www.psneurope.com
June 2014 l 53
installationreport WORLD
Phil Ward chats to Bose Pro’s Akira Mochimaru and discovers how its new-generation RoomMatch and PowerMatch products are aiming high
BOSE’S SUCCESS in the consumer sector is legion. Behind it, a little further away from the colour supplements, is a professional dimension with equal cachet among those in the know – satisfying the rainbow shouts of install from Val d’Europe shopping centre near Disneyland Paris to Roskilde Cathedral and the New York Grill in Tokyo.
Since 1993, these types of installations have peppered the career of Dr Akira Mochimaru, now general manager of Bose’s professional division, a man with notable sound design successes on his CV ranging from the Tokyo Dome to the Holy Mosque in Mecca. His technical contributions to the industry include what became AcoustaCADD, the early simulation software once owned by Mark IV Audio, Bose’s ControlSpace DSP and stints on the committees of both the AES and the Olympic Games, so
when his name is associated with a whole new product generation – such as the Bose RoomMatch array module and PowerMatch configurable amplifier– you’re not counting supermarket trolleys thrown into an abandoned skip. The claims for RoomMatch and PowerMatch technology are now familiar. For RoomMatch:
Roomat the top
a new combination of efficiency, reliability, configurability and performance; better transient response and a tight, rich low end; a wide dynamic range with linearity and ultra-low distortion; and onboard DSP.
But there’s more. The pincer movement of RoomMatch and PowerMatch is part of
The pincer movement of RoomMatch and PowerMatch is part of an organic expansion into live music and performance applications
coverage patterns to match any room size or shape, maintaining consistent tonality by eliminating unwanted reflections and reverberant energy; high-frequency summation without array ‘seams’; and vocal clarity, supported by the large-format waveguide and 500Hz crossover, outside of the vocal range. For PowerMatch:
an organic expansion into live music and performance applications, targeting the very top-end brands as natural competitors. This, according to Mochimaru, follows in touring a trail blazed in fixed installation. “There are many good speakers for concert touring applications in large outdoor spaces and arenas,”
he says. “However, even the best touring speakers, when they’re used for indoor installations, experience performance limitations due to room acoustics. Reflections and reverberations deteriorate tonal balance and vocals lack clarity. There is really no SR speaker specifically designed for fixed installations that can deliver uncompromised high-end performance. Our primary intent was to develop the ideal SR speaker system for such indoor installations.
“But it is crucial for us to be recognised by the live touring industry – to be successful in high-end performance venues. That’s the reason we’re working with key people and shows in the live concert touring industry. Our current goal is to deliver on that promise of ‘uncompromised’ performance for the fixed installation market that we saw
Akira Mochimaru: “We’re currently working very hard to be recognised by the high-end industry, especially in live performance of music and the arts generally”
as a gap. As more customers experience our products’ benefits there, we naturally get product requests for touring applications. We are fortunate, having invested in 18 years of research, to have a strong technology foundation that can serve a broader set of applications over the long term.” It is indeed now 18 years since the first stirrings of this initiative, when Mochimaru began to ask questions of loudspeaker systems that still demonstrated an unwieldy lack of consistency from one installation to another. “My colleagues and I have been working the audio industry for a long time – in roles from designing audio systems to developing the products installed in the systems,” he continues. “We, like many in the industry, have been looking for that speaker that can overcome challenges and weaknesses
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