Clear-Com Arcadia is the intercom hub at a Łódź skills centre running Dante and NETGEAR

A Clear-Com Arcadia Central Station is the main production communications hub for the Łódź Sectoral Skills Centre for Recording and Sound Reinforcement. It links studios, control rooms, lecture rooms and other spaces across the building. Commercial Audio, which distributes Clear-Com in Poland, supplied the audio technology and carried out the implementation.

The centre belongs to Łódź's Complex of Schools and Educational Institutions of Modern Technologies. Arcadia ties into the centre's Dante network there.

A building wired like a working facility

The centre was designed to operate in a full-IP environment. Its facilities include:

• Dolby Atmos production studios and control rooms
• A Solid State Logic System T console plus an SSL Live Series console
• An immersive sound system
• Active acoustic solutions from Amadeus Acoustics
• NETGEAR AV Series switches as the network backbone
• Dante audio-over-IP distribution throughout the building

According to Krzysztof Borowicz, CTO of Commercial Audio, the whole building's infrastructure is built on NETGEAR AV Series switches and runs over a Dante audio-over-IP network, so Clear-Com solutions fit the overall system architecture ideally. Clear-Com and NETGEAR share a strategic partnership on professional AV networking. It covers OEM networking products built to work with Clear-Com intercom and audio-over-IP systems.

The coverage says the stack is meant to reflect the connected workflows now used in recording studios, performance venues, broadcast facilities and live events. For a training centre, that changes what a student touches on day one.

One frame for wired, wireless and Dante

Arcadia connects to the centre's Dante network and runs alongside multiple HelixNet Digital Partyline beltpacks and FreeSpeak II wireless beltpacks. TVNewsCheck and ProSoundWeb both describe the result as hands-on experience with wired, wireless and IP-based intercom working together in one production environment. Borowicz said Arcadia lets every room in the building communicate, and gives students practical time on an intercom that combines several technologies and formats.

Arcadia connects to the centre's Dante network in Łódź and operates together with several HelixNet Digital Partyline beltpacks as well as FreeSpeak II wireless beltpacks. 4RFV reports that this setup gives students and course participants practical experience as they learn how wired, wireless and IP-based communications can operate together.

Clear-Com president Bob Boster, speaking to distributor DWR Distribution, said Arcadia supports wired and wireless intercom on digital and analog platforms, including traditional partyline, all in one unit.

Where Arcadia's software is heading

None of the Łódź coverage says which software version or panels the centre runs, so read these features as the platform's direction, not a description of the installed build.

Distributors, partners and the hiring desk

The project suggests one way Clear-Com reaches training rooms. A local distributor supplied and implemented the audio technology, and a professional society added backing. That runs in parallel with Clear-Com's own education offering, which covers virtual and in-person sessions, a webinar recording library and onsite training on request. The Łódź installation could add what those formats lack: hands-on training on equipment built into the facility.