USA - Sennheiser has announced that PGA Tour Studios recently deployed the new Spectera bidirectional wireless audio ecosystem across its new campus in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
The PGA Tour Studios audio team required a system that could not only support a state-of-the-art facility that houses seven dedicated studios, but also seamlessly manage up to 11 shows broadcasting simultaneously in an environment that would be packed with competing RF signals.
The new system needed to offer effortless transitions between studios and a dramatically simplified management interface. Spectera emerged as the best choice for its technical capabilities, along with the way it simplified installation and allowed the engineering team to focus on production rather than infrastructure.
The comprehensive PGA Tour Studios setup includes two Spectera base stations, supporting a total of 24 microphones and IFB monitors, distributed across the facility with seven dedicated antennas to ensure optimal coverage.
Unlike traditional wireless audio setups, Spectera doesn’t rely on a complex mix of separate systems for microphones and in-ear monitors or interruptible foldback (IFB) monitors - each on their own frequencies and requiring painstaking channel and guard band planning. Spectera takes a fundamentally different approach, bringing microphones, IFBs, and control data together on a single wideband RF channel, managed from a compact 1RU base station. This innovation fundamentally simplifies how wireless audio is handled in live production. PGA Tour Studios strategically implemented Spectera as the backbone audio infrastructure of their new campus.
“Our original vision was to implement a building-wide RF system that offered seamless coverage across all studios, regardless of location,” said Ricardo Landaeta, manager of audio broadcast at PGA Tour. “We have seven studios, each with three or four talents, and our goal is to run six shows weekly with a maximum of four talents per show, operating four days a week for 12 hours. Resilience, quality, and versatility are important. With Spectera, talent can easily transition between studios by simply grabbing a pack, and guest integration is smooth.”
“It’s rewarding to see the system commissioned and performing precisely as Ricardo and his team envisioned,” added Valerie Seward, broadcast engineer at PGA Tour Studios. “We’re managing up to 10 shows concurrently, and engineering has enabled talents to work across multiple studios without impacting audio quality. Our main goal was to deliver a pristine audio environment and foster clear communication for our talents, and we’ve achieved and exceeded that goal without needing any backend changes.”
The comprehensive PGA Tour Studios setup includes two Spectera base stations, supporting a total of 24 microphones and IFB monitors, distributed across the facility with seven dedicated antennas to ensure optimal coverage. There are plans for this setup to be expanded to six base stations and additional packs in the autumn, providing building-wide coverage and hardware redundancy. The system expansion is incredibly simple.
The infrastructure cost savings were an important factor in selecting Spectera. The system does not rely on RF-over-Fiber converters, combiners and amplifiers, or 3/4 inch RF cable, all of which add large overhead to the cost of the system. In the case of Spectera, base stations are connected to antennas using standard Ethernet cable, and the antennas are POE, further simplifying the setup.
“The commissioning process was remarkably swift and straightforward,” added Joel Latimer, audio engineer A1, PGA Tour. “It took just 10 minutes to turn it on, set it up, and showcase what it can do. The ease of use took all of us pleasantly by surprise.”
This rapid deployment allowed the system to go live quickly; in just over two weeks of extensive testing in early January, they had full confidence to deploy Spectera to fully operational status and actively supporting on-air broadcasts across four studios.