Gaylord Entertainment's legendary WSM, home of the Grand Ole Opry, has purchased Axia Audio consoles and IP-Audio networking gear to outfit its Nashville, TN, studios. On the air since 1925, the WSM call letters are among America's best known, and the station is the source of the Grand Ole Opry radio broadcasts, heard by millions on terrestrial and satellite radio. WSM was recently added to the National Register of Historic Places. WSM's Axia gear will be used in the production and broadcast of Opry radio shows.
The purchase, made through Broadcasters General Store of Ocala, FL, includes 20- and 28-position Element 2.0 mixing consoles with PowerStation integrated console engines, plus multiple Axia Audio Nodes (networked interfaces for analog, AES/EBU and microphone-level audio sources).
Axia allows broadcasters to quickly and easily build audio networks using switched Ethernet to connect a few rooms, or an entire facility. Axia networks have a total system capacity of more than 10,000 audio streams and can carry hundreds of digital stereo channels (plus machine logic and PAD) over a single Cat 6 cable, eliminating much of the cost normally associated with wiring labor and infrastructure.
