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Focused audio beams for leading exhibitions

A technological breakthrough in loudspeaker technologies means that sound can be directed with greater accuracy and success than ever before. Integrated Circles have installed SoundSpots in a number of displays, where it has been necessary to control the footprint of the audio coverage. For example, in the British Library, for their 1968 exhibition, two sound tracks were to be played in conjunction with  Images of the era. Separation was required between the two tracks, but to add complication, a study area was close by, which could not have a great amount of audio spill, as this would serve as a distraction. 

Integrated Circle’s also installed SoundSpot speakers in Airborne Assault, which is the exciting new museum of The Parachute Regiment and Airborne Forces and is located in Duxford’s AirSpace exhibition.

Airborne Assault promotes the heritage of The Parachute Regiment and Airborne Forces and commemorates the actions of past and present members.

Airborne Assault

To tell the stories of the operations spanning the decades from World War II to date, Integrated Circles installed a range of their solid-state VideoStores, SoundStores, audio amplifiers, inductive loop systems, synchronised show lighting, LCD video screens, Touchscreen Computer interactive displays, DLP video projectors and loudspeakers.

Paul Nolan, Integrated Circles Project Manager, explains “There are many great stories being told in very close proximity and the designers wanted visitors to hear each of these as they approached a display, rather than having to lift handsets. We looked into various ways of achieving intelligibility with this approach, and in the end chose to use cutting edge directional SoundSpot loudspeakers to deliver the narratives.

While these have a very narrow footprint, due to the nature of sound and how it reacts with reflective surfaces, there will always be some scatter. Sound from the SoundSpots can be rather thin in bandwidth, so we also delivered a themed background music track with separate full range speakers, to aid acoustical masking between the displays.”

“SoundSpots will not be the solution for every occasion, and a site survey will be necessary to establish the suitability of any solution, but we are happy to work with clients to overcome acoustically challenging display environments” said Nolan.

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