Each of the three locations selected for the new stores - on New York's Fifth Avenue, at Los Angeles' The Grove shopping centre, and in London's Mayfair district - has been designed for maximum audio and visual impact. "The vision for these stores was to design a retail environment that is as much about fashion as it is entertainment," says David Schwartz, Abercrombie & Fitch's director of audio/video technology. "We wanted to design an audio system that could deliver the impact of a full-blown theatre experience. To me, there's only one name synonymous with theatre when it comes to sound, and that's Meyer Sound."
For the London location, Schwartz designed a distributed system that includes 57 UPM-1P ultracompact wide coverage loudspeakers and 38 UMS-1P ultracompact subwoofers, as well as 30 MM-4 miniature wide-range loudspeakers for added spot coverage. As Schwartz explains, opening a three-story retail operation at 7 Burlington Gardens, in one of London's most historic retail districts, presented particular challenges.
"The building was built in 1725 as a residence for local royalty and is a designated historical landmark," says Schwartz. The 23,000 sq.ft structure's history includes several incarnations, most recently as a branch of the Bank of England, before A&F assumed the space. "Our CEO [Mike Jeffries] was really determined to get the place," says Schwartz. "I walked in, took a look at this huge space with its 27ft ceiling and seven-second reverb time and thought, 'no way.'"
Because of the building's landmark status, the store could not use attached fixtures or make any modifications that would alter its historical attributes. "I wanted to do some acoustic treatment to the room first, and submitted a plan that was immediately rejected," says Schwartz. "So was every subsequent proposal I turned in. Ultimately, the mission was to make it work with what we were given."
Fortunately, the placement of custom-designed cabinetry and store fixtures made a significant impact on the acoustics. "It broke up the standing waves enough to bring things down to a workable level. And the UPM loudspeakers are such tightly focused boxes that we were able to address the sound where we needed it and avoid a lot of excessive reflection."
(Jim Evans)
