The Grand Hall of the City Council of Kaunas, Lithuania, which has an art deco design and unique elements that include a stained-glass ceiling and glass art wall that create acoustic challenges, has been equipped with a new sound reinforcement system utilizing Renkus-Heinz loudspeakers incorporating the company’s beam steering technology.
The city council called upon AV integration firm Audiotonas to design and install the new system, with head of sales Vytautas Stasiukaitis explaining that the primary criteria were intelligibility and smoother sound distribution. It also needed to be flexible in supporting meetings, guest presentations and conferences in addition to working with the council’s AV-based voting system along with supporting streaming video when needed and background music during council breaks.
Stasiukaitis demonstrated and specified two Renkus-Heinz DC12/2 beam steerable columns to help meet these criteria, particularly in terms of uniform audio coverage and intelligibility. “Along with better intelligibility and increased sound levels, it was vital to maintain the hall’s aesthetics,” he adds. “With just two Renkus-Heinz DC12/2 beam steerable columns, the entire hall is covered seamlessly, and match the aesthetic beautifully — you hardly even know they’re there.”
It was also a priority that the new loudspeakers be able to direct output away from the ceiling and upper parts of the walls and focus it instead toward the council members, participants and audience. This is attained with the added control afforded by the beam steering technology.
“The city council is very happy with the sound quality and coverage, and the intelligibility is excellent,” Stasiukaitis concludes. “This is why we use Renkus-Heinz; we can always trust that the results will be perfect in the end.”
