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installationfeature Meyer has always prided itself
on its appliance of science to loudspeakers and so, in Monitto’s words, felt it “could do” column array beam steering. But he acknowledges that “taking it to a place” that would achieve beam steering was “difficult”, particularly in terms of small amounts of movement. “Allowing people to steer the column in 1º increments and what happens when steering the beam open and getting good responses was tricky,” he says. CAL is being aimed at industrial applications but also cathedrals and the general houses of worship market. Monitto adds there has been interest from the theatre sector because many venues, particularly the older ones, are an awkward size and shape and so need a more directed sound. “In those situations there is the need for high-quality sound because the users are playing music through the system,” he comments. Ateis International has found a
wide application base for its Messenger column, which produces a tight, 7º “beam” of sound that can be precisely positioned using its steerable mounting mechanism. Messengers have gone into airports in Frankfurt and Nice as well as in the Gaudi-designed Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona. An even more historic and ancient church that now accommodates beam steered loudspeakers is Saint Mark’s Basilica in Venice. A then
recently launched RCF VSA 2050 system of 10 loudspeakers went into operation at the 17th century cathedral in 2011 with the brief of distributing sound from 30 microphones around seven zones. Antonio Ferrari, market manager for audio contracting at RCF, explains the loudspeaker is able to “focus and concentrate” a beam on selected places in the building. “Beam steered systems are very
suitable for environments where the acoustic is critical,” he says. “The advantage is that they allow the beam to be focused without deflecting the acoustic energy. Churches usually have marble or hard stone interiors, which are often polished, as well as high ceilings and vaults. A lot of reverberation is created by these big environments but by using a column you can direct the acoustic energy to where the congregation is.” Ferrari says the major factor behind the development of today’s beam steering columns is DSP control. RCF produced its own algorithm and this, Ferrari explains, is responsible for specific features, including reduced delay times. As with all digitally controlled columns it also allows each loudspeaker component to have its own amplifier. “Each of the acoustic producers – the tweeters and so on –must have its own amplifier to get the best possible control,” he comments. “This is also important for the dynamics of the system’s output.” Ferrari
HOW BEAM STEERING HAS CHANGED THE COLUMN LOUDSPEAKER
Column loudspeakers are nothing new. They have been part of commercial audio since the sector’s earliest days and during the 1960s even played a part in the development of live sound systems, notably with WEM columns. Like many workhorse
products the column later picked up a bad reputation, largely because of tinny, poor quality reproduction. “Column technology is very old,” agrees Antonio Ferrari of RCF. “Even 15 years ago we didn’t have the electronics to do the job properly. To do what we can do now there would have been multi-way amps in a big rack driving two to four loudspeaker components and an expensive digital delay, all of which was
almost unaffordable. Now everything can be miniaturised.” Meyer’s John Monitto picks up on this, saying that old columns “always pointed up” but today FPGA (field- programmable gate array) and other modern processing technologies has enabled the crucial beam steering of modern digitally controlled column loudspeakers. John Speck at EAW says the fundamental point has been determining how far a column can be angled. “If you get it wrong it can sound terrible,” he comments. While attention has been paid to the vertical plane Speck says the horizontal should not be overlooked “because it’s half of the game and how we get better LF control”.
The houses of worship market is key for Renkus-Heinz, whose IC Live system was installed in this church in Molde, Norway
adds that cosmetics is another crucial factor: “It’s important that architects are happy with the column, knowing it can be put anywhere and not be noticeable.”
TARGET MARKETS Houses of worship are a prime market for Duran Audio with its AXYS Intellivox system but the Dutch company also targets the commercial and industrial sectors. Another major player is Renkus- Heinz, which produces the Iconyx range of steerable columns. Speaking to PSNEurope this month (p64), Renkus-Heinz president Scott Leslie commented that as all manufacturers did “DSP and clever EQ”, the key to the columns market was beam steerability. The number of components and corresponding amplifiers needed to achieve this, he said, made it an expensive proposition: “It costs a lot more than traditional ways of solving acoustic problems.”
Beam steering has become big
business for Renkus-Heinz. Airports and railway and metro stations are all important targets but, as with other manufacturers in this market, it is churches that have proved the most fertile ground. Leslie acknowledges the company has done well in Europe, increasing sales by 58% during 2012 despite the presence of “so many very good” European brands.
Among the longest established
producers of beam steering loudspeakers is another US manufacturer, EAW. Its research goes back to 1997, leading to today’s DSA range, which is getting on for 12 years old but continues to develop. Marketing director John Speck explains that the basis of much of the ongoing research into beam steering is EAW’s F-Chart acoustics modelling software. “This allows us to model what the response
“There are a lot of places to go [with this technology] so we are actively moving towards them and we are going there right now” John Speck, EAW
will be when the sound arrives at a location and then how that would change,” he says. “That gives us a series of DSP parameters from near to far.” Speck comments that the
public now expects “hi-fi sound”, which has been a common observation in the professional sector for some time but this also extends to commercial installations, where architects are designing ever bigger and reverberant “cavernous spaces”. Speck says because hi-fi is “de rigueur” in places like food halls in the local shopping galleria, digital columns are being brought in to “fix a lot of ills”. Although this might seem a tall order, Speck observes that the technology has not changed that much to deal with the problem because “the basic mathematics of beam steering are the laws of physics”. Among the installers that have
to apply these rules is Hans Kolberg UK, which has used a variety of columns for projects from churches to gyms. Specialist consultant Mark Peters says the ability to steer sound means fewer loudspeakers are needed, a benefit when working on “aesthetically challenging buildings” such as churches. But this can bring additional problems; Peters cites an installation that was carried out by another company: “Our engineers have seen projects where these products have been
mis-installed by companies without the relevant training or knowledge. In a cathedral the design was for one large column array in a corner of the building. Sound waves were ‘steered’ to the appropriate spaces but due to the high SPLs the reverberation time increased accordingly and speech was barely intelligible, so the system had to be replaced.” Peters agrees that beam steering is a technology that has come of age but observes that price is an issue: “If you can do a similar job – in terms of sound coverage – for much less, then why pay so much more for an aesthetic benefit?” John Speck at EAW does not quite agree, stating that “nobody has heard the end of digital steering”. His feeling is there is still “ a lot more to do” and obliquely refers to the next step for both beam steering and EAW: “There are a lot of places to go [with this technology] so we are moving towards them and we are going there right now.” With RCF also working on
new steerable digital systems, this is one area of loudspeaker technology that is not staying still – figuratively or literally. n
www.ateis-europe.com www.duran-audio.com www.eaw.com www.hans-kolberg.co.uk www.jblpro.com www.meyersound.com www.rcf.it www.renkus-heinz.com
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