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Wired In: Kontek Conversations is for leaders who want to get technology right. From universities and healthcare systems to corporate enterprises, each episode delivers practical insights to help you navigate complex projects, avoid costly missteps, and design environments that truly connect people.
Through candid conversations with Kontek executives and industry experts, you’ll discover why projects succeed or fail, how to balance innovation with usability, and how bold ideas become reality. Along the way, we share perspectives on the evolution of AV technology, the impact of employee ownership, and the culture of accountability that drives lasting results.
With almost four decades of expertise, Kontek invites you to think bigger, dream bolder, and imagine what’s possible when technology and vision come together.
Brandon Giella: The science of AV
physics matters more than marketing
when it comes to designing a
great space and a great AV setup.
Marcus, you were just telling me a
story, and I want you to recap it for the
listeners because sometimes the dreams
that we have sound simple enough, but if
you don't know the science or the physics
behind what we're doing, it can be.
Uh, it, it, it can't make sense.
It needs to be redesigned.
It, it's not that simple.
So this is an episode where
I want you to go ham on the
science and the physics of av.
Tell us about this story, this
problem you were trying to solve and
all of the, the equations and the
physics behind what you were doing.
Marques Manning: Yeah, absolutely.
Um, you know, again, math is 100% more
important than marketing, uh, when
it comes to an actual product that
you're gonna use and it's gonna work.
But we have a client, long, longstanding
client, um, higher ed, higher education.
We have this tiered classroom, they
wanna, you know, do an upgrade and
they say, Hey, one of the things we
wanna improve upon is we don't love the
aesthetics of microphones and tables.
Right?
And I'm not gonna lie to you, to
this day, we don't understand why.
But students will destroy
a microphone on a table.
They will picket them, they will
break them, no matter what level
of education we're talking about.
It could be graduate students, it could
be undergrad, it could be high schoolers.
If you put a microphone on
a table, it gets destroyed.
So we said, okay, we'll do
everything in the ceiling.
Common practice in our industry is we
have what we call voice lift, right?
So there's voice lift and there's voice
reinforcement different, mathematically
different, scientifically different.
The easiest way to think about it
is when we're talking voice lift.
It's, you know, me and you sitting,
we're having a conversation.
Okay?
So say that comes around 68 DB on
average, just conversational audio levels.
Well now you're gonna move 30
feet away from me across a room.
but I want voice lift only so
it still feels conversational.
So if I'm just talking, you know, to
the professor for you, your experience
will be as if I'm sitting beside you
and you're hearing me at that level.
So we fast forward, we have a client, they
have a classroom, uh, typical auditorium
style, tiered seating, um, students
in desks and they say, Hey, we want to
implement a voice lift system so we can
capture, we can stream, we can do all
these things in this rooms, an advanced
AV over IP system, all the cool things.
So we say, okay, and we start really
thinking about the science behind
this room and how we're gonna do this.
So we're looking at it and I'm
saying, Hmm, this is very interesting
because it's not acoustically perfect.
No space is generally, um, just not what
happens when you're building a room.
As we start looking into things, I
say, hold on, let's pause for a second.
Voice lifts, totally doable.
Um, but as I'm looking at the
surfaces, got windows, some
hard surfaces from the desktops.
So this could be a little
bit of a challenge.
So for everyone out there, you
know, if you're gonna do voice
lift, PAG/NAG is your friend, right?
PAG is potential acoustic gain.
Nag is needed, acoustical gain.
And as an equation, you can do, uh, there
may be some calculators out there that
can do it for you, but basically as you're
working through this, you can figure
out, okay, is it even possible for me to
get the amount of gain I would need out
of this microphone into these speakers
without the room going into feedback?
And if you've ever been out.
Tough.
If you watch a football game on tv,
as soon as the UMP turns over, there's
a microphone and you hear all that
squelching, that's feedback for in case
you weren't familiar for anyone out there.
You don't want that in a classroom.
You don't want it in a meeting space.
You try to avoid it.
So to really pull this off, we start
thinking more and more about it.
One manufacturer, this suggests I
avoid this, uh, they said, Hey Marcus,
this is not gonna work in that space.
We've already checked it out.
You know, the heights are not good.
It's just, it's, we
advise you not to do this.
I said, okay.
I'm always one to listen to
others that are, there are lots of
people smarter than me out there.
I love to get all the feedback.
The other part of me says,
how do I know I can't do it?
Like, are we Sure.
So we're talking amongst
ourselves in our design team.
Um, shout out to all the
members of our design team.
Uh, it's great 'cause we can
throw out ideas out here and, you
know, someone's seen it or done
it, so we work together on it.
It really got back to just sitting down.
Um, I went old fashioned.
I kind of got a paper, digital paper.
In this case I was on my computer
kind of sketching the room, figuring
out where are the speakers, figuring
out where the microphone's gonna be.
Well then back to this P nag equation.
I had to calculate, you know, between
every speaker, every seated person.
Okay, what's the distance between
them and the farthest other person?
Where are the speakers located?
And there's a great graphic.
Uh, one of our manufacturers has a
great graphic to really help understand
what this looks like and what it does.
So the fun part about it is there's
also change in height in this equate
in in the room, which makes me
have to do a calculation from every
seated position almost in this room.
So we go back and we're breaking
this all down and I'm working with
a manufacturer to just double check
my math and they say, Marques sure.
It looks good.
Not super reassuring, but I said, okay.
No, I mean, and essentially
we end up designing the system
where we calculate it all out.
We get it into place.
We do these, uh, you know,
microphone array systems.
We have speakers that we end
up turning every individual
speaker into its own zone.
So those that do mix-minuses will
understand that really quickly.
Um, so you can send audio out of
certain speakers, but not back to its
own zone, and it gets, gets wild fast.
But imagine a classroom where you have,
you know, 18 speakers in the ceiling.
Normally they're all one big
group, maybe a few zones.
Every single speaker is a zone zone.
Every load from this array is
now routing to a certain area of
the room to capture it and now
routing out of the other speakers.
And, uh, it took some tweaks and
once we were done with it, we
brought in the manufacturer remotely.
They checked it out.
Uh, I was working with one of our field
engineers at the time, and we got it
dialed in and it's working perfectly.
And the client is, you
know, over the moon.
They love it.
Um, there's some, there's some,
you know, rules and caveats because
again, with the height change.
In the back of the room, if you stand
up, you're probably three feet away from
the microphone in the front of the room.
You're standing up, you're 11 feet
away from the nearest microphone.
So there's, there's just a lot of
math we're doing behind the scenes,
um, as far as game structure at every
single microphone position, uh, making
sure we have the routing correct.
And of course, we're
mixing in things like.
Well, of course we're doing a
Dante because why wouldn't you?
You know, we're digital audio
all the time, so are we routing
it correctly in domain manager?
Are we able to capture it back to the,
uh, recording studio area where they
can actually see all their classrooms?
So finish the project off.
It's working great.
You know, a few tweaks here and there.
Just once we can get it actually in use.
Get a full students.
See it in action, but it's, it's one
of the more challenging deployments.
And it all came down to math, right?
It just came down to sitting down,
sketching it out, calculating it.
And there's no way to cheat this, right?
People will say, well, you
just throw it in AI nowadays.
No, you can't.
Um, if you're gonna put it in ai, you
have to double check every calculation,
because in our industry, there are
companies that are working on it, and
we internally are also working on it.
Can I, you know.
Build my own agent using
the specifications that
are unique to our industry.
And it's not quite there yet.
So if you really want to be right,
you know, even if you do build your
own agent, you have to double check
all the calculations right now just
to make sure it doesn't, you know,
go off on a wild goose chase or I
think the term is a hallucination.
Say it won't, you don't want
any hallucinations because that
will really throw off your work.
Um, but yeah, and it all came down
to math because if you read the
brochure for these microphones.
Oh yeah, you can do
Voicelift and it's great.
And they could do all these things and
just put 'em anywhere and here are these
case studies and, but people missed it.
That's the marketing behind the scenes.
There is a lot of calculating and making
sure that this is gonna work before we
actually, you know, just turn this loose
to the client, deploy it in the field.
What we're trying to do
is gonna be successful.
And again, at the same time,
it has to be easy, right?
We can't have a client need
that just levels or turn this
one up, turn this one down.
You have to be able to put all the
automation in place to make sure this
room, they walk in and they start talking.
It just works.
That's it.
They don't need to do anything
with the audio system.
You know, if, uh, if my professor's
wearing a lapel mike, I have to
calculate for that to make sure
that's not gonna interfere with my.
Voice lift system.
So all these things are happening.
We're applying ducking and all
these cool features in Navy.
But that's what has to happen
because again, as a professor, I'm
here to communicate to students.
I'm here to teach.
That's it.
I'm not here to fumble around with
connectors or levels at any of that.
So that's, that's why it
really, really mattered.
Math and physics, they are undefeated.
You know, you can bend, you can cheat,
you can kind of, you know, edge things
right to the edge, but they always matter.
Brandon Giella: what you're
getting at is simplicity.
Simplicity is elegant, but, uh,
simplicity does not mean easy to
do everything you just described.
That is a full team.
That is a lot of planning, that is a lot
of intellectual activity plus physical
activity, lifting these things, doing
all these things, designing correctly.
This is not easy, and something
that you've talked about before is
to bring your team in as early as
possible in the process because, um,
you need to be thinking about these
things in the architectural phase.
And even before that,
like tell us the dream.
Let's sketch it out and figure
out what needs to happen.
Because you've said before that architects
don't, they're not audio engineers,
acoustic engineers, like they don't think
in terms of the acoustics like you do.
And so I'm, I'm thinking of your, your
sketch, uh, correct me if I'm wrong,
but what I had in my mind was, you know,
in those kids toys, you like put your
pencil in the center of this thing.
It's got all these like groove teeth and
you kinda like move your pencil around
and it's got all these like crosshatching
and angles and that's what I'm imagining.
That's what I'm imagining.
So, so talk to us about, uh, where is
it like in the phase where you would
ideally want to do this on a project?
Because like you said, architects
aren't, you know, they're, they're
just not thinking in this way.
How do you come in on this project to
be thinking about how the room would be
set up to, because you've gotta put, uh,
you know, holes in the wall for cabling
and where the speakers will go and the
mics will go, and all that kind of stuff.
Like, when is the best time to be
thinking about this kind of stuff?
Marques Manning: Absolutely.
The second a client says, Hey, I want
a new room, I want a new building.
Um, what ends up happening, you
know, in this particular case we're
retrofitting a space, so it's a little
bit different, but when we do work
with an architect and we're gonna do a
net new build, the second it happens,
and we have some great partners, I
don't wanna leave them out on this
because they always bring us in really
early, and that's what we appreciate.
Um, but the second we're doing, you know,
programming in the architectural phase,
you know, getting into schematic design,
that's when we wanna be at the table
because we have to hear like, what exactly
are you trying to do in this space?
You know, we have another client.
They have a gorgeous,
gorgeous office space.
Um, they have a conference room.
It is really warm.
It's, you know, wood and, you
know, marble countertops, and
you know, all these glass walls.
The problem became because they
said, oh yeah, this is our primary
conferencing room, and immediately.
We said, Hey, when you say
conference, we assume you mean team
Zoom, Google meet, what have you.
Microphones, speakers,
hearing people, right?
They say Yes.
I say, well, Houston, we have a problem.
We have to have some way to use
acoustic techniques to dampen
audio reflections in this space.
Because if you, if you build
one, and we've gone through
this more than one time, right?
We had one where we did a retrofit.
It was already built.
We walked in.
I said, Hey, I, I bet money
that none of your, uh.
Web based conferencing goes very well.
And they said, no, it's
pretty awful, Marcus.
I said, yeah, yeah.
Just looked around and we're like, yeah.
Uh, again, physics and math are,
they just are what they are.
And, uh, the, the physics and math,
once you get the hang of it, you know
right away when you see something, you
just automatically know it was a glass
room again, they had no, no materials
to absorb or to re refract or anything.
So once the audio, if you think
of audio as energy, right?
Audio is just energy in space.
So when it hits a hard surface.
It's gonna reflect.
So now you have these reflections and
before that energy can dissipate, how many
reflections are you creating in a room?
And that's where, you know, the
science of acoustics really comes in to
understand how do we put carpet down?
How do you put what they call, you
know, clouds and ceilings, which are
panels that can, you know, absorb or
refract or do something so you don't
have these reflections Because this
microphone I'm talking into right now,
you know, even if my ears can't hear it.
This microphone does, and as it starts
to reflect more and more and more,
I guess, to the far side, so to your
side of it, it just sounds garbled.
And that's why we say, you know,
room is 100% beautiful and 100%
not usable for the use case.
And so how do you.
Brandon Giella: Uh, yeah,
I want to go into that.
Okay.
So this is fascinating.
Okay, so you, you're walking into
a space and you're like, wow.
Gorgeous and anybody in the world
would look at and go, wow, gorgeous.
And that's what you imagine.
I wanna sit in this space.
I wanna look out the window.
I want a view.
I want wall to wall.
Uh, windows and beautiful
countertops and all that.
And you're going, yeah, gorgeous.
Except this isn't gonna work.
So how do you, how do you,
what are you assessing?
Is it like the angles of the
walls, the materials of the
walls, the height of the room?
Like, walk us through your thought press.
When, when you walk into a space and,
and potentially you do have to retrofit.
Let's say you're not brought
in early on the process.
You have to retrofit it.
What do you, what are you thinking through
when you walk into a room like that?
Marques Manning: Immediately.
So coming up on the
room, you already know.
So for those that are in this industry
and they deal with this, you already
know what's gonna happen coming up to
the room, because I can see into it.
So this is glass like, okay, okay.
It's, and people, you know, even if
you don't get in the weeds on the math.
You inherently do understand when I
explain it to you because you know what
a reflection is, you see a mirror, so
you kind of know, like if you're in
your bathroom clapping and you're in
front of a a mirror, or if you're in
an all glass patio, you hear what's
happening as your clap bounces around.
Brandon Giella: Well, that's why everybody
walks into like a shower or, you know, big
shower and you're, and you start singing.
Because you want to hear all the, all
the reverberations or you go into a
chapel or something and you, you just
immediately, you just wanna sing.
I wanna hear myself in this
Marques Manning: It doesn't
work for the technology, right?
Your, your technology
cannot overcome physics.
So I go in, first thing we see,
okay, I see all glass walls, I
don't see any acoustic treatments.
So like behind me on our
wall, we have acoustic panels.
I don't see any panels.
Okay, well that's tricky.
Do we have carpet down?
Right?
Because there's an actual equation.
I don't, you know, I'm not an
acoustic engineer, so I'm not
as deep in those, just know.
I know about them and there's a
certain amount of, uh, surface area
that needs to be covered to make sure
you can reduce these reflections.
And there's something called RT 60,
which judges the decay time of audio,
you know, from a burst in a room.
These are just, again, they're mission
critical because if your audio decay is
not happening fast enough, that means
the microphone is picking all this up.
It sounds garbled, it sounds echoy,
it sounds, you know, all these
things are happening in your system.
As, as soon as I walk up in
the room again, if I see glass
everywhere, okay, we have a problem.
If I see just really hard surfaces,
you have a, a giant marble table,
you have hardwood flooring.
If you have an extremely high
ceiling, um, open ceilings and all
that stuff, like, yeah, that's cool.
But you know, if I see HVAC ring through
the room, if I can hear your hvac.
'cause if I can hear it,
your microphone can hear it.
So now I'm fighting at the HVAC level.
Right.
If you have, we've seen
rooms where the HVAC level.
I literally have an app on my phone so I
can always pull a measurement in the room.
Um, but if your HVAC level is above,
say, you know, 30 a db, there's
actual what's called a noise reduction
coefficient that tells you where it
should be for whatever your task is.
But I've gone into rooms where HVAC
is registering, you know, 58, 65 db.
Well, if you're already registering HVAC
noise in the realm of conversational
audio, Houston, we have a problem, right?
So as soon as I walk in
and hear and I say, Hey.
Before we go any further with your
technology, let's have a conversation
about your room because, and we caution
people all the time, I can't sell
you something that's going to fix the
acoustic issue that you're facing.
So if your HVAC is, oh man, one client,
their HVAC was registering probably
68 db, like this is, this is insanity.
Like, you know, there's
something wrong here.
And I think in their case it had a
hole or it had something happening.
But if you don't fix that.
Now you have to talk and try to
be louder than the microphone.
But guess what?
What am I gonna do?
I'm gonna gate the microphone, which
is, you know, you do a digital, it's
literally what it sounds like a gate.
So it opens and closes when a
certain amount of levels detected.
Am I gonna do that?
Well, guess what?
When you're talking, it
still hears the hvac.
People say, oh, I'm gonna
use the EQ and filter.
You cannot filter out everything.
If you try to filter out everything where
you filter out the human voice and now you
sound, people say, oh, it sounds tinny.
It sounds robotic.
Yes, it does.
There's too much EQ being applied, right?
So as we just walk in the room,
we're gauging total height.
Uh, is it open ceiling?
As I look around, are
there reflective materials?
Is there anything that's
gonna absorb material?
How far away are people
sitting from the microphone?
That's one that gets people all the time.
They'll say, Hey, I'm on the website,
and it said that this, you know, all in
one bar, it's good for at least 20 feet.
And I just kinda laughed.
I said, sure, if you had a perfect
room, I haven't seen one yet, but
if you had one, then it probably
could be good If you're furthest.
See the person was at 20 feet away.
I said, but in reality, and we've
actually tested this, we once did a
test with, uh, an audio bar, and we
marked our floor and we had seats
at, you know, 5, 10, 15, 20 feet.
So we could actually capture it
in real time in the real room.
And you could see how much the
drop off was in terms of the
audio quality going outbound.
It's like, yes, that doesn't,
I know that it says that.
And the brochure says, and it's
a really beautiful brochure.
Nice picture shows
Brandon Giella: I know
what you're talking about.
Marques Manning: Oh yeah.
Shows all that in the real world.
Again, this is just physics.
I say when you have a real
room and all these things are
happening, it doesn't work.
And so that's when you tell
someone you know it's it's
when the price changes, right?
Because they're thinking, I'm
just gonna use it all in one bar.
No, you're not.
Now if you want to work.
Brandon Giella: I've had that exact
thought I have because I'm thinking,
uh, 'cause I, I was in this conference
room at an employer of mine and I was
like, man, we have got to fix this.
It is terrible audio when
you're on the other side of it.
And I'm like, but you know, it's one
of these major tech brands has one
of those bars, you know, it's got a
camera on top, it's got the bar, you
can do speakers and mics and, and it,
the marketing is that, oh yeah man,
for a thousand bucks you're gonna fix
all of your conferencing problems.
And I'm like, this is great.
This is a, this is like a no brainer.
Uh, I'm glad I didn't purchase it
because you're saying the math is more
important than the marketing, so, okay.
Marques Manning: is
better than the marketing.
And if we're not anti, you know, all in
one bar, we sell them, we install 'em.
They have a use case.
Brandon Giella: also not anti-marketing.
Marques Manning: No, no.
Yes,
Brandon Giella: be clear, it's right.
Marques Manning: anti-marketing.
Marketing is great, otherwise
I wouldn't be on this podcast.
So
Brandon Giella: right, that's right.
Marques Manning: is very, very critical.
All we're saying is, you
know, there has to be, and.
Your average user is not
gonna understand this, right?
So to your point, I see the bar,
oh, it says it's gonna be great.
It says, covers 20 feet, 30 feet.
You're not necessarily thinking
about, okay, well how far is it?
How are you sitting?
Where are you located?
What other audio sources are competing
with this same, you know, with my voice?
Because again, if I just walk
in and I hear your hvac, I
already know that's an issue.
I already know that right off the bat
before I've done a single measurement.
Hey, this is something we have to be
cognizant of because keep in mind.
The microphone is going to work better
than your ears for a lot, especially
for a lot of people that have some, you
know, hearing loss or what have you.
Microphones don't have that, so they're
hearing everything happening in the room
from the, if you have microphones in
your desk, you know why we don't do them?
You have the, the table tapper.
The person in the meeting that's
tapping the table, they're ruffling
the, the papers, uh, snack time.
I wanna open my bag of chips.
All of that is going into the microphone.
So it's just like, Hey, let's
move them up into the ceiling.
Okay, well, is your ceiling at nine feet?
10 feet, perfect.
Oh wait, you have a
feeling that's 20 feet?
Well, I can't go that high.
I need to make sure I get this
microphone down, so I need to hang it.
Now you're talking
about aesthetics, right?
Because, well, I don't wanna see
your microphone hanging down.
Something has to give somewhere, right?
To really have a quality experience.
Because if I have the mic too high,
can't really capture like I need to.
Um, again.
Physics, the closer you are
to the microphone, the closer,
the closer the source being
the human is to the microphone.
The more, uh, the higher quality
audio you're gonna have in almost
every single case known to man.
But there's cool microphones out here
that, you know, they can do all kinds of
things and arrays and beam forming and
whatever term they put on them now, great.
But there's still limits to it, right?
So you can't just put them in any
environment and think, you know, if
I hang a microphone that's 15 feet.
In the air, and I have
it competing with hvac.
And HVAC is right beside the microphone.
Or if I have, say, an older
projector, it's got a fan and a
lamp, it's making all this noise.
If I put that right beside the
microphone, okay, and now I'm injecting
noise directly into the microphone.
And again, that's just understanding
what's happening in the room.
Brandon Giella: Hmm.
Okay.
So let's say, you know, it's very popular
nowadays for people to have the, like an
open concept and that industrial look,
you know, so let's say you got this room
and it's got concrete flooring and it's
got that marble, you know, countertop
or that kind of, you know, enamel table.
And then you got high ceilings with like
the hvac, you got that open ceiling look.
Uh, what do you do?
You know, like, because, because that is,
that's like the, the in look right now.
So is it like, okay, I need to
like spray foam the ceiling.
I need to put these little
foam blocks in the corners.
I need to get a rug.
Like, what do, how do you, what do, okay.
All
Marques Manning: All
of those things, right?
Because again, this is
just, this is just math.
You're trying to make sure you
can reduce all the ambient noise.
So what can we do to reduce that?
You wanna reduce any vibration from
the hvac, any, just the sound of the
pressure when the system is pressurized,
blowing through vents creates noise.
So, okay, what can we do about that?
Um, again, shout out to architects
and their partners, MEP firms.
Because they'll go in and say like,
okay, well this is spec'd that it won't
produce more than, you know, 35 decibels.
Okay, we can work with this, or 30
decibels, we can work with this.
So all of that, you know, if you're
building new is what goes on behind
the scenes to check all those things,
to make sure that you're not injecting
more source sources of noise.
But then once you do
have those glass walls.
Okay.
Is there a film we can put up?
Is there, you know, something we can
hang on the walls to start covering, you
know, a certain amount of square footage
to reduce this overall reflectivity?
I mean, that's, it's just math, it's
just equations to figure that out.
And you, nowadays they have really
artistic, beautiful looking,
you know, acoustic panels.
Um, you start dropping those in,
try to put down carpet and do all
these things, and that brings down
your reflectivity of the surfaces.
Now you start to get into
the realm of being usable.
Right?
Now we can start applying some
technology, but then it's, then you
get into that, the area of, well,
what's the correct technology to use?
Right?
And everyone says they have
the correct technology.
That's just what, that's just what it is.
You're trying to sell
it.
Brandon Giella: Because it's marketing.
Marques Manning: It's, and sales.
And sales.
Now just the marketing side,
someone's trying to sell
Brandon Giella: fair, fair.
That's right.
That's right.
Marques Manning: but it really is
sitting back and some of it comes
from experience of doing this so much.
You know, we have a philosophy of,
if we're really not sure, we'll
just build it in our shop and
play around with it and figure out
like, uh, how is it, is it okay?
Or is it great?
If it's great, let's roll.
If it's okay, well, is there a
way to improve it because we're
not in the business of selling.
Okay.
Right.
I don't, I hope no one is.
Um, you know, we always say we wanna
wow and delight as much as we can.
So we have to really think about,
okay, what's the right microphone?
Not just what is the right microphone?
Where does it need to be?
And how do we blend the aesthetics?
Because we want you to
have a beautiful room.
Everyone wants a beautiful room, but
we have to make sure it can work for
your use case or what's the point.
Or you also get a lot of calls, right?
If you have, unfortunately, you
know, a lot of AV calls get routed
to it depending on your environment.
But what are you gonna do?
Oh, they're saying online
that it sounds terrible.
You're not going to fix that because
you went wrong early because you
have, you don't have the right
microphone in the right space.
Or we have, you know, a
EC, which when I came from.
Live space into the integration space.
There wasn't a lot of a EC in live.
It's nothing thing you do, you
do a mix minus you're good to go,
come to integration, auto, uh, echo
cancellation and all this other stuff.
Um, but you have to think about that
because otherwise it's, you know,
getting the loop of the audio going
back into the call because now it's too
loud and the speaker, the microphone's
picking it up, it's being looped back.
Everything sounds echoey.
Or if I am on one side of it, I'm
saying, oh, I'm hearing myself back.
You know, all these things
start happening now.
Sometimes it's a case of.
Hey, turn your speakers down,
turn your own speakers down.
But you know, if the room's not
set up correctly and you know
you didn't design it correctly,
you start getting more of that.
'cause you have so much
energy going into the room.
The microphone's picking it back up.
But again, that's where AC comes in.
You start canceling
some of that stuff out.
Brandon Giella: I can't tell
you how many meetings I've
been in, in a, in a boardroom.
Let's say I'm sitting where I'm sitting.
It's a digital call.
And then I'm talking to
a team on the other end.
There's 3, 4, 5, 10 people in this room.
And uh, we get on Zoom or Google Meet and
the audio is so bad I can't hear anything.
So they call me, they put their phone
in the middle of the table and then
so we have a phone, I'm watching
the video feed on one end and I'm,
there's a phone that I'm talking to
on the other and that is so common.
I've done that probably a hundred
times 'cause you can't hear people.
And yeah,
Marques Manning: Yeah, it's, it is a
very real thing and it's, and people
just don't understand, it's, again,
preparation, math planning is so critical
to understand what is that room used
for, you know, and, and sometimes,
you know, we get into situations where
there's someone driving a project.
Did they even talk to the,
to the end users at all?
Uh, you, you'd hope so, but if they didn't
bring 'em to the table to understand the
workflow and what's actually happening,
they're just, sometimes they're
copying like, Hey, we did building
a, we're setting up a new building.
We're just gonna copy building a well.
Do you have the same users?
Do you have the same workflow?
Do you have the same needs?
You know, it's technology changes, you
know, every, every week we're getting
some brochure about some new DO ad
that does everything you need to do.
Um, but it just kinda gets
lost in transition and then.
There's actually more capital lost in
more areas than what people think about.
So yes, you've invested all this,
you know, in these buildings and you
know, we, we see, when we see whole
buildings going up, you're talking
about potentially millions of dollars
in audio visual technology going
into the totality of a building.
Brandon Giella: Hmm.
Marques Manning: if you think about this
and what really goes on behind the scenes,
you know, say I'm a facilities manager,
you know, I've hired a company, I've done
all this, we've spent a million dollars.
Now you're telling me the
spaces aren't working correctly.
Okay.
Or every week I'm spending time running
into a room I'm trying to reboot, or
I'm trying to help people connect.
I'm trying to, you know, do
whatever it's, I have to do to
try to get the room to work.
Okay.
Well now that employee is spending
how many hours every single week
fighting a room, trying to make it,
just do what it's supposed to do.
Okay.
Well also go to the user experience side,
even if the room in theory is working.
To your point about the, the
not great audio on the call.
Well then how many
people get tired of that?
And they say, every time I have to use
this room, the audio is just terrible.
I use my phone anyway.
But now you've lost trust of I don't
trust the system, or I'm trying to
make adjustments, or I'm not using
it the way it was meant to be used,
and I just, I don't know what to do.
Brandon Giella: Or the relationship.
You know, what's become important
to me is there's so much that is so
important about relationships and the
way humans communicate and the timing.
A joke or, or you know, catching that
there are so many times in conversations
that like, oh, I didn't quite hear you
because either the internet cut out
or the audio or the echo, whatever.
And that those little grates over time,
they're very, very slight, but they add
up and it makes either the relationship
tense or what you're saying that like.
People just don't wanna use the room.
And so then you, you just have these
like breakdowns of these tiny little
things that I, I know everybody listening
knows exactly what I'm talking about.
But that, that kind of thing, I, I
started to really pay attention to that.
And I've actually been seeing people
more in person because of those little
breakdowns or they, they're, they're,
they're like friction in a relationship
and it's starting to drive me crazy.
'cause I, I, 'cause I really value that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Exactly.
It's
Marques Manning: It's meeting fatigue
because if it's not dialed in correctly.
Even little things that we, we talk
about latency sometimes, right?
If I have to have that awkward pause
to make sure you're not talking and
then you can't quite get it just right.
All of that comes in and it's like,
Hey, here's, here's a pro tip.
It's like, Hey, you need a certain
amount of bandwidth to have a
zoom or a teams meeting people.
A lot of people don't know this.
It's like, yeah, you can't just
run a teams meeting off 2.5
megs of bandwidth.
Not gonna work out very well for you.
The more screens you have, if I have,
you know, three displays and I'm
sharing and I'm doing all this stuff.
You probably need somewhere
between five to 10 bags of
bandwidth, which seems simple.
Okay, well what else is, how much
bandwidth do you really have?
How many rooms are we talking about?
How much bandwidth are you, you
know, eating through at one time?
If you have 10 meetings happening
across 10 different rooms,
did you calculate all that?
Brandon Giella: Yeah, yeah,
Marques Manning: so, you know, that's
even something that people just don't
think I've, I've thought about this
in my home because yes, I have, you
know, enough internet to make sure
no matter what's happening, if I'm
on a call, I have enough bandwidth.
You know, doing quality of service,
adjustments, um, prioritizing your
bandwidth and all these things.
But that's all part of what's happening
in the background to set this up,
to have a quality user experience.
Brandon Giella: Yeah, I've, I've
been telling folks over the years
you, you should probably have aim
for like 30 megs a second in your.
Your download speed.
At least if you can hit that and your
wifi, you're gonna be pretty good on,
on Google and Zoom and all that kind of
Marques Manning: Uploading
is what kills you though.
Right.
Especially when you start sharing
and everything else that upload.
And if you don't have, you
know, bi-directional sweet.
I'm not gonna lie, I'm
a, I'm a lover of fiber.
I I have fiber and I appreciate it.
B Yeah.
Right.
It's, if you can do it, it's the
way to go, because, okay, now I know
I have the same thing up and down.
I'm good.
Back in the days, especially
you start talking about dial up
and some of these other things.
Sure, maybe you do have 50 megs down,
but if your upload is, you know, one
and a half, uh, that's a nightmare.
Brandon Giella: You know, if you
got problems now just get Starling.
Just get a satellite
to beam it down to you.
Just kidding.
Um, okay.
This is fascinating.
I, I haven't told you this yet, but a
couple episodes ago we talked about,
uh, cords and how you shouldn't
get that $8 cord, get the $80 cord.
It's gonna, you know, don't
buy the thing off Amazon.
So because of you, I bought
directly from the Apple store.
They're Thunderbolt five.
Cable, the, the top of the line
cable, and it was like 60 or $70, and
it's like a little two foot cable.
But prior to talking to you, I
would've never done that because
I'd be like, it's a cable.
It's just a cable.
I get one on Amazon for 10 bucks.
But you have taught me it matters.
And because I need the video, I need the
ethernet, I need the, you know, I need
everything to, to come into my computer.
So
Marques Manning: Yeah, it matters.
It's, um, again, it's, it's all ki
again, it's math, it's, you know,
does that cable support a protocol
that supports the speeds you need
for what you want to be doing?
Because a lot of people don't think,
we talk about, we talked about docks
a little bit today and travel docks.
Okay?
That travel dock is using one port.
Well, what protocol is that port using?
Because if you think about what
you're gonna hook up to your dock.
I'm gonna hook up a camera, I'm
gonna hook up a microphone, maybe
I'm hooking up a few other devices.
All of those devices have bandwidth and
they start to eat through that bandwidth.
And there's just overhead calculations.
You have to think about, well if all
that's coming into that one port, that
one USBC port, what was it rated for?
And what kind of USBC port is it?
So that's, and again, that applies,
you know, we talk about the personal
computer side, but that applies
through all the technology we deal
with when we're installing things.
Brandon Giella: gosh, that would
give me the biggest headache.
I'm so glad there's people
like you that exist.
'cause I can't fathom that.
Marques Manning: It's a lot of training
Brandon Giella: deal with that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's great.
Okay.
I love that.
Uh, maybe I'll fly you out, uh, to fix
my, my wifi 'cause my wifi isn't getting
back to my bedroom and I, I need that.
So
Marques Manning: Hey, there's,
Hey, that's calculations too.
There's calculations for that.
Brandon Giella: Okay.
I need to know this.
Okay.
Uh, Marcus, any, any other final words?
It sounds like you guys can come in
at any step of the process, but at
the very beginning is always the best
because there's a lot of math involved,
but, but at any point, you know,
even if you need to retrofit a room,
you can still come in and do that.
Is there any other thing that you would
like folks to know that are like me and
thinking like, man, I want this beautiful
space, but I also want it to sound great.
Uh, things that you've learned
over the years regarding the
math and the physics of it.
Marques Manning: Just always remember,
math is real, physics is real.
Marketing is also real.
I'd never wanna discredit
sales in marketing.
Brandon Giella: Thank you.
Marques Manning: will not overcome
physics no matter how you try.
It just won't, it won't happen.
It's, um, so just keep that and
always have an open mind, right?
Discuss things early and often.
I'll always harp on that one.
Um, bring the right folks in early,
you know, and, and one thing I wanna
stress to people, again, don't get
into a race to the bottom right.
You know, it's not just about can I lower
the cost, can I bring the cost down?
And I get it.
Everyone has a budget.
No one, you know, people
don't have unlimited funds.
Very, very true.
Understand what, what are your needs?
What are your wants?
What are your have to haves?
What are the, I can, I need it now and
I'll add on later, and come up with a
solid plan with a partner to get you,
you know, a, a roadmap to where you
want to go, how you're gonna get there.
So you can manage that.
Because if you're in a race to the
bottom, you're gonna pay twice probably
in the life cycle of the time that where
had you spent a little more, um, or,
or went with something more reputable.
You would've spent it one time and it'll
get you through five to seven years.
Whereas, oh wait, I'm gonna get the,
you know, lowest cost item I can find.
Well now you've replaced it,
you know, two to three times in
that five to seven year period.
And not to put on my, you know,
environmental hat, but what are you
really doing unless you make sure
you cy it every time, you know,
that's also contributing to waste.
You know, I see people with
displays that say, oh, I don't
want a commercial display.
Okay, I can go to, I can go to
Best Buy and buy, you know, two
or three displays for the cost
of that one commercial display.
Brandon Giella: Yeah.
Marques Manning: It's like,
that's fair criticism.
But again, when it burns out faster,
uh, if you can't control it, 'cause
you know, they don't, uh, use
control protocols the same way and
all these things are happening.
Or someone once told me I can literally
replace it twice and I still would've
paid less said, but again, you're
throwing, I know you're not recycling
them, so you're just going to a dump or
a landfill with two or three displays in
the time that you literally could have
had one display working the whole time.
So there's all these other
things to just think about.
Just, you know, what's
your impact on the world?
What's your impact in your own room?
Do you want something
to just die randomly?
Do you wanna have a little bit more
control of like, Hey, this should make it
and no one's perfect, but it should make
it five to seven years versus, and when
it goes, it goes and we'll deal with it
being down, and now we'll go change it up.
Brandon Giella: Yep.
Yep, yep, yep.
Honestly, because of you, I, I've thought
so much more about these kinds of things.
Uh, I, I, I came across this, um, book
that the legendary designer Dieter
Rams wrote called Less but Better.
And so in, in the terms of like capital
allocation, resource allocation, I've
been thinking like, I want, I want fewer
things, but I want those things that
I have to be much better, especially
if it's things that I use every day.
So I mentioned like the cable, you
know, any of my computer stuff or my
display, like I, I, I just am in this.
Period of my life.
I want the best of the best because
I'm gonna be using it every day.
It's gonna last for five or 10 years.
You know, I'm not gonna have
to like upgrade every two
years or throw things out.
So yeah, you, you're talking like this,
this had a big impact on me, just even
personally, just the things that I'm
buying and paying attention to now.
'cause I just want things that work
and I know if I buy the very high
end thing from the very reputable
manufacturer, I'm gonna get the thing
that I just plug it in and it works and
I don't have to download some kind of
driver or whatever and figure it out.
It works.
Marques Manning: Yeah, it's
all about what's the experience
you wanna have, right?
Are there things, there steps in between?
I tell people you don't have to have,
you know, the Ferrari, you don't have to
necessarily say, I just want the civic.
There's, there's tons of things
out there in between, but like, you
know, what's the right fit for you?
I just always caution folks,
you know, if it sounds too
good to be true, it likely is.
Brandon Giella: Mm.
I like that.
I like that.
That's a good point to end on.
Marcus, thank you so much.
Uh, I always love your, your wisdom and
your expertise, and I knew coming into
a show like this, uh, about the topic of
the, the math of av, I was like, okay,
we're gonna hear Marcus at his best.
So thank you for, for sharing with us.
Uh, I know there's a lot that you and
your team, uh, do to put these faces
together and make 'em really simple
and elegant, but, uh, there's a lot
of complex stuff going on underneath
that people need to know about.
Marques Manning: Absolutely.
And we
Brandon Giella: thank you for sharing.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Alright man, well we will
see you on the next episode.
Marques Manning: Great.