One of the last rooms to be renovated was the historic Memorial Hall. Known for its plaques honouring past midshipmen and its "Don't Give up the Ship" motto, the Memorial Hall is one of the most revered spaces at the academy and has been used for countless Naval ceremonies and presentations over the last 100 years. As with many historic rooms, the hard reflective surfaces and high ceilings made the Memorial Hall a difficult acoustical challenge. The Naval Academy wanted to replace its ineffective portable sound system with a permanently installed audio system that would provide intelligible speech reproduction over the entire hall, regardless of seating arrangement. The main requirement, and the biggest challenge, was that the permanently installed speakers should not significantly detract from the aesthetics and should be sympathetic to the architecture of the room.
Fortunately, SPL's experienced audio engineers had a solution in mind, the AXYS Intellivox. However, the client found it hard to believe that a single Intellivox 6c would cover the entire hall and had to be convinced, so a demonstration was arranged by SPL design engineer Jay Paul, in conjunction with Performance Devices, the US distributor for Duran Audio. On 7 August, 2002, an AXYS Intellivox 6c was demonstrated to the Academy staff in Memorial Hall.
The results exceeded their expectations, and many were rather astonished at the capability of the Intellivox 6c to provide even SPL distribution over distances of up to 70m and it's highly controlled vertical dispersion, even at low frequencies, made it the perfect solution, providing levels of speech intelligibility never before realized in this space. After hearing what the Intellivox 6c could offer, the client requested a full design proposal.
Although the demonstration proved that a single Intellivox 6c was sufficient to cover the entire hall, four units were used in the final installation to ensure that the client's requirement to use the room in various different configurations was met. Two units were placed on the front wall, along the long axis of the room, with two microphone points. These are now used for presentations and ceremonies which make use of the entire hall. For smaller group presentations, one Intellivox 6c and a single microphone point were installed on both the left and right side wings of the Hall.
To reduce the impact of the Intellivox on the architecture of this great hall the Intellivox units were color matched by Duran Audio to the client's specifications. This made them almost invisible as they blend into the background. The new audio system and lighting have greatly improved the functionality of Bancroft Hall, finally bringing it into the new millennium. For the first time in its history, computer and video presentations can be made - something which was impossible prior to the renovation.
(Lee Baldock)
