USA - The historic 920-seat Edwards Hall Auditorium on University of Rhode Island's Kingston Campus recently upgraded its sound system with a selection of products from Bose Professional Systems Division. The system was spec'd and installed by Sudbury, Massachusetts-based Adtech Systems. Adtech's senior design engineer Charlie Crane served as lead on the project.
The final system consists of two L/R clusters consisting of two RoomMatch RM12060, two RM9020, two RM7010 array modules, and two RMS215 subwoofers, all powered by four PowerMatch PM8500 configurable professional power amplifiers.
Crane points out the challenges of tackling the project in such a space: "The room was originally built as a library and converted into an auditorium much later, so they've always struggled with good sound quality in there. The university's architect was working with administration, and they were primarily concerned with the room's acoustics. But more accurately, they simply had a problem of coverage - the existing system was not covering every seat. They wanted a new system that would not only cover the room and increase speech intelligibility for lectures, demonstrations and other different things that you would expect in a large auditorium at a college, but they also wanted it to be able to accommodate high-energy music. With these concerns of coverage and versatility of use in mind, it was not hard for us to decide on a Bose RoomMatch system."
The coverage patterns available with RoomMatch loudspeakers makes designing a new system completely customisable to the space. Crane continues: "The room has a very deep balcony with seating underneath, but with the progressive nature of the RoomMatch arrays, we could throw sound deep into the balcony without blowing the people out of their seats right in the front of the room. We chose the cabinets with the right coverage patterns - a combination of 120x60, 90x20, and 70x10 degrees - and we ended up with a great front-to-back coverage ratio. The client is more than thrilled - they now love the room. RoomMatch offers incredible sound quality and pattern control... Just awesome."
