FINDING SOLUTIONS &
STAYING FOCUSED
ON THE MAIN GOAL
DESPITE SUPPLY CHAIN ISSUES
INPUT
By Karl Winkler
In the August 2022 issue of Professional Sound , Editor-in-Chief Michael Raine wrote the feature article , “ It ’ s Arriving When ??? And Going to Cost How Much ?! How Supply Chain Issues & Inflation Are Hitting Pro Audio .” That article was partially inspired by an off-the-record conversation with Karl Winkler , the vice president of sales and marketing at Lectrosonics . Since Karl wasn ’ t available to speak in time to be an interviewee for that article , we invited him to share some more thoughts on the topic from his personal experience at Lectrosonics for this issue ’ s Input column . Here are Karl Winkler ' s thoughts , written in early August , 2022 .
It
is now well known that supply chain problems have caused much trouble in the pro audio industry . A wide variety of parts have gone MIA , have long lead times , and have increased in price . Lectrosonics , for one , has had to re-design nearly every recent digital wireless product since an entire family of FPGA ( Field Programmable Gate Array ) chips have become unavailable .
In terms of re-design , we had 14 of our most recent digital wireless products that used the Spartan 6 line of FPGA ( Field Programmable Gate Array ) chips – in many ways the processing heart of these products . We were informed last fall that this family of chips – we used four different models – was no longer available . Thus , we had to find and source another family of FPGAs and re-design the products around the new chips . Fortunately , we were successful in finding what we believe to be better parts – they draw less power , for instance – but there was a ton of work involved with new circuit board layouts and revised or ported firmware code . We are most of the way through that process now – from end to end it took more than nine months . The downside is that our engineering team would have rather worked on finalizing some of our new products . Fortunately , the team is flexible and dedicated enough to take this setback in stride .
In addition to those product redesigns , here ’ s what we are doing to help our customers continue to get the job done . First , our units have always ( since 2002 ) been backward compatible with older products . This means that if you have a mixture of older- and newer-generation products , they can still be used together . This helps stretch the working life of your units and makes it easier to get creative and flexible in order to solve problems and meet your or the client ’ s needs . For instance , our flagship DSQD digital four-channel slot receiver introduced just a couple of years ago is backward compatible with all transmitters we ’ ve made since about 2002 . Our justannounced DSR4 digital four-channel slot receiver is the same – capable of working with the latest digital transmitters , and also compatible with the Hybrid units made over the past two decades .
Second , and related to the first , is that we design our products to operate across platforms . Our Duet digital IEM system can “ talk ” to our rack receivers , our digital plugon transmitter can be used with our DCHR stereo miniature receiver , and so on , and our M2R belt pack digital receiver can pick up signals from our IFB analog transmitters . This gives tremendous flexibility to the product line . You might want a rack receiver , but we might have a portable receiver with all the same functionality that can be used with handheld transmitters . We were recently asked by an IEM supplier if we had a “ stereo digital miniature transmitter ” and it turns out we do ! Looks like we may have found a new niche there – stay tuned !
Finally , we ’ ve also generally manufactured more than one generation of products at any given time . Currently , the latest products are part of the D Squared and Duet digital wireless lines , and some of those components are quite difficult to get at the moment , hence the re-designs mentioned earlier . However , we still make the Venue 2-based and SR-based wideband tuning Digital Hybrid Wireless originally introduced in 2016 and analog IFB product lines that go much further back . The SSM miniature transmitters , the HMa plug-on transmitters — these still provide unique features and functionality , while sounding great . They are still being made in our production lines and fully supported with hardware , firmware , and software .
So , while everyone usually wants the latest gear , of course , I encourage us all to remind ourselves what the main goal is . To paraphrase the late , great Albert Lecesse , priority one is to make sound , and priority two is to keep making sound .
Karl Winkler is the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Lectrosonics .
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