A recent $150m, 320,000sq.ft addition to its headquarters includes a 43ft climbing wall, a 66ft indoor Ferris wheel, and a 2,000-seat theatre-in-the-round. Acoustics By Design, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, designed a sound reinforcement system centred on 10 of Danley Sound Lab's precision-pattern controlled SH-69 loudspeakers and an honest BC-415 subwoofer for Acuity's theatre, and Camera Corner Connecting Point, Green Bay, Wisconsin, installed it.
"Acuity will use the theatre for ongoing staff training and its quarterly, company-wide town hall meetings," explained Scott Tomashek, lead engineer on the project for Camera Corner. "Acuity is also an excellent corporate citizen and will make the space available to the community for debates, chess tournaments, school events, and so on. It's not for rent, per se, but they'll make it available. They were previously holding their meetings in a combined six-room conference-centre-style, so the theatre-in-the-round is a massive upgrade."
Tomashek continued, "Since it's in-the-round, proper pattern control is especially important." Tim Hamilton, a senior AVL consultant at Acoustics By Design, was the person responsible for the A/V design of Acuity's new theatre. His design made excellent use of Danley's tight pattern control to cover each section of the floor and balcony separately. Hamilton said, "I first got interested in Danley because their subs deliver such clean, undistorted bass. Through the subs, I was introduced to the Danley mid-high boxes, which also sound great. They have excellent clarity and excellent pattern control, both of which are essential for Acuity's theatre. Moreover, Danley was happy to work with us to get self-powered versions of the Danley SH-69."
The completed system consists of 10 Danley SH-69 mid-high boxes arrayed around rigging above the central stage. Five serve the main floor and five serve the upper balcony. A massive Danley BC-415 subwoofer hangs in the centre of the circular array and energizes the room with perfectly symmetric output.
The self-powered loudspeakers and sub receive analogue signal from a QSC Q-Sys signal-processing platform, which also feed a handful of QSC and Tannoy loudspeakers that function as under-balcony delays and lobby feeds.
An Allen & Heath GLD-112 console serves as the user interface for town hall meetings and other media-intensive events, whereas the Q-Sys system provides simple operation for correspondingly simple events. Shure ULX-D microphones and a variety of media players serve as inputs to the system, which starts and remains digital until the very last stage.
(Jim Evans)
