ROUND TABLE
38
Can you share a project or venue where the acoustic environment presented unexpected difficulties, and how you adapted your approach? Brandon Heinz We recently carried out multiple installations at the University of Toronto Scarborough’s brand-new Sam Ibrahim Building, which presented a series of unexpected acoustical challenges. The building features six unique lecture theatres, each with distinct architectural designs, from irregular ceiling angles to reflecting materials and unconventional seating layouts. Ceiling or pendant speakers were not an option due to structural limitations, leaving only limited wall- mounted positions for loudspeakers. To overcome these obstacles, we used a combination of Renkus-Heinz UBX8 passively steered columns and CX61 point-source loudspeakers. In several rooms, we adapted our approach by stacking and rotating additional UBX8 units 180°, effectively extending coverage and maintaining intelligibility for students seated in the upper rows. The UBX8 loudspeakers have inherent downwardly biased coverage thanks to Passive Unibeam technology, which enabled effective control of the lower seating areas. The units flipped 180° vertically enabled effective coverage for the upper seating areas without compromising on intelligibility. In the hexagonal Arrow Innovation Hall, where a suspended loudspeaker cluster would have blocked sightlines, we decided to mount multiple CX61s among the perimeter, carefully aimed to deliver balanced coverage across all seating zones.
Fabio Kaiser A challenging project that required significant adaptation was the re-staging of Mozart’s Requiem for the Wiener Festwochen in Halle E at the Museums Quartier, Vienna. The venue had a naturally short reverberation time of just 1.3 seconds, and yet the artistic director, Romeo Castellucci, still requested a wide variety of acoustic settings to work with. A non-negotiable of his artistic vision was no performers, including the choir and soloists, could wear wireless microphones, requiring freedom of movement on stage. To adapt, we used the Amadeus system, employing 3D modelling to transform the hall into an immersive hybrid orchestral and theatrical setting. We were able to leverage directional microphones strategically positioned above the stage, forgoing the need for body-worn mics, ensuring the cast could move freely while their voices were still captured naturally for the active system. Jeremiah Karni Several smaller venues around the US have a certain aesthetic that must be maintained, where the audience balcony is close to the arrays. In this case, the consultant and designer rely on the ability to put subwoofers in the middle of the array to avoid direct proximity SPL to VIP seating, maintaining the coupling of the array. We were able to leverage the in-speaker DSP to make a less-than-ideal configuration work for the environment. Ultimately, audio is often a perfect series of compromises.
Fabio Kaiser Advances in digital signal processing (DSP) have transformed execution by enabling a geometric approach to active acoustics. Our core technology utilises a proprietary 3D model of the venue, so we can generate reflections that naturally complement the room’s existing acoustic signature, rather than relying on measured impulse responses that can lead to ‘dual-sloping’ artifacts seen in other systems. This level of DSP precision allows fine-tuning of nearly all essential acoustic parameters, such as reverberation time (T30), clarity (C50/C80) and strength measure (G).
Optimal performance relies on a focused,
collaborative process from initial product
design to show-day sound engineering
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