An advertising spot on the retail floor every hour, opening and closing announcements, shift and break signals on the factory floor, class bells in a training center. Here's what the VPA-Timer controller-player can do, the jobs it's built for, and what you need to add to get the system running.
Can I run an ad on the retail floor while music plays in other zones?
The Timer works on a single-program-for-all-zones principle: at any given moment one program is playing, and the zones simply decide where it's routed. So ads and background music alternate over time — for example, a spot to the sales floor at 12:00, then music straight after. If you need different audio in different areas at the same moment, that's a job for a matrix system.
Does the VPA-Timer need an amplifier?
Yes, always. The Timer has no amplifier inside: it takes the output of two external PA amplifiers (amplifier inputs 1 and 2) and switches it to six zones through the “zone 1…6” terminals. Amplifier power is sized to the line load in each zone; you can work it out in our online calculator.
How quickly can I change an advertising spot?
Swap the file on the media: the new spot goes onto the USB drive alongside the program tracks and straight into the schedule from the front panel. No studio and no outside contractor — the whole job takes minutes.
Can I run a different schedule on weekdays and weekends?
Yes. The day of the week is set within each schedule entry, and whole scenarios can be switched over — a regular timetable and a separate one for a sale period, say. The front panel has a MANUAL/AUTO switch: in manual mode zones and source are selected by hand, in auto the unit follows the schedule.
Can I configure several sites at once?
The timetable is entered on the unit itself, through the front-panel menu, and the audio arrives on a USB drive. The unit has no network or cloud control, so across a chain of locations the same setup is repeated by hand from one master example.
Will the amplifiers run around the clock?
They don't have to. The rear panel carries two switched mains sockets: outside the defined time slots the amplifiers plugged into them are powered down. The limit is the rating of those sockets — check the unit's data sheet; larger amplifiers are switched through an external contactor.
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