MRA and the Future

I was wondering if Clipsal will still keep manufacturing MRA in a few years time and if MRA is frequently installed. As I was considering writing a Control4 driver for MRA but would only do so if the product would still be used in the future.

BTW: My experience with MRA has always been a negative one.

 

Mainly it is customers expectations of MRA and what it can do and cant do. They want C-BUS DLT labels with song titles and the fact that MRA has an amplifier per speaker set makes the rack look untidy.

I still and always believe, recommend and love C-Bus but MRA is the only product in the Clipsal CIS range that I don't push to clients. Instead recommend Russound MCA-C5 because of their individual keypads for zones and ease of integration with RTI, Crestron and AMX.

 

Hi Connectedsmart,

This line struck a chord with me, so I have chimed in.

Whilst you can put them all in one rack if you want to, the MRA amps are called 'remote amps' and designed to be high temp for a purpose, so as they can go into a ceiling space within a few metres speaker cabling distance of the speakers. This delivers digital sound to the room up to 45m from the source equipment with minimal distortion / frequency band distortions typical of analogue based long run speaker systems.

The frequency bandpass issues, resistance power losses and induced noise issues over typical 15-30m plus speaker cables (particularly at the low power levels common of what is predominantly a 'background music' system) are well documented. Why would your clients want to pay all the money for an installation that potentially 'flavours' their sound, and could actually provide digital quality to the room instead?

What I am saying is from a music quality standpoint, it makes more sense to put the amps (and high temp power supplies if required) as close to the speakers as possible, out of sight and without long untidy speaker cabling. It also decreases racking requirements and the horrible need to be behind there in the usual cramped 'closet' looming up 1 or 2 pair speaker cables.

Regards,

Brad

 

I too thought the exact same thing when I read the post.

One of the main benefits I see with the MRA system is the digital distrubtion of the music leaving the analog to short runs. I do not know of any other system like it on the market (i will confess that I not spent a great deal of time researching).

One extra point not metioned is that the cost is significantly reduced. Short runs of speaker cable mean smaller cable can be used, longer runs larger cable. Cat5/6 is so much cheaper to buy and run.

WHen I built my house I put GPO's in all the wardrobes up high with a data outlet for C-Bus and the digitial audio so that the MRA amps could be installed.

Having the amps installed locally also means you can use the local input as well for a local source.

Mick

 

Have you looked at a SONOS system? They allow you to have many units with great mobile apps to select music from many modern sources such as Pandora, spotify, streaming radio, etc. Similar benefits with CONNECT AMP.

Clipsal needs to make this integration standard:
youtube.com/#/watch?v=333jMmys9v8

http://videos.sonos.com/videos/en-us/system/video_mobile.mp4

 

I cant actually discern which MRA is being used once it is finalised and integrated. As we go forward with MRA it is more and more seamless and invisible according to the brand.

At the present moment there are more reports of "convenience" from the SONOS brand than any other brand. That is something to take notice of.

Home integration is now shifting to "personal integration" - the applications are now phone based and tablet based so the idea of walking around the house is basically redundant. On that basis the emphasis is shifting to companies able to deliver apps which cater for the individual.

 

I'm hoping Clipsal acknowledges this trend and caters to supply the market based on this demand...and sometime sooner than later...