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Meyer Sound Loudspeakers Blend Discreetly Oslo Bank Marble Hall
Though the name has changed through acquisitions and mergers, the roots of Norway’s DnB NOR Bank extend back more than 180 years. This distinguished past is reflected in the splendid Marble Hall of the bank's downtown Oslo offices, where stately columns, marble floors, and glittering chandeliers assure clients of tradition, solidity, and permanence — qualities one would expect from Norway’s largest financial services group.
Yet there’s a futuristic side to the room as well. With the flip of a few switches, integrated AV systems come alive and the room is transformed into a presentation area for VIP clients. Suddenly, the spacious vault is filled with images from a giant LCD screen and six HD video projectors, and sounds from a discreet yet powerful system of Meyer Sound UltraSeries self-powered loudspeakers.
“This was not an easy system to design because the bank absolutely did not want to affect the look of the room,” says Trond Kristoffersen of AVAB-CAC, an Oslo-based systems design and integration firm. “Our biggest challenge on the audio side was to cover the main hall with clear, powerful sound without the loudspeakers intruding on the architecture. We were able to accomplish that using five Meyer Sound self-powered loudspeakers as our primary audio system.”
According to Kristoffersen, given both the bank's expectations of quality and the aesthetic constraints, a Meyer Sound solution was a natural fit. “We wanted something that was easy to use and would work without having to handle a lot of knobs,” he notes. “The system sounds great with just a mic plugged into a mixer feeding it. It also projects the sound very well and looks quite good in this environment.”
Two horizontally mounted UPJ-1P compact VariO loudspeakers flanking the large LCD screen are the principal sound sources in the room. “We first thought of using the larger UPA-1P (compact wide coverage loudspeakers),” recalls Kristoffersen, “but it was a bit big for the space provided. We tried the UPJ and found that it worked extremely well.”
Although the horns on the UPJ-1P cabinets are rotatable, Kristofferson left them in their default orientation to provide 50 degrees of horizontal and 80 degrees of vertical coverage. “That kept sound off the hard side walls, and also gave us good coverage close to the front of the screen,” he notes.
Sound is supplied all the way to the rear of the long room with the help of two wall-mounted UPM-1P ultracompact wide coverage loudspeakers, appropriately delayed to make their sound synchronous with that coming from the UPJ-1P cabinets. A single floor-standing USW-1P compact subwoofer provides deep bass. All loudspeaker cabinets were supplied by Meyer Sound with custom finishes to suit the room's decor.
Overall coordination of systems design and integration was handled by Gyro Event AS of Oslo, with AVAB-CAC contracted for the audio system; video systems were installed by a separate company. The video side of the project included, in addition to the LCD screen, six high-definition video projectors and four hard-disk video servers.
“This is a very special room for the bank, and they were understandably sensitive about the appearance of the equipment, the loudspeakers in particular,” says Kristoffersen. “The looks were important to them, but when we put them in they immediately mentioned how much they liked the sound.”
So far, says Kristoffersen, the room has hosted a number of presentations and a few special events featuring live piano and vocal music. “Everybody at the bank is very satisfied,” he says, “as are those at the event company.”
Additional audio equipment installed by AVAB CAC included a Midas Venice 160 mixing console, Klark Teknik equalizers and dynamics processors, and Sennheiser 500 Series wireless microphone systems.
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