The Sound Of Renkus-Heinz Now At Dallas Winspear Opera House

The AT&T Performing Arts Center in Dallas is a cultural nexus in the city’s revitalized downtown arts district.

The 2,200-seat Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House, created by architect Foster & Partners with theater design by Theater Projects Consultants and acoustician Sound Space Design, is home to the Dallas Opera and serves as an anchor in the new arts district.

The new sound reinforcement system for the Winspear Opera House, designed by Martin Van Dijk of Toronto-based Engineering Harmonics, is centered around left/right arrays of 12 Renkus-Heinz STLA/9R RHAON powered loudspeakers that retract into the ceiling when not in use. Low frequency program is provided by four Renkus-Heinz DR18-1 subwoofers on rolling dollies.

Renkus-Heinz PowerNet PN-Series loudspeakers provide additional coverage, with eight PN82/9 systems for overbalcony fill, and two PN151/4 systems flown from the venue’s soaring 60-foot-high ceiling. A separate speech system was also installed, utilizing 10 Renkus-Heinz Iconyx IC8-R and two IC16-R loudspeakers.

Just across the way from the Winspear, Annette Strauss Square is an outdoor performance venue that hosts concerts, theatrical and dance performances and festivals, with open-air seating for up to 2,400.

As Jeff Stephens, technical supervisor for the Winspear and Strauss Square explains, the square’s relatively close proximity, not only to the other venues but also to the surrounding luxury high-rise condominiums that are home to a growing number of urban professionals, created a few challenges in system design.

“Particularly with an outdoor venue in a populated area, it’s important to be good neighbors,” Stephens notes. “We worked with the city to make sure the sound could be steered and focused toward the seating, and away from the other buildings as much as possible. Having a rock concert right next to a symphony hall and an opera house could be problematic, and having it outside people’s homes would be even more so.”

The outdoor venue’s system, also designed by Martin Van Dijk, employs left and right arrays of 10 Renkus-Heinz STLA/9R loudspeakers per side, along with six DR18-2 dual 18-inch subwoofers . A ring of SG42 two-way powered loudspeakers acts as a delay fill.

“We use the delay fill so we don’t have to drive the main PA quite as hard, which helps to keep the energy off the Meyerson,” says Stephens.

“Thus far we’ve had several concerts and a dance festival, and the Square is becoming a very popular movie screening venue as well,” he reports. “We worked closely with the Opera on a performance of Don Giovanni at the Winspear, which was broadcast at Annette Strauss Square as an Opera Under the Stars event.

“It was a huge success, and we got lots of compliments on how great and clear the sound was. It was particularly gratifying, being outdoors and right next to a highway. The system performed beyond our expectations.”

Renkus-Heinz

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