The History Centre's 400-seat Woodruff Auditorium was planned as the venue for this programme, but significant upgrades were required to support that use. This led Cape Dixson Associates (CDAI), the Atlanta-based AV and acoustical consultant that has worked with the Centre on its audio and acoustical needs for 25 years, to choose a Panaray MA12 modular line array system from Bose Professional Systems.
CDAI had helped the History Centre upgrade the acoustics of the 1960s-vintage space when the auditorium was renovated in 2001; however, that renovation budget did not include upgrading the audiovisual systems, leaving the auditorium users dependent on the original audio and lighting systems.
The new Bose system, installed by local firm Sound Design & Innovation, consists of two stacks of three Panaray MA12 modular line array loudspeakers, wall mounted either side of the stage, with two MB12 modular subwoofers soffited under the front of the stage. This entire system is powered by a single Bose PowerMatch PM8500 8-channel smart amplifier.
Rogers Dixson, president of Cape Dixson Associates, says the Bose system was one of several with which he had arranged on-site demonstrations for the Centre's executives, and that once they heard the Panaray system, they knew that they had found their solution. "The Bose system not only meets the key requirements to provide clear, highly intelligible and even sound coverage throughout the auditorium seating area," Dixson explains, "but it does so with a narrow, low-profile design that fits in discreetly with the auditorium's architecture.
"One of the key things for this project was the need to have excellent coverage of the entire seating area and full control of the sound system's dispersion pattern," Dixson explains. "In a typical auditorium of this type we would have specified an L-C-R cluster to achieve desired coverage, but the architectural design of the space and its low ceiling prevented that approach. In addition, the Bose system provides surprisingly consistent coverage even in the front rows. Fill speakers would likely have been needed with a more traditional speaker cluster design."
Jackson McQuigg, the vice president of facilities at the Atlanta History Centre adds, "The Bose speakers more than met our expectations and we are thrilled with the result."
(Jim Evans)
