A/V design firm Sparling and installer Jaymarc AV of Seattle were tasked with solving coverage, intelligibility, microphone performance and gain before feedback issues that have been perennial challenges for the Seattle City Council Chambers.
This architecturally attractive chamber is also acoustically sound, but the existing loudspeaker solution wasn’t sufficient to cover the large space, and it also presented significant audio management issues. Sparling selected a single Tectonic Audio Labs PL-12 Plate as the lynchpin in solving the challenging upgrade.
“After demoing the Tectonic Plates, we felt that we had a viable solution to handle this large space,” says Sparling’s Steve Malone. “The unique performance characteristics of the PL-12—its wide full-frequency coverage, lack of room interaction, intelligibility and feed-back resistance—solved the client’s needs.”
“Prior to the upgrade, our traditional speaker system didn’t properly project the voices of Council members in their meeting room”, adds Seattle City Council IT manager Ian Smith.
As proof of design, Tectonic raised a single PL-12 Plate on a lift to provide a real-world demonstration. Council members had an opportunity to experience a direct comparison between the existing system and the PL-12. This demo took only a couple of hours and had no impact on the facility.
The installation of the PL-12 solved for all issues. Flexible placement was facilitated by VESA mount compatibility. One Plate, placed high up in the chamber’s center over the U.S. and state flags and aimed at the back row of public seats, was all that was required.
The 160-degree horizontal and vertical dispersion of Tectonic’s DMLs and wide dispersion large-format ribbon transducer provide full-frequency coverage to all seats throughout the chamber as well as overflow into the lobby area. System intelligibility is enhanced by no crossovers from 80 Hz to 6.5 kHz, and very low third-order harmonic distortion.
Sparling’s Malone concludes, “As a bonus, the Tectonic system, even with a single speaker, provides audible and intelligible sound out open doors to the council chamber’s lobby which accommodates over-flow attendance. This is not to be expected from traditional speaker systems.”