I got a call from AMAZON in south San Francisco. The large distribution warehouse where they load the trucks for delivery had a bunch of nasty horn speakers on the internal posts around the facility. The asked about getting a new system and acoustic treatment. Well… to do a decent overhead distributed speaker system with the usual pendant type speakers would require a total shut down of the facility and scaffolding and a lot of wire runs and pendant speakers and cost a fortune, not even figuring in acoustic treatment that would cost just as much or more and also require shutting down and scaffolding and a lot of man power and expense… No way… not gonna happen. So… I pull out my trusty secret weapon… DML speakers! I drew up a basic plan to use 6 flat panels speakers and 2 subs all wall mounted with basic TV wall mounts and the subs had their own. For this job I used some Bose outdoor subs with wall mounts. The L shaped building main section had 4 panels on the walls all pointed in and the other section had 2 panels. The 2 subs were in the main section on opposite walls. We did not have to interrupt the work flow one bit. All the work happened around the perimeter of the facility where we could get ladders… no problems. it took 2 days for 4 guys to install all the panels and subs and wiring and system rack in the office. #rd day, I come in to check the work and commission the system. It was super easy. just set up the panel DSP and crossover to the sub… it took about 20 minutes.
Now, this was the first time the union crew had seen or heard of these speakers… they were more than skeptical… they thought I was crazy and this was bullshit and would not work. They were talking’ shit about me and my design. Then once it was commissioned I played some music over it… with all the people and trucks and noise out in the warehouse… It was absolutely awesome sounding. Way more sound quality than needed but it was the intelligibility and coverage we we going after and we got it in spades! The guys in my crew were astonished and blown away by the results. I took a wireless mic they would use for announcements out into the room and walked the entire facility. You could whisper into the mic and hear it in every part of the facility over the din of trucks and machinery and conveyor belts. It worked fantastically and was very affordable. The AMAZON people were more than happy. They could hear all the announcements and when they took lunch and the work stopped they played music and it sounded awesome. The horns were so bad they were using boom boxes instead and now they had audiophile sound quality.
We ended up doing 2 other AMAZON facilities and they are going to do others as well.
This is my solution for times I am unable to do any acoustical treatment that would work. This entire system including labor was less than 1/4 the cost of doing a distributed system + labor or acoustical treatment and having to shut down the facility to do it. They did not have a budget to do any acoustic treatment as well as a new sound system so I went for the most bang for the buck and exceeded my goal and then some.
Yea I am crazy… I will do odd things like this and I have had a lot of success in odd acoustical environments with these panels.
When they are used in an acoustically treated room they perform even better!
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