JUNO BEACH, FL — Florida Power & Light (FPL), which often uses the atrium at its headquarters here for small and large assemblies, recently contracted with Peerson Audio, Jupiter, FL, for something more than a temporary, speaker-on-stick solution. Allen Peerson installed QFlex steerable array loudspeakers from Tannoy.
More details from TC Group Americas (www.tcgroup-americas.com):
Florida Power & Light (FPL) headquarters in Juno Beach, Florida, features a large atrium that is often used for annual meetings, announcements and gatherings for employees.
An expansive room – approximately 175 feet long by 70 feet wide and 50 feet tall – it features glass walls, a metal roof and tile floor. A second floor balcony overlooks the area and is often used as an additional viewing area for such events.
In the past the company has relied upon speaker-on-a-stick sound reinforcement during atrium gatherings. Although sufficient for small events, these systems were mostly unintelligible for large assemblies.
The FPL leadership recently decided it was time to address the unintelligibility issue and contacted Peerson Audio in nearby Jupiter, Florida for a solution.
“They wanted a system that would cover the first floor and balcony intelligibly,” explains Allen Peerson, owner of Peerson Audio. “We needed a system that would allow us to direct the sound on the audience and keep it off of the hard surfaces – which were pretty much everywhere.”
Looking for a single point source solution, Peerson turned to QFlex steerable array loudspeakers from Tannoy. He brought in a QFlex 32 for demonstration purposes and won approval immediately.
“They were extremely impressed with the system,” he adds. “I was told that it was the first time they had been able to hear anything crystal clear in the room – ever.”
After further review, Peerson decided that the QFlex 48 would better suit their need, with additional SPL and the option of covering an even larger audience area. He used VNET, Tannoy’s proprietary QFlex software, to program the column array specifically to the room’s needs.
Peerson opted to hang the QFlex 48 from a metal ceiling joist in the ceiling with the cable and brackets provided. The QFlex 48 loudspeaker is a little more than 9.5 feet tall with than a 7-inch width and depth loaded with sixteen 4-inch low frequency drivers, sixteen 3-inch low frequency drivers and sixteen 1-inch high frequency drivers.
QFlex uses multiple channels of advanced amplification and DSP to produce beams of acoustic energy, which are directed on to user defined target areas. With this ability to focus acoustical output in target areas where needed, comes better speech intelligibility in highly reverberant spaces such as those found here at FPL HQ.
Peerson Audio also provided a Symetrix DSP mixer with the system so that the end-user could control the system source materials and volume controls via a smart phone.
“It was important to provide them with a system that would not only provide intelligibility but also suit their needs for a long time,” Peerson explains. “This was another situation where QFlex was ideal for the application.”
