as separate disciplines. These are the core acoustic concepts that every IT director and AV specifier benefits from understanding.
RT60 is the single most important acoustic measurement for meeting room audio. It describes the time, in seconds, that it takes for sound to decay by 60 dB after the source stops. In practical terms, that’s how long sound lingers in a room after someone stops speaking.
Hard surfaces, including glass, concrete, polished stone, and hardwood, extend RT60. Soft and porous materials, like carpet, upholstered seating, and acoustic ceiling tiles, absorb sound energy and reduce it. When room finishes are fixed and cannot be changed, speaker technology that controls vertical dispersion reduces the energy reaching reflective ceiling and floor surfaces, partially compensating for the room’s acoustic character.
STI measures how intelligibly speech is transmitted in a room on a scale from 0 (completely unintelligible) to 1 (perfect). This accounts for reverberation, background noise, and the relationship between them.
Speaker technology plays a direct role in STI. Line array column speakers with controlled vertical dispersion direct audio energy toward the listening plane (the horizontal zone where participants’ ears are) rather than toward the ceiling and floor, where it reflects and becomes reverberation. This direct relationship between speaker design and STI is why professional installed audio consistently outperforms all-in-one bars in real-world meeting room acoustics testing.
The ambient noise level in an unoccupied room should be at least 10 dB below the intended speech level. HVAC systems are the primary contributor to background noise in corporate meeting rooms. The Noise Criteria (NC) system describes acceptable background noise levels. NC 30-35 is the recommended target for meeting rooms used for conferencing.
Rooms above NC 40 will produce a noticeably degraded remote participant experience regardless of the quality of the microphone system, as the microphone captures and transmits the background noise alongside the intended speech signal.
The right system is the one that performs correctly for the specific room, the specific use case, and the specific organization. Here is a structured framework for making that decision.
Room dimensions, ceiling height, and the room’s shape determine speaker placement, the number of units required, and whether a subwoofer is necessary. Longer rooms need speakers with greater throw distance or a distributed approach. Higher ceilings require taller column speakers or additional amplification. Non-rectangular rooms, such as those that are L-shaped, curved, circular, or irregular, require custom engineering that standard configuration guides do not cover.
Surface materials should be assessed at this stage. If RT60 is expected to exceed 0.6 seconds based on the room finishes, acoustic treatment should be considered before finalizing the audio system specification.
Sub-divisible rooms must be zoned independently, each bay with its own speaker coverage, DSP zone, and control logic, with automatic or manual switching when partitions are deployed.
How many participants will the room typically hold? More participants require more even coverage and more microphone positions. What is the primary meeting format (boardroom style, classroom style, town hall, etc.)? Each format has different implications for speaker placement and microphone type.
Most importantly, is the room primarily used for hybrid meetings? If so, the remote participant experience must be a primary design criterion, not an afterthought. Microphone selection and placement, acoustic echo cancellation quality, and the consistency of coverage at every seat all directly determine whether remote participants feel engaged and included or not.
Does the technology need to be invisible, or is a visible system acceptable? Are there heritage or listed building constraints on fixing methods or surface penetrations? What finish requirements apply (simply standard black or white, or custom color-matched, stainless steel, or gold finishes)?
Which conferencing platform, room control system, and network audio protocol will the system integrate with? Confirming these before specification avoids costly late-stage changes.
Professional meeting room audio spans a wide range of investment levels. The meaningful distinction is not cheap versus expensive. It’s correctly specified versus incorrectly specified. An undersized system in a large boardroom costs more in the long run than a properly specified system that performs correctly from day one, as the re-specification, reinstallation, and business disruption of getting it wrong is almost always more expensive than getting it right.
Entry-level professional installed audio delivers superior performance to all-in-one bars at a comparable total cost in most medium and large room applications, once installation is factored into the all-in-one bar price.
A professional meeting room audio system must integrate with the room control infrastructure, the video conferencing platform, the network audio architecture, and the building management system. Platform-agnostic interoperability is not a feature. It’s a necessity for enterprise-scale deployment.
A professional audio system connects to the room codec or computer via USB, AES67, or Dante. The conferencing platform, like Microsoft Teams Rooms, Zoom Rooms, Google Meet Hardware, or Cisco Webex Devices, sees the audio system as a professional audio interface and operates normally. There is no platform dependency or lock-in.
For installations where Q-SYS is the building’s primary AV platform, K-array Kommander amplifiers are certified for Q-SYS integration via Dante, enabling configuration, EQ, and control directly within Q-SYS Designer.
Dante distributes audio over the existing IP network without dedicated audio cabling, enabling lossless, low-latency distribution across an entire building. Dante integrates with Q-SYS, Crestron, AMX, and the vast majority of professional DSP platforms.
Certified control drivers are available for both platforms, enabling direct volume control, input selection, preset recall, and system status monitoring from the Crestron or AMX control interface without additional custom programming.
For installations using KSCAPE RAIL, CASAMBI enables scene-based control of both audio and lighting from a single app or building automation system, and supports DALI for connection into building-wide lighting infrastructure.
K-array is a professional audio manufacturer based in Florence, Italy, with more than 30 years of experience engineering loudspeaker systems for demanding installed audio environments worldwide. In corporate meeting rooms, that experience translates into a complete three-tier ecosystem covering every room size, every budget, and every design brief. That covers a KGEAR system in a 15 sq m huddle space to a KSCAPE installation in a flagship executive boardroom.
Every product across all three brands shares the same amplifier ecosystem, the same K-Control software, and the same engineering philosophy – audio that performs without demanding visual attention.
KGEAR is the professional step up from all-in-one conferencing bars. It separates the loudspeaker from the camera and microphone, giving specifiers and IT teams the freedom to position speakers exactly where acoustic coverage demands, not just where the cable port happens to be.
The GF line column speakers are the heart of the KGEAR meeting room lineup. Built for intelligibility and versatility in compact designs, GF speakers use K-array’s Pure Array Technology (PAT) to deliver consistent sound performance across a range of installation types. Plus, they are engineered to work equally well indoors and outdoors. For organizations managing audio across an entire corporate campus, the GF line’s indoor/outdoor compatibility means a single product family can cover everything from the boardroom to the building entrance, the outdoor terrace, or the campus common areas. This simplifies procurement, training, and long-term support.
GF Series Models for Meeting Rooms:
All GF speakers can be paired with the GS6 matched subwoofer for installations where full-range audio with modern low-end performance is part of the brief, whether that means covering executive presentations, video playback, or simply ensuring remote participants experience warm, full-bodied voice reproduction rather than thin, fatiguing audio.
KGEAR systems are powered by the GA series amplifiers (GA201, GA41, GA43, GA46) and can be commissioned without specialist tuning tools. Installation is straightforward. You get standard wall or ceiling mounts, clean cable runs, and there is no specialized acoustic modeling required for standard room geometries.
KGEAR is best suited to 15-60 sq m meeting rooms, huddle spaces, and training rooms. It’s available in black and white finishes. KGEAR is the professional choice when budget discipline and reliable, high-quality performance are both non-negotiable.
K-array’s flagship speaker lines are built from stainless steel and engineered to virtually disappear into the spaces they serve. Where KGEAR is the professional workhorse, K-array stainless steel is the choice when the room itself demands that technology be invisible — or close to it.
The Koral is K-array’s most architecturally flexible column speaker. What sets it apart is a fundamental acoustic capability that most column speakers do not offer, which is the ability to switch between two distinct acoustic behaviors in a single enclosure.
In line array mode, the Koral’s six closely spaced 3.15-inch woofers work together using Pure Array Technology to produce extremely high directivity and controlled coverage (10 degrees vertical by 90 degrees horizontal). This makes it exceptionally effective at directing audio precisely toward the listening plane in a meeting room, minimizing reflections off ceiling and floor surfaces and maximizing STI.
In point source mode, the coverage pattern opens to 60 degrees vertical by 90 degrees horizontal, allowing the Koral to cover taller or more open spaces where a narrow line array beam would leave seats at the edges without adequate coverage.
This dual-mode capability isn’t a gimmick. It’s a genuinely useful specification tool. A single Koral installation can be reconfigured acoustically via the K-array Web App when a room’s use changes, without moving or re-wiring a single speaker.
The Koral is also built for the long term. Its stainless steel enclosure and durable construction are designed for installations where the system will be in service for years or decades. With a rated power handling of 360 watts per enclosure and a maximum SPL of 128 dB, it is also considerably more capable than its slim, architectural profile suggests. This is a speaker that disappears visually while delivering professional-grade acoustic performance.
Where the Koral balances acoustic versatility with design integration, the Vyper KV series is the definitive statement in ultra-flat profile. At just 22 mm deep, the Vyper KV52 II is the thinnest speaker in the K-array portfolio. It’s a wall-mounted column that reads as an architectural detail rather than a piece of audio equipment.
The Vyper uses Pure Array Technology across its closely spaced cone drivers, producing true line array characteristics, including phase coherence, low distortion, and focused audio coverage from near field to the far end of even large boardroom tables. Multiple Vyper units can be stacked vertically via the integrated pass-through connector system to extend the array and coverage.
Available in the KV25 II, KV52 II, and KV102 II, the Vyper line scales to meet different room sizes and throw distance requirements.
Specialist solutions within the K-array tier include:
K-array stainless speakers are designed for premium boardrooms, executive suites, design-led corporate spaces, and heritage buildings. They’re available in many finish options, like brushed and polished stainless steel, 24K Gold, Rose Gold, and full RAL color matching. This is the right choice when audio quality and architectural integration are both non-negotiable.
KSCAPE RAIL – When the Technology Needs to Disappear Completely
KSCAPE RAIL is in a category by itself. It is not a speaker that integrates well into a room. It’s an architectural fixture from which audio is inseparable.
RAIL is a linear architectural luminaire, a ceiling fixture that delivers professional-quality tunable white lighting and full-bandwidth professional audio from a single device. Suspended above a boardroom table, recessed into a ceiling, or surface-mounted, RAIL produces no visible speakers, requires no separate speaker brackets, and introduces no additional ceiling penetrations beyond what a standard light fitting requires.
The 1.2-meter R120 series is the primary meeting room product, available in suspended and ceiling-mounted configurations. The integrated K-array micro drivers provide full professional audio bandwidth. Lighting is tunable white with DALI and CASAMBI wireless control, supporting circadian-aligned color temperature adjustment throughout the day. Go from cooler, high-energy tones during morning meetings to warmer, lower-intensity tones in afternoon and evening sessions.
RAIL S, launched at ISE 2024, offers a more compact, scalable track-based version suited to multi-zone corporate fit-outs where design consistency across different space types (from open-plan areas to formal boardrooms) is part of the brief.
Both variants connect to CASAMBI wireless lighting control, enabling unified light-and-audio scene management from a single app or building automation system, including integration with DALI building lighting infrastructure.
RAIL is the highest-investment option in the K-array ecosystem, and it’s the one with the lowest visual impact. It’s best suited to flagship boardrooms, executive suites, and high-end corporate spaces where a visible speaker is simply not part of the design brief. Compatible with Kommander amplifiers and K-Control software for unified management with the broader K-array ecosystem.
A complete meeting room audio system requires both great loudspeaker performance and great microphone performance. K-array’s Capture-KMC20 I applies the same line array engineering philosophy to the capture side of the signal chain.
The KMC20 I is an ultra-slim table microphone that uses upgraded cardioid capsules in a line array configuration, producing a tightly controlled pickup pattern that rejects off-axis noise while capturing the person speaking directly in front with exceptional clarity. Its rigid steel body reduces resonance and handling noise, and the integrated preamp and integrated XLR cable keep installation clean.
In a boardroom, the typical deployment is one KMC20 I per seat position. Here is why that matters:
System Control – K-array Web App and K-Control
Every K-array system is managed through a unified software ecosystem that gives specifiers full control over DSP parameters during commissioning and gives facilities teams simplified operational access after installation.
The K-array Web App is built into the device through K-array’s proprietary operating system (OsKar) and is accessible from any browser (mobile, tablet, or computer) with no software installation required. Simply connect the Kommander amplifier to a local network to begin configuring, monitoring, and managing the system.
The Web App provides a comprehensive set of tools for professional system management:
K-Control software provides a customizable dashboard for commissioning, project-specific control layouts, preset scene management, and simplified end-user touchscreen interfaces for day-to-day operation. Certified drivers are available for Crestron, AMX, and Extron integration.
The TIAA Frisco Corporate Center is a large-scale corporate facility designed to support collaboration, focus, and flexibility across a wide range of workplace environments. That includes open-plan common areas, a cafeteria, executive meeting rooms, and a dedicated top-floor boardroom.
McCann Systems designed and deployed a fully integrated AV solution combining K-array and KSCAPE technologies into a unified, scalable ecosystem across the entire building. In the common areas, K-array Tornado-KT2 point-source loudspeakers ensure even sound distribution throughout large open floor plans. The cafeteria uses KSCAPE RAIL fixtures, integrating professional audio with diffused, tunable white lighting. This allows the space to adapt throughout the day from a quiet working environment to a more social atmosphere.
On the executive floor, the 15th-floor boardroom is equipped with KSCAPE RAIL fixtures that provide premium audio clarity and tunable lighting. This includes CASAMBI wireless control, which enables intuitive management of both systems from a single interface. The TIAA installation demonstrates what a building-wide K-array ecosystem looks like in practice. The result is consistent audio performance and unified management from the cafeteria to the boardroom, all with a single infrastructure.
TAD Associates is a leading AV consultancy with offices in New York and London. When TAD relocated its New York headquarters to a new space near Times Square, the team conceived the office as “The Stage”, a flexible environment for experimentation, prototyping, and client events.
Working with architecture firm Model Practice, TAD specified KSCAPE RAIL as the structural element that would carry both lighting and audio through the space without introducing visible technology. Over 100 units of 1.2-meter RAIL devices were installed in a custom ceiling grid, both with and without integrated loudspeakers. This provided complete audio coverage across all zones while reading as a clean architectural ceiling system. CASAMBI control allows TAD to define different zones physically and visually, adjusting the atmosphere for morning work, afternoon collaboration, or evening events from a single interface.
“With RAIL, all you see is the light fixture,” noted Tom Sauter, Systems Engineer and AV system designer at TAD. “This technology met our architectural requirements.”
Pavion, a leading US-based integrator of fire, security, and audiovisual technology solutions, built its new Raleigh, North Carolina, headquarters as both a working office and a client-facing technology showcase. The brief called for a space that would inspire Pavion’s team to come into the office, demonstrate cutting-edge solutions to clients, and meet the specific requests of the Pavion team, which centered on lighting quality, workplace acoustics, and natural light.
75 ceiling-hung KSCAPE RAIL units were installed across the facility, covering formal and informal meeting rooms, personal offices, a lounge and reception area, open-plan workspaces, and a Customer Experience Center. RAIL’s tunable white and RGB lighting, controlled via CASAMBI, allowed Pavion to create distinct environments across different zones. Adjusting the atmosphere for daytime productivity, client meetings, or evening events was easy without additional hardware.
The cost-efficiency of a single fixture handling both professional audio and full-featured lighting was a significant factor in the selection, alongside the quality of the acoustic and lighting performance.
What is the main advantage of K-array over all-in-one conferencing bars?
All-in-one bars combine the camera, microphone, and speaker in a single unit at the front of the room. They are fast to deploy and easy to manage, but they force a point-source speaker to cover the entire seating area from one fixed location. This produces uneven coverage across longer tables and degrades quickly in rooms with challenging acoustics. K-array systems separate the loudspeaker from the camera and microphone, allowing speakers to be positioned where acoustic coverage demands, whether that’s on long walls, suspended above the table, or recessed into the ceiling. The result is even speech intelligibility at every seat and a visual result that respects the room’s design intent.
Can K-array integrate with Microsoft Teams Rooms, Zoom Rooms, and other UC platforms?
Yes. K-array audio systems are platform-agnostic. They provide the loudspeaker infrastructure for a meeting room, and the UC platform runs on the room’s AV controller and codec as it normally would. K-array is certified with Q-SYS and integrates natively with Dante, Crestron, and AMX. The microphone system connects to the room DSP via standard interfaces. K-array handles the loudspeaker output side without any platform dependency or lock-in.
What is KSCAPE RAIL and how does it work in a meeting room?
KSCAPE RAIL is a linear architectural luminaire (a ceiling fixture) that integrates professional K-array audio drivers inside the housing. In a meeting room, RAIL typically replaces the suspended pendant light above a boardroom table, simultaneously providing tunable white lighting and full-bandwidth audio reinforcement. The result is a meeting room with no visible speakers. Both the audio and lighting are controlled via CASAMBI wireless or DALI, with no separate systems to manage.
What is the Koral and how does it differ from the Vyper?
The Koral is K-array’s most versatile stainless steel column speaker, offering a switchable acoustic mode between line array (10° vertical, tightly controlled, long throw) and point source (60° vertical, wider coverage). This makes it adaptable to a wider range of room geometries and use cases within a single hardware specification. Vyper is K-array’s ultra-flat line array element. At 22 mm deep, it is the thinnest speaker in the lineup. It’s optimized for spaces where the wall profile is the primary design constraint and where consistent, controlled line array behavior is the acoustic requirement.
Which system is right for a 35 sq m meeting room?
All three K-array tiers are documented for a 35 sq m room. With KGEAR, specify two GF42 I column speakers, a GS6 subwoofer, and GA201 amplifier. This solution is wall-mounted, easy to commission, and offers excellent audio performance for the investment. Alternatively, you could pair Koral or Vyper column speakers with a Truffle or Rumble subwoofer and a Kommander amplifier. This is a great solution for rooms where audio quality and design integration are both important. Choose KSCAPE RAIL, with two R120 suspended RAIL fixtures and subwoofer support plus the Kommander amplifier, for rooms where visible speakers are not part of the design brief.
How does K-array handle circular boardrooms or curved walls?
Two specialist solutions. The Anakonda flexible line array (KAN200 series) is a two-meter speaker with a braided flexible body that can be shaped into any curve, arc, U-shape, or ring while maintaining true line array acoustic characteristics. For rooms where speakers must mount flush to a curved or irregular wall without mechanical tilt, the Kayman-KY102-EBS uses Electronic Beam Steering to direct the sound beam electronically, with no protrusion from the wall plane.
Does K-array offer sound masking for open-plan offices?
Yes. K-array’s sound masking capability integrates into the same ceiling infrastructure as the room audio system, creating a background acoustic signal that renders nearby conversations unintelligible to those outside the meeting room. It is delivered from the same Kommander amplifier and K-Control software used for room audio – no separate system, no separate installation.
What is the K-array warranty?
All K-array, KGEAR, and KSCAPE products come with a five-year warranty covering defects in materials and workmanship, transferable to a subsequent owner within the warranty period.
Whether you are specifying a KGEAR system for a single 20 sq m meeting room, evaluating the K-array ecosystem for a multi-floor corporate fit-out, or comparing options for a flagship boardroom where design and performance are both non-negotiable, the K-array team works directly with IT directors, AV specifiers, integrators, and consultants.