Meyer Sound loudspeakers were recently installed at the Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse, a Berkley, CA landmark of 41 years known for its folk, traditional and roots music. Dubbed one of the area’s best listening rooms, a new sound reinforcement system was required when a move into a new 18,000 square-foot, 440-seat, eco-friendly building took place.
Products from Meyer Sound include 16 M’elodie line array loudspeakers, two 600-HP subwoofers (under stage), four stage-mounted M1D line array loudspeakers for frontfills, and five UPJ-1P VariO loudspeakers for sidefills. Monitoring is handled by a combination of four UM-1P and two UM-100P stage monitors.
“We were not so much a venue, but a community organization that includes incredible artists, their fans, and now their students,” comments Steve Baker, the Freight’s Executive Director. “For our new facility, it was essential that we maintained the standard we set in our older facilities as a serious listening room where people could appreciate the music.”
The Freight’s target was achieved in the form of a new $12 million performance venue and teaching facility designed by Marcy Wong Donn Logan Architects. The new space was created around traditional and acoustic music and ecologically “green” principals, achieving LEED certification.
Architects Logan and Wong had also worked with Meyer Sound on the Pearson Theatre, for which the architectural firm was awarded an Architecture Merit award from the United States Institute for Theater Technology in 2008 and a design award from the American Institute of Architects, San Francisco in 2009.
