Once seen as a controversial, last-

ditch contrivance of remedial

acousticsan unorthodox way to sal-
vag e an otherwise atrociously bad
sounding hallelectronic acoustical
enhancement is on the verge of
becoming widely accepted in the
design of new facilities, including out-
door venues.
The concept is fairly straightfor-
ward: Sounds in a venue are picked
up by microphones, then, after some
signal processing, are reproduced
through a number of loudspeakers dis-
tributed throughout the venue to sup-
plement, or sometimes even mask, the
natural acoustics of the space. The
goal is not sound reinforcement per
se, which aims to provide uniform cov-
erage of direct sound to all seating
areas, although some systems can be
configured for that purpose.
Two systems that readers of this
magazine may be most familiar with
are LARES (Lexicon Acoustic
Reinforcement and Enhancement
System), by virtue of the sheer number
of facilities that have installed it, and
Meyer Sounds Constellation, which is
a reboot of the LCS Audio VRAS
technology acquired by Meyer in 2005.
Weve been doing this for almost
20 years now, and it has taken almost
that long to build up enough accept-
ance among users to allow an archi-
tect to design a multipurpose facility
with Lares electronics handling the
musical acoustics portion of acoustic
perception in the hall, says Steve
Barbar, president of Ecoustic Systems,
which markets Lares.
In ten such facilities, designed with-
in the last seven years or so, Lares
was integrated into the infrastructure
from the ground up. The architecture
was determined based on the ability to
augment the acoustics without using
architectural treatments. In other
words, your seating counts can vary,
seating shapes can vary, and the size
of the building can be optimized geo-
metrically, not only for what youre try-
ing to perform but for the integration of
electronics, so it yields the best cost-
for-performance ratios, he says.
John McMahon, executive director
of digital products with Meyer Sound,
shares this perspective. People are
now accepting these systems as
being as good as or better than archi-
tectural acoustics. There are still
those who have an issue with the
concept in general, but were treating
it as architectural acoustics rather
than as a system that fixes your room
or fixes a small problem. Were
changing the room architecture
acoustics itself, rather than applying a
band-aid on top, he says.
Since electronic acoustical
enhancement systems add reflections
and reverberation, multipurpose halls
designed with short reverberation times
suitable for speech (1s or less) are
obvious candidates for treatment, since
electronic systems can readily be
reconfigured, usually at the touch of a
button, for longer reverberation times
to suit other types of performance,
such as baroque and chamber music
(about 1.5s), classical and romantic
symphonic music (about 2s), and
choral and organ music (2.5s and up).
Electronic acoustic enhancement
is a one-way thing, says acoustician
Bob Essert, director of Sound Space
Design in London. Were not talking
about deadening the room, but about
making the room more live, with more
sound envelopment. Subjectively, it
sounds more resonant, warm, live,
enveloping, and strong. In terms of
what we hear in architectural spaces,
the surfaces of the space generate
sound bouncing around the room in
certain ways, certain directions, certain
times, and certain strengths. An elec-
tronic enhancement system can add
thingssynthetic reflections, if you
willin the direction of more strength,
more warmth, more resonance, more
reverberations. It cannot take an overly
resonant room and dry it up. Thats the
job of more physical systems of ban-
88 March 2009 Lighting&Sound America
TECHNICAL FOCUS: SOUND
Electronic Acoustic
Enhancement Systems:
Part One
By: Alan Hardiman
Above and opposite: Meyer Sounds Constellation system is used at Laboral University
Auditorium in Gijon, Spain.
Copyright Lighting&Sound America March 2009 http://www.lightingandsoundamerica.com/LSA.html
ners, acoustic panels or curtains that
are soft and absorptive and can
reduce the sound reflection properties
of the room.
In Part One of this investigation,
well look at the design goals and dis-
tinguishing characteristics of six con-
temporary electronic acoustical
enhancement systems, and their
implementation in selected venues.
Part Two will focus on the implica-
tions of this technology for facility
owners and managers, performers and
audiences, and architects and design-
ers. Like most technological innova-
tion, electronic acoustical enhance-
ment has been met with mixed
responseand, in some quarters,
considerable controversyfrom users
and other interest groups, and there-
fore has real political and financial
ramifications. The fact that more than
20 venues employing such systems
have requested that their identities not
be disclosed is mute testimony to the
lack of consensus on the use of elec-
tronic acoustical enhancement.
In addition to Lares and
Constellation, the major players are
ACS (Acoustic Control Systems),
SIAP (System for Improved Acoustic
Performance), AFC (Yamahas Active
Field Control), and CARMEN (from
the French for Active Control of
Reverberation by Natural Effect
Virtual Walls).
The systems are distinguished pri-
marily by the ways in which they
attempt to produce sufficient gain
before feedback, a potential problem
wherever loudspeakers are situated in
relatively close proximity to the micro-
phones that feed them. Feedback, and
the coloration it produces, can be
reduced by oneor a combinationof
four distinct methods: placing micro-
phones closer to the sound source;
lowering the sound level by reducing
system gain; increasing the number of
independent channels of pickup, pro-
cessing, and reproduction; and the
incorporation of some form of time
variance in the signal path.
Howthe different systems employ
these feedback-reduction methods
accounts for the number of microphones,
channels, and loudspeakers they use, as
well as the type of signal processing and
the placement of microphones and loud-
speakers in the venue.
Lares
Based on the time variant reverbera-
tors developed by David Griesinger at
Lexicon in the 1980s, Lares has been
incorporated into more than 200 instal-
lations, making it the most widely uti-
lized acoustical enhancement system
in the world, according to Ecoustics,
which notes that, of the total, Lares
has been installed in 16 performing
arts centers and five 20,000-seat plus
sport facilities that have requested that
their identities not be disclosed. Lares
systems are also incorporated in
Wenger Corporations V-Room Virtual
Acoustic Environment sound-isolating
practice rooms and iso booths.
Lares has also been installed in
many religious facilities, including
two with the largest pipe organs in
North Americathe 22,000-seat
Conference Center for the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in
Salt Lake City, which has just updat-
ed its Lares system, and New Yorks
Central Synagogue.
Electronic acoustical enhancement
started as a remedial fix designed to
overcome known problems in architec-
tural acoustics, Barbar says, adding
that the first Lares system was
designed for Torontos historic 1,500-
seat Elgin Theatre. This project is an
archetypal case study of remedial
electronic acoustics. Built as a vaude-
ville house in 1913, the Elgin suffered a
slow decline over 60 years, until it
came into the possession of the
Ontario Heritage Trust, which closed
the theatre in 1987 for a complete ren-
ovation. Since the Elgin had been
designed originally for drama, its
acoustics were perfectly fine for
speech, but seriously lacking for any-
thing else. The reverberation time was
much too short for music, including
opera, which had been staged there
by Opera Atelier and the Canadian
Opera Company during the years the
company was planning and fund-rais-
ing for a new home. One of the goals
of the renovation was to make the
Elgin suitable for music, but, since it
was a national historic site, no major
architectural changes were permitted
to the stage or auditorium.
Neil Muncy, principal design con-
sultant on the Elgin project, saw an
opportunity for electronic enhance-
ment of the theatres acoustics. I had
already been talking to David
Griesinger and Steve Barbar at
Lexicon about what we could do if we
ever got the opportunity, so I invited
them up to Toronto. Dave listened to
the Elgin and said he would do the
electronic enhancement for freehe
wanted to see it happen. So we got all
the R&D done on Lexicons nickel, and
it worked the first time we turned it on.
The system was successfuland
Lares is the most successful of any of
thembecause of its ability to
squeeze out more gain before feed-
back than any other approach. Dave
Griesingers brilliant programming with
time variance did that. By continuously
varying the initial delay times by a very
small amount, he was able to prevent
the system from going into oscillation
and feeding back when the level went
above unity gain, Muncy recalls.
The problem with some of the
other systems is that you cant hear
them until the music stops, he adds.
If you cant hear the reverberation
while the music is playing, it really
doesnt solve the problem. Youve got
microphones feeding loudspeakers,
with a bunch of stuff in between, and
you cant get enough gain before feed-
www.lightingandsoundamerica.com March 2009 89
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TECHNICAL FOCUS: SOUND
back to hear the reverb along with the
music all the time.
At the Elgin, two Brel & Kjaer 4011
mics, mounted on booms about 3' out
from the face of the balconies and
angled in slightly, feed two Lexicon
480-based Lares mainframes, the out-
puts of which feed 26 Ramsa power
amp channels driving 116 almost
invisible ceiling-mounted Paradigm
3SE Mini loudspeakers, 60 of which
are under the balcony, where the natu-
ral acoustics were dreadful.
In an AES paper on the Elgin instal-
lation delivered shortly after its com-
pletion, Griesinger noted that the
number of microphones and speaker
banks used in the Elgin Theatre was
primarily determined by the hardware
of the reverberators. Using two Lares
processors gives us eight output
channels, allows internal mixing from
two input channels, and runs 16 rever-
berators. The Lares processors supply
all the time delays, so no additional
digital electronics are needed. The
Lares processors are controlled
remotely by a single Lexicon MRC
MIDI controller. The eight outputs are
directed to eight banks of loudspeak-
ers, which are arranged in an inter-
leaved pattern we call a tiling. No two
adjacent loudspeakers are driven from
the same output. This lack of coher-
ence between the loudspeakers
increases the apparent diffusion of the
system and reduces coloration. A tiling
of this type requires at least four out-
put channels, and this number is the
minimum we recommend for this type
of installation. We were concerned at
first that we would need speakers on
the side walls. However, we correctly
decided that dense ceiling arrays
would form image sources well
beyond the wall, and lateral energy
would be adequate.
He also notes that basing the sys-
tem on time variant processing greatly
increases the apparent number of
channels, which is ideally the product
of the number of microphones and the
number of speaker banks. This prod-
uct is exceedingly important.
Microphones are expensive and
unsightly. By using a small number of
them and a large number of relatively
inexpensive electronic reverberators,
the system can be made much more
practical. Not only that, but because
varying the delays broadens resonant
peaks in the room, gain before feed-
back can be increased theoretically by
at least 8dB over non-time-variant sys-
tems. Muncy reports the gain was
closer to 20dB at the Elgin.
Muncy, Griesinger, and Barbar got a
second chance to implement Lares in
Toronto in 1996 at the 3,187-seat
OKeefe Centrelater known as the
Hummingbird and now the Sony
Centrewhere the necessary architec-
tural overhaul to improve its execrable
acoustics was estimated at some $60-
70 million, and so was out of the ques-
tion for financial reasons. This venue
was also used by the Canadian Opera
Company at the time. One of the prob-
lems was a reflection from the rear
concave wall back to the stage a quar-
ter of a second later at a higher level
than the direct sound.
There were no significant first-
order reflections coming off the side
walls at all to provide a sense of
space, so we got RPG to create a
special kind of diffuser to fit the wood
side walls, and we put about 50 loud-
speakers on each of the two side
walls, Muncy explains. The remain-
der of the 288 loudspeakers are in the
ceilings. We were able to tweak the
Lares so you got first-order sound
from the walls before the main wave
front even hit the back. The back-slap
was still there, but it was masked by
all the other stuff that was now coming
in as a result of the Lares output. Of
course, this required considerable gain
before feedback to accomplish.
In contrast to the high estimate for
architectural renovation, the Lares
system cost a mere $450,000, and
was so warmly received by critics that
its presence was finally acknowledged
18 months later. The splendid
acoustics are a gift of the Lares
sound-reinforcement system, installed
last year, wrote critic David Lasker in
The Globe and Mail. Now, everyone
at the Hummingbird has a good seat.
Lares outdoors
In addition to its use in performing arts
centers and other indoor facilities,
Lares has also been applied success-
fully in outdoor venues. The first such
application came in 1995, when a
Lares system was used at the Vienna
Festival. An audience of some 30,000
heard Zubin Mehta conduct the Vienna
Philharmonic in a performance of
Beethovens Symphony No. 9, com-
plete with early reflections and rever-
The Pritzker Pavilion in Chicagos Millennium Park uses a Lares system.
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beration characteristic of a concert hall. This trial was so
successful that the system was subsequently purchased for
use annually at the festival. Lares was also used four years
later in an outdoor production of Puccinis Turandot at
Chinas Imperial Shrine.
In 2004, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Chicagos Millennium
Park became the first outdoor venue in the U.S. to have a
permanent Lares system installed. Designed by the architect
Frank Gehry, the pavilion employs a trellis for suspending
loudspeakers, both for Lares as well as for sound reinforce-
ment, enabling them to be precisely placed and carefully ori-
ented, with no visual obstructions. In addition, it creates a
visual canopy that unifies a fixed seating area for 4,000 spec-
tators, with a lawn accommodating another 7,000. The stage
is equipped both with an orchestra shell and a dedicated
Lares system to adjust stage acoustics, enabling all mem-
bers of the orchestra to hear each other well in an outdoor
setting, an otherwise unattainable condition.
It should be noted that only systems in which the signal
processing generates artificial reflections and reverberation,
such as Lares, are appropriate for such use outdoors. By
contrast, systems in which the natural reflections and rever-
beration of a venue are picked up and regenerated through
loudspeakers are not suitable, since there is little or no such
reverberation outdoors to being with.
In recent years, Lares has been migrated from Lexicons
original 480 studio digital reverberator to the newer 960
platform, and its catalog offerings have been augmented
with purpose-built microphone preamps, power amplifiers,
and loudspeakers.
Constellation
Constellation is based on the VRAS (Variable Room
Acoustic System) technology developed by Mark Poletti, of
Industrial Research Ltd. in New Zealand. VRAS was
licensed to LCS Audio in 1997, who installed a number of
VRAS systems using the Matrix3 digital audio control plat-
form. The system is capable of generating multichannel
reverberation and early reflections, as well as mixing, pro-
cessing, and routing them. LCS Audio was acquired by
Meyer Sound in 2005, and VRAS became an integral part
of Meyers Constellation electroacoustic architecture.
Constellation is based on the principle of multichannel
gain, says McMahon, who, prior to joining Meyer, was CEO
of LCS Audio. In a really simple example, if you have
microphones open to a loudspeaker in a room, youve mar-
ginally decreased the absorption of that room. If you repeat
that and keep those microphones and loudspeakers decor-
related, eventually you can decrease the absorption of the
room enough that it starts to extend the reverberation time.
The key in that is keeping them decorrelated, and thats
done both through position and through the algorithm. Our
systems typically have 40 channels on average, so we can
achieve that reduction in absorption of the hall, he says.
Constellation is a regenerative system, he continues.
Rather than being an in-line type of system where we put
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microphones near the performers and then overlay some
reverberation onto those signals and deliver that to the
audience, we have many microphones in the audience
area, so were actually changing the acoustics of the hall
itself. We also place microphones over the stageand, in
some cases, laterally on the stageand those are used to
generate early reflections out to the audience. So our sys-
tem is both an inline system and a non-inline system. Both
regenerative and non-regenerative components are used.
The regenerative non-inline part is used for reverberation
enhancement, and the inline non-regenerative part is used
for early reflection enhancement.
Constellation in its own right has been deployed in some
14 installations, in addition to those completed earlier under
the auspices of LCS Audio. The most notable examples are
the 1,400-seat Laboral University Auditorium in Gijon,
Spain, and the 2,014-seat Zellerbach Hall at the University
of California, Berkeley. Zellerbach Hall is home to Cal
Performances, the largest presenter of performing arts in
the San Francisco Bay Area. Cal Performances presents a
wide range of programming, including orchestral, chamber
music, jazz, theatrical, dance, spoken word, opera, and a
variety of ethnic performances from around the world, mak-
ing it the classic multipurpose venue.
This diversity of program material imposes immense
demands on the halls acoustics, because the needs of
orchestral music, plays, and recitals are quite different.
Furthermore, the labor involved in erecting and striking the
orchestra shell on consecutive days to suit diverse perform-
ances would give Sisyphus a run for his money.
There is a great demand now for venues like Zellerbach
Hall to be multipurpose, said John Meyer, president and
CEO of Meyer Sound, on the completion of the project.
That creates a real challenge: How can one room be made
to sound right for many different kinds of performances? It
seemed to me that the answer for existing venues like
Zellerbach was in good planning and appropriate use of
digital technology in harmony with existing acoustics. Our
VRAS technology gave us the core of what we needed to
solve this puzzle, and we went from there.
The system is said to allow an audience to experience a
music concert with all of the warmth and resonance of a
concert hall, while a play in the same space exhibits
increased intelligibility. Musicians enjoy an improved ability
to hear each other, creating an onstage acoustical experi-
ence conducive to ensemble playing.
ACS
Developed in the Netherlands in conjunction with the Delft
University of Technology, ACS uses the multiple-channel
approach to increase system gain before feedback. Each
channel provides only a small contribution to the total
sound field, but, in aggregate, the total level is appreciable.
Typically, 12-36 microphones, placed relatively close to the
stage or other sound source, feed a matrix of delays
through a rack as large as 96 inputs by 96 outputs; racks
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can be cascaded for even more I/O.
The matrix is designed to provide
delays, sound paths, and image
sources that would exist in a larger vir-
tual or ideal hall mapped around the
existing one.
Because the reverberant sound fur-
ther from the stage is not picked up
anywhere near as strongly as the
direct sound, independent multi-chan-
nel processors are used to provide
separate control over early reflections
and the later onset of reverberation.
Recognizing that direct sound is
important for both intelligibility and
localization of performers for the audi-
ence, ACS designers are careful to
delay the signal appropriately to syn-
thesize early reflections (20 to 80-
100ms) for clarity, presence, spacious-
ness, and envelopment, and then pro-
vide additional reverberation (longer
than 80-100ms) to provide warmth in
the low end, and brilliance and fullness
of tone at higher frequencies.
Since the microphones are placed
fairly close to the sound source, they
can be also be used for recording and
hearing impaired systems, and to syn-
thesize a virtual orchestra shell for
the performers, using a separate array
of loudspeakers around the stage. It is
as if there were walls surrounding
them. Musicians can better hear each
other, thus the ensemble playing con-
ditions are improved, according to
ACS. If the performers are in a pit, as
is the case with many stage shows,
this part of the system can be used for
foldback monitoring, enabling the per-
formers to hear themselves better and,
as ACS puts it, to play lighter.
Acoustic Control Systems pub-
lished client list includes 47 installa-
tions in halls around the world. While
most are in Europe, such as the 1,000-
seat Barbican Centre in London, ACS
is also installed in the 2,779-seat New
York State Theatre at the Lincoln
Center, and the 2,325-seat National
Arts Centre in Ottawa.
ACS asserts, It is a proven fact that
the ACS system makes your hall bene-
fit from more performances and more
seats sold. Small 700-seat venues with
a reverberation time of only 1.0 second
become opera houses, concert halls,
and musical theatres at the flick of a
button. Your hall becomes restricted by
your imagination and the talent of your
artists only! Implementing an ACS sys-
tem very often leads to cost savings in
the redecoration or rebuilding process
of existing halls and theatres as well
as for newly designed halls. Fact is
that, in nature, sound within a venue
is transferred in many, many direc-
tions. One can say acoustics is truly
multi-channel. This can of course
only be simulated with a larger num-
ber of channels.
SIAP
Also developed in the Netherlands,
SIAP has gone through four iterations,
and boasts an installed base of some
35 permanent systems, primarily in
Europe. Notable examples on this side
of the Atlantic include the 1,100-seat
Vivian Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln
Centre, the 2,500-seat Ahmanson
Theatre in Los Angeles, and the 9,100-
seat Southeast Christian Church in
Louisville, Kentucky.
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SIAP is distributed in the USA by
RPG Systems, whose website con-
tains few substantive details about the
system, aside from a two-page
brochure and the scanned image of a
printed document from 1997 entitled,
The History of Electronic Architecture
and Variable Acoustics, co-authored
by SIAPs Wim Prinssen and RPG
Systems president Peter DAntonio.
According to Tom Ryan, manager of
RPGs audio-visual integration division,
this is due to the fact that the system
underwent a new development phase
at the end of last year, so we havent
yet got much of the new marketing
material to update the website. Its
now called the Mark IV system. SIAP
has teamed up with Sonic Emotion for
waveform synthesis, giving it three lev-
els of performance in that waveform
synthesis-based system.
The first level is architectural
acoustic enhancement, which is the
basic function of the SIAP, Ryan says.
Levels Two and Three are more for
effect, with Level Two providing two-
dimensional image steering, where you
can get precise surround sound, typi-
cally synchronized to video media.
Level Three is a full, three-dimensional
blanketing effect. If you had a 3-D
image on screen, it would feel like
actual sound sources were going
through you.
SIAP uses a multichannel approach
to control feedback, with 32 outputs,
expandable to 64. Each output has its
own unique impulse response, and
they are non-correlated, so adjacent
speakers are not getting the same sig-
nals, Ryan says. SIAP uses a combi-
nation of non-time variance and time
varianceit depends on how you set
up the processor. It has taken VRAS a
step further, due to the way it process-
es these non-correlated outputs. Its a
much more natural approach in the
sense that, since you have decorrelat-
ed outputs, you get a more natural
reflection, just as each different sur-
face would not have the same impulse
response naturally. Three SIAP Mark
IV systems have been installed in
South Korea; four more are planned
for churches in the U.S.
AFC
Yamahas AFC is a control technology
that uses acoustic feedback, rather
than electronically generated synthetic
reflections and reverberation. AFC is
designed to enable the improvement
of important items concerning audito-
ry impressions while maintaining the
natural architectural sound that the
room originally has, according to
Yamaha. While it is necessary to have
a large amount of energy feedback for
a system based on feedback to pro-
vide a large effect, AFC manages to
increase gain before feedback by
applying both time variance and elec-
tronic microphone rotation; that is,
the I/O routing is altered periodically.
AFC is scalable for use in venues of
different sizes, such as small 300-seat
theatres (four microphones, two
processors, and 12 loudspeakers) to
larger 4,000-seat venues (eight micro-
phones, four processors, and 96 loud-
speakers). Its stated goals include
extending reverberation time, increas-
ing sound pressure levels, improving
the sound field in under-balcony areas,
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improving stage acoustics, and
exchanging sound energy between the
stage and audience area for uniformity.
Like Lares, it is also intended for use in
practice rooms and other small per-
formance spaces.
An AFC system consists of at least
two AFC1 units, one of which is used
for signal processing, and the other for
output control. Each AFC1 has eight
input channels and 32 output channels;
the system can be expanded to 96 out-
put channels by cascading three AFC1
units for output control and connecting
them to one AFC1 unit for signal pro-
cessing. Systems with four processors
facilitate zoning in larger venues.
Microphones hung from the ceiling
at or around the critical distance where
reflected energy is equal to direct
energy are used to pick up diffused
sound. Purpose-built loudspeakers are
aimed horizontally or upwards, more
than the critical distance away from
the audience area, in order to con-
tribute to the diffuse field.
According to Yamaha, AFC has
been installed in more than 30 venues,
mostly in Japan. Projects in the U.S.
include an AFC-based renovation of
the 3,485-seat Miller Auditorium at
Western Michigan University in
Kalamazoo, the 400-seat Church of St.
Michael and St. George in St. Louis,
Missouri, and the 800-seat Vestal High
School Auditorium in Vestal, New York.
Carmen
Carmen comprises a number of elec-
tro-acoustic active cells (approximately
from 16 to 40), each of them being
composed of a microphone, an elec-
tronic filtering unit, a power amplifier,
and a loudspeaker. Placed around the
walls and ceiling of the auditorium, the
cells form virtual walls, depending on
the architecture and the acoustic prob-
lem to solve. They only communicate
between each other by the acoustic
way. The whole cells are controlled by
a computer or an on-stage remote
control panel, according to informa-
tion supplied by Frances Centre
Scientifique et Technique du Btiment
(CSTB), which developed the system.
The innovative layout of the micro-
phones and loudspeakers produces
completely natural acoustics with a
space-time coherence of the sound
field preserved. Reverberation enhance-
ment is simply coming from the mutual
reflections between the different parts
of the virtual walls, as for real walls in a
room. No microphone on stage is
impeding the normal use of the space
above the stage. Besides, the natural
directivity of the sound sources, and
stage sound images cannot be altered,
as when picking up the sound from
above the head of the musicians or
close to stage and reproducing just as
it is whatever the place in the hall.
Acoustician Bob Essert is of the
opinion that in terms of quality,
Carmen is a principal player. CTSBs
client list includes nine facilities in
France and Monaco, with the excep-
tion of the 1,900-seat Brighton Dome
in the U.K. That system, completed in
2002, features 30 cells, including an
active orchestra ceiling reflector, and is
programmed with presets for chamber
music, opera, and symphonic works.
System costs
The cost of installing an electronic
acoustical enhancement system is
widely variable, with venue size being
apparently a much more significant
factor than the selection of any particu-
lar system. From what I have been able
to gather, a complete system, including
installation, would rarely exceed the
$1M dollar mark, and typically would
be less than half that. This represents
an enormous cost saving over equiva-
lent physical architecture renovation in
the case of remedial acoustical work.
In the construction of new multipur-
pose venues or smaller facilities in
these times of belt-tightening and cost
constraints, it may also represent an
offer you cant refuse.
Next month, well continue with a look
at how electronic acoustical enhance-
ment systems have been received by
members of the industry, performing
arts, and general public.
IT SINGS WITHOUT ANYONE ON STAGE
Minneapolis 612 339 5958
schul ershook. com
Dallas 214 747 8300 Chicago 312 944 8230
Old Town School of Folk Music - Chicago
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