This multipurpose space serves as a venue for lectures, concerts, performances, weekly chapel services and is home to a Casavant pipe organ. After struggling with an inadequate sound reinforcement system for quite some time, University officials decided the time had come to correct the situation - and this decision led to the installation of a new loudspeaker system drawn from the Variant Series catalogue of D.A.S. Audio.
Greensboro, NC-based Audio & Light, Inc was contracted to handle the installation of the University's new sound system. Jim Hoyle, president of Audio & Light and the designer of Whitley Auditorium's new sound reinforcement system, discussed the project and the reasons for his selection of the D.A.S. Audio Variant Series loudspeakers.
"This is an acoustically challenging space, as it is optimised for the pipe organ," Hoyle explained. "Hence, the room is quite live. The room, which is roughly 90ft deep and 42ft wide, can be difficult because it is used for so many different types of events. As a presentation space, a high degree of speech intelligibility was required while at the same time, the loudspeaker system had to be very capable in its ability to reproduce music program material. Ultimately we decided on D.A.S. Audio's Variant 25A powered two-way mid-high loudspeakers plus the Variant 18A powered subwoofer System."
The D.A.S. system deployed by the Audio & Light crew consisted of six Variant 25A loudspeakers and a single Variant 18A powered subwoofer. The loudspeakers are deployed in a central cluster over the font of the room's stage area, with the Variant 18A subwoofer at the top of the cluster and the six Variant 25A elements underneath. The loudspeaker cluster is flown at a height of 26ft.
(Jim Evans)
