BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha, a worldwide Hindu organization with the mission of improving society through individual growth, regularly employs Renkus-Heinz steerable loudspeakers in many of its installations.
The organization is volunteer driven, meaning many operational competencies are handled in-house. Kaivalyamurti Swami – known colloquially as KV Swami – is a technology overseer in BAPS. He committed to a life as a full-time swami in 1992 and has since then taken on the services for the organization that he is assigned, which includes the A/V and IT work installed in many of the organization’s projects.
“Over the years we’ve worked to become self-sufficient,” says KV Swami. “One component of that is to ensure we are in control of the audio performance in every one of our halls. And we can say that one technology that has played a prime role in our installations – from India to California – is the steerable solutions from Renkus-Heinz.”
He points to a recent project completed in Uganda as an example. “When we first went to visit the Uganda site in April 2019, Kampala Hall didn’t exist,” he explains. “We went there and we looked at, basically, a concrete box that was in place. No interior design was settled on yet. So, we asked the team at Renkus-Heinz if they could model the location for us with the information we had.”
KV Swami says the model provided by Renkus-Heinz then allowed him and his team to recommend a complete design for the new building. Instead of analog cabling, for example, Audinate Dante would be the backbone of the system. And they could plan to place the Renkus-Heinz loudspeakers in a way that would blend into the final design.
“Renkus-Heinz provided a custom color on the speakers so they would blend right into the cloth being used,” he notes. “They disappear into the space extremely well. That custom design is a huge benefit of them manufacturing their products at their headquarters.”
With a modeled Loudspeaker System Recommendation provided by the Renkus-Heinz support staff, KV Swami could work with the local team in ensuring what was built out would be ready to go once product arrived on the ground. And that would be a consideration given he was to return just three weeks before the opening of the facility to quickly install the system. The project utilizes dual sets of ICLive XL-RD and ICLive LLX-RD as mains, P3-64RDs for front, balcony and under-balcony fills, VA15S-RD center-flown subwoofers, and DR18-2B-RD subs under the state.
“Just three days before we opened the space we booted up the Renkus-Heinz RHAON software and were able to get the hall sound configured easily for all the speakers from one interface,” KV Swami concludes. “By digitally steering the sound we were able to make it sound not only intelligible but also theatrical.
“After very little tuning it sounded just phenomenal. As you walk backward from the front and listen to it you really can appreciate how uniformed and perfect the sound is regardless of where you are sitting or standing in the hall. The speeches are crystal clear and the intelligibility is just awesome – music is divine and theatrical.”
