Summary:
- The 450-seat Leonard Deacon Lecture Theatre got an audio upgrade with a Renkus-Heinz beam-steering solution.
- The front of the room saw two IC16 digitally steerable column arrays wall-mounted on the left and right of the projection screen, while the second half of the room had two of the more compact IC8 steerable line arrays.
- With the success of this upgrade, The University of Birmingham’s long-term plan is to upgrade 15 lecture theaters across its campus using a range of products from Renkus-Heinz's Iconyx Gen5, UBX Series, and CX Series.
AV technology is a major part of the University of Birmingham's practical learning methods. The school, which welcomes a cohort of more than 400 students each year to its Medical School, recently reviewed its approach to AV, realizing that some facilities were deemed in need of an upgrade, including the 450-seat Leonard Deacon Lecture Theatre. Audio quality was a particular concern, with poor speech intelligibility and limited coverage disrupting the listening experience for students and lecturers. A Renkus-Heinz beam-steering solution would prove to be the answer to delivering clearer, more consistent audio.
[Cornhuskers Coverage Conversion]
The Leonard Deacon Lecture Theatre features two distinct acoustic areas: a semi-circular stage at the front of the room, and the tiered seating area that extends to the rear of the theater. “The acoustics at each end of the room presented several challenges,” said Mark Bromfield, director of system solution sales for CUK, the distribution company supporting the project from early conversations through to implementation. “The stage was highly reflective, largely due to its hard wooden flooring and projection screen, while the seating area incorporated more absorptive finishes, meaning both areas presented very different conditions within the same space.”
Combining wall-mounted and ceiling loudspeakers, the existing system operated as a single line without time alignment. Bromfield explained that listeners could hear sound coming from multiple directions with noticeable delays between loudspeakers, compromising intelligibility and contributing to listener fatigue.
To determine the ideal sound solution for the Leonard Deacon Lecture Theatre, CUK conducted acoustic modeling, followed by a live demonstration of the Renkus-Heinz Iconyx system in the venue. “The university’s AV team was incredibly impressed with the precise directionality and consistency provided by the Iconyx Series, which led to the specification of four of these beam-steering arrays,” Bromfield continued.
GVAV, an AV integrator with extensive experience in education-based deployments, was tasked with installing the new system. To manage the distinct acoustic conditions of the stage and the seating area, the theater was treated as two separate zones. The front of the room saw two IC16 digitally steerable column arrays wall-mounted on the left and right of the projection screen. For the second half of the room, two of the more compact IC8 steerable line arrays were installed behind panels on each side, providing controlled coverage all the way to the back of the theater.
Once the installation was complete, the new system delivered an immediate improvement in speech intelligibility and the overall listening experience. “The system provided controlled, focused coverage from a significantly smaller number of loudspeakers compared to the previous system,” concluded Bromfield. “Delighted by the performance of the system and how it addressed previous challenges, the university’s AV department began looking at other areas of campus that would benefit from a similar upgrade.”
With the success of this installation, The University of Birmingham’s long-term plan is to upgrade 15 lecture theaters across its campus using a range of products from Renkus-Heinz's Iconyx Gen5, UBX Series, and CX Series.
