[ATTACH=CONFIG]195047.vB5-legacyid=2783[/ATTACH]Springfield, MO – January 2012… Carrington Hall was the first building to open its doors on the Missouri State University campus in 1908, and has lived through many incarnations since then. Today Carrington Hall serves as the university’s administration building, and its previously unused, antiquated auditorium has been renovated and modernized.
To better serve the university’s needs, the auditorium has been converted into large multi-purpose classroom, to be used primarily for lectures but also to accommodate feature concerts, films and other special events.
MSU brought in Lenexa, KS-based acoustic and audio visual consultants Coffeen Fricke and Associates to design an audio system for the new multi-purpose classroom. As CFA’s Bob Ledo explains, the building’s stone and concrete architecture created an extremely reverberant environment, albeit a visually interesting one.
“The main seating area is a futuristic looking space designed with linear, angled florescent lighting on the underside of a gigantic cube that makes the large volume space more controllable, but also cuts off the view to the top of proscenium,” says Ledo. The room also features very low under-balcony seating space completely surrounded by concrete.
It proved quite challenging for Coffeen Fricke and Associates to find loudspeakers that would provide proper coverage in the hall’s main seating area as well as to the lower under-balcony seating.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]195048.vB5-legacyid=2784[/ATTACH]”There was nowhere to put loudspeakers in the main seating area,” says Ledo. “We couldn’t use source clusters because the cube was in the way. Using surface mounted distributed loudspeakers would have been our least costly solution but definitely the least aesthetically appealing.”
The solution was found in the low profile Iconyx system from Renkus-Heinz. “We only needed two loudspeakers, which we shelf-mounted,” Ledo says. “They blend into the environment so well, they’re not recognizable as loudspeakers.”
The new audio system utilizes two self-powered Iconyx IC16-R line arrays located on either side of the stage. The room also utilizes a simple presenter podium with a gooseneck microphone and a wireless lapel mic, all driven by Biamp Audia DSP.
CFA associate John Hodgson used Renkus-Heinz RHAON DSP software to equalize the IC16-Rs. A Biamp Audia also provided very narrow parametric filters for room equalization and narrow banding, a technique CFA has used for many years.
“We were very successful in tuning the Iconyx,” explains Hodgson. “Feedback is a non-issue. We’re able to walk right in front of the Iconyx with a lapel mic, without any feedback.”
Ledo stressed that Carrington Hall’s new audio system is a fairly simplistic one. “Iconyx gave us the pattern control and directionality we needed, as well as satisfying the aesthetic requirements of the space. Everyone is extremely pleased with the results.”
Headquartered in Foothill Ranch, California, Renkus-Heinz, Inc. is the worldwide leader in the design and manufacture of audio operations networks, digitally steerable arrays, powered and non-powered loudspeakers, system specific electronics and fully integrated Reference Point Array systems.
