Renkus-Heinz excels at Norway’s DOGA
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DOGA’s Machine Hall building, which dates back to 1898, hosts events to advance this mission. In any given week the schedule might include conferences and seminars or live music sets and video screenings.
Because of the values core to DOGA, designing an audio system for the space meant not only creating a versatile system capable of quality in spoken word and live performance, but also careful consideration to the tenets of good design. To achieve both, Norwegian distributor Benum utilised Renkus-Heinz digitally steerable loudspeaker solutions.
“The basic requirements were high speech intelligibility throughout the hall and sound reinforcement of live music,” said Daniel Glaister, pro audio sales manager for Benum Norway. “But in addition to that diverse use, the hall itself is a challenge from an acoustics standpoint. That means a powerful solution like Renkus-Heinz’ digitally steerable loudspeakers are required.”
With digitally steerable technology, audio can be positioned exactly where it belongs - on the audience. Further, a digitally steerable solution keeps audio away from the reverberant surfaces and other architectural flourishes that come as part of uncompromised artistic design.
“The Machine Hall is acoustically challenging both from a geometric and material point of view,” Glaister says. “The shape of the main hall is long and narrow at 10-by-34 meters, and the ceiling is more than eight meters high. Further, the construction is true to the original materials used in the location and mainly consists of brick and concrete. This makes it highly reverberant.”
The solution was to integrate two Dante-enabled Renkus-Heinz IC24-RD and five Renkus-Heinz IC8-RD loudspeakers. Not only do the Iconyx Series loudspeakers provide the precision control to keep sound away from reverberant surfaces, but they also provide an architecturally seamless solution for a space such as the Machine Hall.
“The speakers are unobtrusive when wall mounted,” Glaister says. “That allows them to blend into the overall design. A surprise benefit of the IC24-RDs, which are nearly three meters tall, was that we could make them more prominent and create a natural frame for large scale projections on the rear wall. It allowed for flexibility in the visual design, which was excellent for the space.”
The integration also utilises Audinate’s Dante protocol for audio-over-IP delivery across the system, and includes components from Allen & Heath and Shure in the workflow.
“The whole system is used several times a week by non-technical personnel without issue,” Glaister continues. “It has greatly increased the popularity of the venue with a noticeably higher number of bookings than before the installation. In all, it is performing incredibly well and has greatly impressed the client.”
(Jim Evans)
