Sited in the prime Liverpool city centre location of Sefton Street, the Alima Centre features four flexible spaces, comprising three conference rooms and a live music area, in a regenerated Victorian warehouse. MSP chose an all Harman solution, including JBL VRX and SRX speaker systems, when providing audio and AV throughout all four areas. MSP's Colin Reader explains that company continually employs products from across all of the Harman Pro brands as standard inventory for various reasons, "The massive range and choice of components, reliability, value for money, and the great service provided from Harman Pro UK."
For the largest of the conference rooms, Reader specified six JBL Control 25 speakers, a Crown XLS 202 amplifier and a Soundcraft RW5650 Spirit EK Series desk: "The requirement was for a small, manageable, user-friendly system," he says, adding that the Control 25 is particularly versatile for this environment, with its hi-fi like audio quality and unobtrusive profile. The Soundcraft desk is similarly clean, understandable and simple to operate.
The main room holds approximately 250 people, and is a large open space with a stage at one end, and a bar with seating at the other. The design oeuvre is an industrial chic style, complete with exposed AC ducting and service pipes, making it a lively space in terms of acoustics. With the room intended for multi-purpose use, including live music, club events, and larger scale presentation and conferencing, the sound system requires to be highly versatile. Reader chose the new JBL VRX compact line array, specially developed for medium sized installation and live applications.
"There's an array of four VRX932LA's either side of the stage, complimented with four SRX7818S subs on the ground left and right. They are powered by two Crown IT4000 amplifiers. These were tested in the room before being committed too," says Reader, though he was already confident he had the right box for the space. "The sound is amazing, rich, deep and clear, and ideally suited to the diverse range of live performance happening in the room. VRX is an excellent, robust all-purpose live event box, that's also ideal for more standard conference and presentation applications."
Additionally there are two JBL JRX112m stage monitors, powered by Crown XS500s. All speaker processing is handled by a dbx 260; again chosen for its industry standard status, and designed to provide leading-edge signal processing via a simple and intuitive user interface.
Reader chose a Soundcraft GB4-24 console "because it's good sounding, reliable and easy to use". Day to day, the system is looked after by an in house technician/ engineer from the Alima Centre. The dual-mode topology allows it to be used for FOH and monitor duties, with fader control of group or aux outputs. Outboards at the Alima include dbx 1066 compressor/limiter/gates, and a Lexicon MPX 550. MSP also supplied two AKG 747 lectern mics, again "because it's tried, tested and proven".
The clients are delighted with the results achieved with the installation, and the venue is already proving a popular and successful cultural landmark in this increasingly vibrant and expanding city.
(Chris Henry)
