Crown PIPRPA, PIPRPAT Owners manual

P.I.P.-RPA

P.I.P.-RPAT

© 2002 by Crown Audio, Inc., P.O. Box 1000, Elkhart, IN 46515-1000 U.S.A.
Telephone: [phone]. Fax: [phone]. Trademark Notice: PIP is a
trademark and Crown and P.I.P. are registered trademarks of Crown
International. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

125658-4

Printed on

recycled paper.

7/02

Fig. 1.1 P.I.P.-RPA

P.I.P.-RPA

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Reference Manual

P.I.P.-RPA

1 Welcome

Thank you for purchasing the Crown

®

P.I.P.

-RPA accessory.
ules are designed to install quickly
into the rear panel of many Crown
amplifiers. PIP stands for “Program­mable Input Processor.” Their versa­tile features expand the capabilities of
your amplifier and enable you to cus­tomize it for your particular needs.

The P.I.P.-RPA adds the features of a
remote-controlled 4-input 2-output
mixer to the input of your amplifier.
Each of the four main audio inputs is
balanced and can accept signal lev­els ranging from low-level micro­phones to line-level devices. Phan­tom power is available for micro­phones. The P.I.P.-RPAT also has1:1
isolation transformers for each input.

Unbalanced “Audio Bus” inputs and
outputs, similar to “Aux Send” and
“Aux Return” on a typical mixer, are
provided. The Audio Bus inputs al­low an almost unlimited number of
sources to be connected at each
amplifier input. The Audio Bus out­puts allow the mixed signal of Chan­nel 1 and 2 to be fed to other ampli­fiers or components.

Mixing the input signals of the P.I.P.­RPA is accomplished remotely using
a two-wire remote control to control
the VCA (voltage-controlled ampli­fier) of each input. The remote control
can be a fixed resistor for a fixed
attenuation or a 10 K potentiometer
(pot) for variable attenuation. A 10

PIP

™

mod-

VDC source is conveniently provided
on the PIP for the remote. If no attenu­ation is desired, the 10 V source must
be connected directly to the remote
control input. Up to 84 dB of attenua­tion is available with each VCA. If
desired, more than one input can be
controlled by the same remote con­trol.

A “voice-over” feature is provided so
Inputs A and C can have priority over
Inputs B and D. When activated, the
voice-over circuitry causes the low­priority inputs to “duck” by a preset
attenuated level. The input priority
(and signal routing) is programmed
with an 8-segment DIP switch on the
top circuit board of the PIP
ion “Tie” feature, controlled remotely,
enables you to tie one channel to the
other. Using it, the audio from one or
more inputs can be directed to both
outputs and their priorities linked.

.

A compan-

Feature Summary

❏ Remote-controlled mixing of 4

balanced mic/line inputs with up to
84 dB of attenuation.

❏ Adjustable input sensitivity.
❏ Phantom power available for mics.
❏ Audio Bus inputs and outputs.
❏ 10 V provided for remote-controls.
❏ Voice-over capability with adjust-

able sensitivity and duck level.

❏ Ch. 1 and 2 can be tied together.
❏ 1:1 isolation transformers (P.I.P.-

RPAT).

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P.I.P.-RPA

Fig. 2.1 Facilities

2 Facilities

A. Input Mode Switches

These gold-plated three-position
switches select the mode of each
main audio input: mic-level, line-level,
or mic-level with phantom power.

B. Input Level Controls

The level of each main audio input
can be adjusted with these level con­trols. They have a range of 36 dB.

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Using them, you can compensate for
a wide range of input signal levels.

C. Barrier Connectors

All connections are made using these
screw-down barrier-block connec­tors.

Important:

unless the wire ends are first tinned.
Strip no more than
of insulation from the wire ends.

Do not use stranded wire

1

/4 inch (6.4 mm)

Reference Manual

P.I.P.-RPA

Main Audio Inputs

There are four balanced main audio
inputs. Inputs A and B are normally
fed to Ch. 1 of the amplifier. Inputs C
and D are normally fed to Ch. 2. Each
input remains off (attenuated 84 dB)
until a positive DC voltage greater
than 5 V is applied to the corre­sponding remote input (10 V results
in no attenuation).

Remote Inputs / 10 V Output

There is a remote control input for
each main audio input and a 10 VDC
supply output for feeding them (see
Section 3.6). Each main audio input is
normally off (attenuated 84 dB) until a
positive DC voltage greater than 5 V is
connected to the corresponding re­mote input. If the 10 V supply is
strapped directly to a remote input,
the main audio input will have no
attenuation.

Audio Bus Input / Output

There is also an unbalanced audio
bus input and output for each chan­nel. Each bus input and output pair
shares a common ground connec­tion. The bus outputs contain the
mixed audio signals from Inputs A–D
which feed the corresponding ampli­fier channel.

Note: The audio bus outputs are
inverted. The mating bus inputs cor­rect this by again inverting the sig­nal.

Tie Input

Finally there is a “Tie” input which is
a logic input and can be switched on

by feeding a positive DC voltage to it.
It enables the audio inputs and voice­over priorities of Ch. 1 to be “tied” to
Ch. 2 and vice versa.

D. Routing/Priority Switch

This 8-segment DIP (dual in-line
package) switch is comprised of eight
individual switches. Flipping them
down toward the bottom circuit board
turns them off. Flipping them up to­ward the top circuit board turns them
on. The DIP switch is used to pro­gram the routing and priority of each
main audio input. See Section 3.1.

E. Duck Level Controls

The “duck level” is the amount of
attenuation applied to a lower priority
input when a higher priority input is
activated. The first control (closest to
the front panel of the PIP) sets the
duck level triggered by Input A and
the third control sets the duck level
triggered by Input C. The attenuation
range is 0 to 70 dB.

F. Voice-Over Sensitivity
Controls

The “voice-over sensitivity” is the level
required from an input signal before
the “duck” circuit is activated, caus­ing lower-priority inputs to duck to a
preset attenuation level. The second
control (closest to the front panel)
sets the sensitivity of Input A and the
fourth control sets the sensitivity of
Input C. The voice-over sensitivity
controls have a range of 26 dB.

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P.I.P.-RPA

3 Installation

This section provides general instal­lation instructions. For additional in­formation on using Crown PIP mod­ules, visit the Crown website at
www.crownaudio.com.

The internal controls of the P.I.P.­RPA must be set prior to installation.

Note: An accessory, a PIP extender
card (P.I.P.-EXT), is available if you
prefer to make the voice-over and
duck level adjustments while the PIP
is operating. This allows you to test
your settings and easily make
changes while you fine-tune the in­stallation.

Fig. 3.1 P.I.P.-EXT Accessory

3.1 Setting the
InputRouting/Priority
Switch

The routing/priority switch serves two
purposes. First, it works together with
the Tie function to control audio sig­nal routing. Second, it sets the prior­ity of Inputs B, C and D (Input A
always has the highest priority. Input
C always has the second highest
priority.)

The routing/priority switch is the 8­segment DIP switch shown in Fig­ures 2.1 and 3.2. Notice that it is
mounted upside-down to the under­side (component side) of the top
circuit board.

Normally the mix of Inputs A and B feeds
Channel 1 of the amplifier and the mix of
Inputs C and D feeds Channel 2. This
can be changed by the routing/priority
switch when the Tie function is turned on
(see Section 3.7).

Fig. 3.2 Priority/Routing DIP Switch

(Inverted for Readability)

When the Tie function is on, the audio
from Input A is automatically fed to
both Channels 1 and 2. The audio
from the remaining inputs can also
be tied to both channels using the
routing/priority switch. The first three
switch sections control the routing of
Inputs B–D as shown in Figure 3.3.

Fig. 3.3 Routing/Priority DIP

Switch Functions

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P.I.P.-RPA

Fig. 3.4 Sample Routing/Priority DIP Switch Settings

The priority of each input determines
whether it will override or “duck” un­der another input. For example, you
can feed background music into In­put B and a paging mic into Input A.
By setting the priority of Input B lower
than Input A, the background music
will be automatically attenuated when
someone uses the paging mic.

The table in Figure 3.4 shows some
common settings for the switch and
what they mean—it does not show
every possible combination. The
highest priority is 1 and the lowest
priority is 3. Notice that Input A is
always set to priority 1. Input C is
usually set to priority 1 unless the
channels are tied together. The rea­son for this is because only Inputs A
and C have voice-over sensing cir­cuitry. Since the other inputs do not
have this sensing capability they must
have a lower priority.

As mentioned earlier, the routing/
priority switch works in conjuction
with the Tie function. The table in
Figure 3.3 shows that all the DIP

switch sections except 5 and 7 func­tion only when the Tie function is on.
The Tie function is designed to be
remotely controlled and is fully de­scribed in Section 3.7. If you have no
desire to control it remotely and want
to leave it on, simply install a jumper
between the 10-V output and the Tie
input on the front panel of the PIP

3.2 Setting the Duck Level

If you gave all four main audio inputs
the same priority you can skip to
Section 3.4. When two or more inputs
have a different priority, the duck
level is the attenuation level the low­priority inputs will duck when the
voice-over circuitry is activated.

The duck circuits have an attack time
of 15 milliseconds and a decay time
of 1.5 seconds. This means the duck
circuit needs only 15 milliseconds to
attenuate the low-priority input(s)
when the voice-over circuit triggers
it. However, when the voice-over cir­cuit is no longer activated, the duck
circuit waits about 1.5 seconds be-

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