Bosch aids intelligibility in Queensland Museum

For almost 150 years, the Queensland Museum has been telling the story of the sunshine state through its history of people, culture, animals, environment and geology. Various parts of the museum including display areas, the external museum cafe and the crowd-pulling Dinosaur Garden featuring life-size dinosaurs have been enhanced by the new system, which was designed by consulting engineer firm Norman Disney & Young.

Prior to specification, Norman Disney & Young conducted an acoustic assessment with the intention of reducing reverberation time and increasing speech intelligibility within the public areas. A three-dimensional modelling approach using EASE electro-acoustic simulation software was adopted for the project.

The resulting installed system covers four levels and is controlled from three paging consoles at the reception desks on levels 1, 2 and 3. The structural characteristics were taken into account when designing the system and so high performance, low distortion speakers were utilised in high reflectance areas, while noise level sensing was installed into noise prone areas. Ultimately, a full paging system using Electro Voice, Dynacord and Bosch products was chosen.

An EV NetMax N8000 processor is at the heart of the system, providing DSP control and management via an integrated Dynacord ProMatrix. A DMM4650 Digital Message Manager is also used, allowing the facility to record several messages for playback at the press of a button on any one of the three DPC4550 Digital Paging Consoles. A DTI-2000 digital telephone interface was also incorporated to enable end-users to dial in and remotely page through the system.

Like many museums, the venue was an acoustic challenge as it is constructed of reflective surfaces including glass, marble, solid concrete walls and polished floors.

‘Norman Disney & Young selected both Bosch and Electro Voice loudspeakers to suit the varied spaces,’ remarked Bosch’s senior engineer for permanent installations, Bryan Davidson. ‘They specified 75 EViD C8.2HC high ceiling speakers for which EO Design, who installed the system, made some great custom brackets to mount them onto the ceilings. In other areas they chose Bosch pendant speakers, some of which EO painted black to match the ceilings. Ten LBC 3201 Bosch XLA column array speakers were installed into various areas where very tight vertical pattern control was required. All the speakers are powered via Bosch Plena amplifiers.’

Elsewhere, a total of seven Electro-Voice RE90B boundary microphones were installed and fed into the NetMax 8000 system to provide automatic noise sensing and level control.

When Mr Davidson visited the museum to assist in commissioning the installation he was reportedly impressed by the quality of the install. ‘Out of the 150 speakers installed, only one was tapped incorrectly. Consequently tuning the system was very simple as the correct loudspeakers had been chosen to suit the spaces. We didn’t have to worry about lots of reverberation and echo because the speakers were doing what they should in that environment.’

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