The five Monash University campuses in Melbourne, Australia are equipped with audio systems incorporating more than 1,000 loudspeakers from Eastern Acoustic Works (EAW) in an ongoing project directed by audio visual design manager and lead architect Peter MacLean.
Over the past decade, MacLean has worked with the university to define what a new AV system needed to do to improve the learning experience. Some of these requirements included natural, smooth and rich sound with high speech intelligibility, as well as reliability, consistency and ease of install. From there, MacLean designed a new set of standards for the audio-visual team to follow when implementing new systems, standards that continually get updated as technology improves and academic needs change. Based on these requirements as well as listening tests of various loudspeaker options, the team landed on multiple models from EAW.
“For us, it’s all about connecting the students to the academic; creating an environment where students are immersed in learning and better able to understand and contextualize the concepts and topics being taught,” says MacLean. “EAW speakers stood out to us due to their presence and intelligibility, which made audio much easier to understand and more relaxing to follow. This also prevents burn out for students with hours-worth of classes. EAW plays a big part in delivering an effective learning environment.”
Models include CIS300 ceiling-mounted 2-way loudspeakers in larger flat floor collaborative learning spaces, with the smaller and medium-sized lecture spaces equipped MK8100, VFR and UB Series loudspeakers for mains and delay. In the larger theatres, the biggest of which can seat around 400 students, Monash has installed QX300 series 2-way enclosures along with the MK8100 series for delay. The Caufield Campus also has an EAW ANNA and OTTO ADAPTive system as part of a large outdoor LED screen for student concerts, providing controlled sound in a difficult environment.
All of Monash’s lecture theatres additionally use the LS series small line source loudspeakers for ceiling mounted foldback. The Biomedical Learning and Teaching Building allows for the flexibility of running 1 x 240, 2 x 120 or 4 x 60 student classes in each of the five flexi Labs, enabling the university to maximize space usage and minimize cost. This supported with the use of the directional LS432 small line source loudspeakers, with two mounted in the ceiling above each of the six tables in the labs.
“The presence of EAW speakers made lectures sound like the academic was right in front of me, even from the back of the room,” MacLean says. “We sat in on a lecture with the upgraded system and despite distance and accents, the audio was clear with no distortion or harshness and exceptional intelligibility, which is the polar opposite of the original speaker system. Students were no longer distracted by a tablet or personal device, and to us that means the improved audio allowed for greater concentration, engagement and actual effective learning to take place. We found this to be consistent across all models and series of EAW speakers, in all our learning spaces. It eased our design process knowing that we were going to get dependable results from EAW.”
The new Woodside Building for Technology and Design, which has a large, open informal space at the south end of the building with very reflective timber stairs, are served by AC6 loudspeakers that allowed the design team to direct the sound to the seating area for increased intelligibility and lowered reverberation. Monash’s latest 90-student flat floor space is also currently still in the works. It has a complex open ceiling that will host flown MKC50 loudspeakers that will be pointed down to replicate traditional ceiling loudspeakers.
“It’s a very challenging space acoustically, but the MKCs are really going to help us achieve the balance we need,” he concludes. “They have such high speech intelligibility and match perfectly with the amplifiers to create a very impressive end result. The DSP included in EAW UXA4401 amplifiers has also been great. It allows, with the focusing grey box, for a smoother and richer sound, and simple, consistent installation using pre-prepared DSP templates. There are no tweaks or fine-tuning necessary by the installers. It has made things very easy for our AV integrators.”
