BRISTOL, U.K. — The Wills Memorial Building may have been built with centuries-old design features into its exterior, but it has been recently updated with a 21st-century audio system featuring Martin Audio’s OmniLine micro line arrays.
Local installer Sounds Commercial designed and built the updated audio system around two 24-box hangs of OmniLine to replace 1970s-vintage stacked cone column speakers, recessed behind wooden panels.
Working under the guidance of English Heritage — and alongside main building contractor Stone BCI — all fixings of OmniLine had to be made along the mortar lines between the slab stone, requiring the bottom bracket to be re-engineered and the fixing made secure with chemical anchors.
The building has a number of seminar rooms, tiered lecture theatres, meeting rooms and an exhibition space, but the centerpiece is the Great Hall. With its two balconies it can seat up to 900 people for plenary lectures and 270 for banqueting. The Great Hall hosts a variety of functions and events, and third party rentals provide an additional revenue stream, so its sound system needed to be versatile.
“What we were looking for was clarity, evenness of coverage and directivity, because it’s all teaching space around here and so containment was important,” said Lee Stephenson, senior project engineer with Sounds Commercial. “There were also the aesthetic concerns. We just fed the system with a CD and wireless mics––it sounded stunning and passed the test with us, and the people from the university.”
A biamped solution was recommended, with the entire system run from Martin Audio’s four-channel MA6.8Q amplifier. The system was modeled using a beta version of Martin Audio’s new OmniLine Software, with SIA-Smaart’s dual-channel FFT analysis verifying the measurements.
By splitting the system into biamp mode, Sounds Commercial was able to provide increased punch at the back with 3dB boost for the top eight boxes, firing at the balcony. Given the high directivity of the line array, no delay system was necessary.
In addition to OmniLine, two Martin AQ12s face back from the stage pillars to provide performance monitoring, while another pair of AQ6s provide booth monitoring up in the control room.
Sounds Commercial, which handles projects ranging from stadium installs to designing lighting circuits, deemed the new system to be successful enough to eliminate the need for any kind of acoustic treatment within the vaulted space.
For more information, please visit www.martin-audio.com.
