Willamette University upgrades with Renkus-Heinz
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When the pandemic hit last year, Willamette University looked for ways to expand and improve its remote learning capabilities. The school's 120-seat Paulus Lecture Hall in the College of Law needed a sound system upgrade to facilitate better remote and limited in-person lectures and discussions. Kyle House, the audio video specialist for Willamette University, worked with Cascade Sound in Salem, Oregon, to upgrade the lecture hall's sound system with loudspeakers from Renkus-Heinz.
“Before we implemented the new system, we were using a pretty rudimentary pair of trapezoid box speakers which were put into an alcove above the screen. It was really primitive and ineffective and caused a lot of issues with reflections and feedback and very low intelligibility," saysHouse. “We needed a way to integrate the students in-person with those who are attending over Zoom. We needed a high-quality, highly-controlled audio solution so that way our microphone arrays can work properly in the space so everyone can be heard.”
House and the AV team selected a set of Iconyx Compact ICC12/3 arrays from Renkus-Heinz. A 12-channel digital amplifier and DSP system powers the unit's 12, 3-inch, full-range, high-sensitivity drivers. Iconyx Compact utilises the full suite of RHAON II and Beamware, the Renkus-Heinz proprietary beam steering calculation and simulation programme.
"We chose these speakers because we needed a solution that gave us extreme control over where the sound was placed in the room. This is an extremely challenging room with a fan-shape orientation, as well as stadium-style seating,” explains House. "We have a lot of elevation change, and we also have a lot of highly reflective surfaces and even parabolic light soffits that were reflecting sound right back to the front of the room. Lapel mics weren't even able to be used in the space.
"We used the RHAON software to configure the different steering lobes into the space, and it happened extremely quick. We had high intelligibility, great coverage, really quickly. Having the ability to integrate the speakers and our microphones over Dante has been a huge benefit. We were able to integrate the Audinate devices to send audio around the room to different locations. It's been extremely beneficial and helpful to make this whole system work seamlessly."
