Recent renovations at New York University School of Law’s Vanderbilt Hall saw the 1950s-era building’s 400-seat Tishman Auditorium receive a sound reinforcement upgrade incorporating Renkus-Heinz loudspeakers.
“Tishman Auditorium isn’t a typical theatrical stage, but more of a lecture hall,” says Harry Allison, director of design services at Waveguide LLC, the consulting firm tasked with designing and commissioning the system. “And with its age comes a number of acoustical challenges. There’s a gentle slope to the floor and seating areas, and a staggered ceiling that combine to make it a difficult space to provide good sound. The consensus was the school had never been very happy with the audio in the space, yet it was an auditorium that gets used quite a bit. It needed to be fixed.”
The answer, Allison adds, was a combination of two Renkus-Heinz ICONYX IC16-RN digitally steerable loudspeakers and six VARIA array modules. “When you sit in the auditorium now and start up the system, it’s very impressive,” ne notes. “The school is very happy with the new sound of the space.”
Waveguide also designed and provided commissioning for multiple displays in the hall, which means the facility can now be used for more than lectures. “They plan to show movies in there now, as well,” Allison concludes. “With Renkus-Heinz, we can provide intelligibility in speech and still give that immersive effect you want with a video. It’s an incredibly important tool to have: to be able to offer such high-quality sound in any type of location.”
