Large distributed installation, featuring the Vienna 16T loudspeaker. Click thumbnails to view larger photos.
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Tag: Sound Contracting
Through Rain, Snow, Sleet and Hail, Technomad Loudspeakers Continue to Wail
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The newly installed Technomad loudspeaker system at the new Greenport, NY Outdoor Ice Rink, recently rode out the 70 MPH assaulting winds and weather of the Blizzard of 05 with flying colors. The rink, located at the edge of Greenport Harbor in the Greenport, is continually subjected to the extremely harsh winter marine environment consisting of pelting, salt-laden frozen rain, snow, and ice build-up. This little Eastern Long Island seaside village isn’t the healthiest environment for a permanently installed outdoor loudspeaker system, let alone anything else that’s susceptible to the ravages of the Atlantic’s fall and winter storms. Hence the brand new, four-acre Mitchell Park in the Incorporated Village of reason Technomad loudspeakers were selected for the project. The sound system was installed by Don Fisher’s Sound Productions, established in 1972, of Southold, New York. Specializing in sound system installations and rentals, in 33-years Don has installed sound systems in restaurants, churches, schools and public and municipal facilities, as well as providing turnkey lighting and sound for live summer events, in all of the summer resort towns and communities of Eastern Long Island. Don points out, “My business runs from all-live sound rental events during the summer, including the Montauk Marine Basin Shark Fishing Tournament all the way out east, to all-installation business during the winter months. It’s safe to say during my long career, I’ve been hands-on with most of the high school auditorium sound systems on Eastern Long Island.” Don points out that the Honorable David Kapell, Mayor of Greenport, had the foresight to require the installation of a quality weather-resistant sound system for the newly built Ice Rink. Don states, “Mayor Kapell recognized the need for a sound system that would be of true Show/FOH quality audio to attract and keep patrons entertained on the ice as well as survive the environment. My research determined that Technomad loudspeakers were the only Ironclad loudspeakers that could handle the application.” The installation took place during the first three weeks of January 2005, with Sound Productions acting as the design consultant and installation supervisor and Johnson Electrical Construction Corp. of Hauppauge, NY handling all of the electrical and wiring installation. Don again used North Fork Welding to design the custom loudspeaker rigging, (that Don considers “artwork”), which would secure the Technomad Cairo loudspeakers to the four Musco light poles. Architect Mark Ours of the New York City-based architectural firm Sharples, Holden, Pasquarelli, aka: SHOP, designed the unique cabinetry for the installation of the system’s front end, consisting of a Mackie 1202VLZ mixer, Tascam CDA500 CD/Tape player, dbx Drive Rack and two Crown MicroTech 1200 power amps that power the four bi-amplified, stereo Technomad Cairo Loudspeakers. One wired Shure 565SD microphone is plugged directly into the Mackie mixer for public address announcements and a second microphone input was installed at the base of one of the Musco light poles for ‘on ice’ performances. The only structure that is a part of the ice rink facility houses the refrigeration/pump system and Zamboni as well as a small 10-foot by 10-foot ice skate rental booth. The electronics needed to be installed in a finite area above and below the rental booth’s counter area and, Don states, “Mark designed beautiful 19″ Oak rack cabinets with splash guards and false fronts to conceal and protect the system wiring.” Following the Rink’s grand opening on January 22, the Blizzard of 2005 blew through the Northeast until it subsided late in the day on January 23. Don concludes, “On Monday, when the sun and skaters came out, the sound from the Technomad system was as rich and clear as it was on opening day and it remains that way. I’m confident that this Technomad system is going to be around for many more Blizzards to come.” For more info about Sound Productions, please contact: Don Fisher |
Technomad Articles : Technomad at the Dolphin Mall
April 30, 2001 – Miami, Florida – Located just five miles west of Miami International Airport at the intersection of the Florida Turnpike and Dolphin Expressway; the Dolphin Mall opened its doors to eager shoppers on March 1, 2001. The 1.4 million square foot retail/entertainment center is Miami-Dade County’s largest, featuring more than 150 stores, an 850-seat, 24,000-square-foot food court with nine different restaurants, eateries and entertainment venues with another 50 concepts debuting by midsummer 2001. The outdoor food court and entrance areas make use of Technomad WeatherTech Loudspeakers, which were installed by Pro Sound Inc., of Miami, Florida.
Also known as Professional Sound Services, Inc., the company is headquartered in Miami, Florida, with branch offices located in Orlando, Florida, as well as Las Vegas, Nevada. The company was founded in February 1975 providing audio and theatrical lighting services to live entertainment events. Over the years, Pro Sound, Inc., evolved into a design, sales, and service firm to many theatrical and club venues, which eventually lead to the professional and commercial installation markets. The company now services sports facilities, convention centers, hotels, nightclubs, theaters, meeting facilities, houses of worship, courtrooms, corporate boardrooms, schools, universities and government facilities.
Predominantly the business comes from the Southeastern United States, with a representative amount of business conducted throughout the U.S. Business also takes the Pro Sound, Inc., staff to the Bahamas, the Caribbean, Central and even to South America.
Rick Scharmann, vice president of ProSound Inc., states, “Pro Sound is principally an engineering based company with strong project management experience and an excellent service support structure. The company owns its 13,800 square foot building in Miami. The Orlando facility is housed in 2,500 square feet of space which is adequate for its operations, while the Las Vegas office is somewhat larger.” Rick adds.
“The Company has a diverse group of core technical specialists that support the operation with a total of over 40 employees on staff. The average employee has over 9 years of experience in audio, security, and CCTV systems. The more senior employees average approximately 14 years or greater of systems experience.”
South Florida is famous for it’s humidity and harsh outdoor environment and Rick is the first to state, “Outdoor loudspeakers don’t last long in the brutal Florida environment. Rick notes, “Even through the Dolphin Mall is several miles inland from the ocean, it is still close enough for the salt air, compounded with the humidity, to wreak havoc on outdoor loudspeakers. For these kinds of applications, we need reliability and quality for the customer, which was pretty hard to find in the past.”
For the Dolphin Mall’s outdoor areas, the entrances and the food court, Rick installed Technomad WeatherTech™ Loudspeakers. There is one Technomad Paris 616 installed at each of the Mall’s six entrances. The large, open-air, central food court is completely exposed to the environment, and a total of 17 Technomad Vernal 15T 70volt loudspeakers cover the expansive area.
Continuing, Rick says, “The output and coverage pattern is very good compared to other loudspeakers of the same physical size. With the Technomad Vernal’s, we found that in the case of the Dolphin Mall, we needed half the number of loudspeakers for the installation compared to if we used similar dome tweeter-loaded loudspeakers of the same physical size.”
Technomad’s Vernal 15 features a 1″ diameter ceramic high-frequency driver, mounted on a 120¡ X 120¡ horn. The Vernal also features an impressive detailed and articulate low-end response from its purpose-built 5.5″ bass transducer: a component that took Technomad over two years to design and perfect. The 60 watt (120 watt peak), 8 Ohm Vernal 15 features a sensitivity rating of 91 dB SPL (800 Hz to 10 kHz, 1w/1m C.W.) and can deliver maximum, long-term SPL of 96 dB (100 dB peak), at a frequency response of 100 Hz -18 kHz. A single Crown CT Series CT410 power amp drives the 17 Vernal 15T 70-Volt loudspeakers.
Rick states, “The Vernal provides excellent full-range fidelity and outstanding long throw coverage, which is why they were used in this application.”
Rick continues, “With the Technomad Paris 616, its output was so great, we only needed one Paris at each of the six mall entrances to cover these substantially large areas.”
The audio specifications of the Paris 616 are equally impressive. The Paris features two custom-designed, rubber-surround 6.5″ polymer mid/bass drivers treated with proprietary low-residue coatings for long-reliable service. The 1″ diameter ceramic high-frequency driver, mounted on a 90¡ X 90¡ horn, offers high-fidelity, audiophile quality performance over large indoor areas, as well as large outdoor areas, even in the most severe weather conditions. Designed for maximum fidelity, dispersion and throw, the 250 watt, 6 Ohm Paris 616 features a sensitivity rating of 95 dB SPL (1w/1m C.W.) and can deliver maximum, long-term SPL of 116 dB at a frequency response of 65 Hz -18.5 kHz. Three Crown CT Series CT210 amps drive the Paris 616, with one Paris loudspeaker per channel.
Both the Vernal 15 and Paris 616 are also available with a 70-Volt internal transformer with 8, 16, 32 watt switchable taps. Technomad loudspeakers a fully sealed, 1/2″ thick, Military Specification, roto-molded polyethylene cabinet, backed by a ten-year unconditional warranty.
“This is not the first time we installed Technomad Loudspeakers,” Rick points out. “We’ve installed them in outdoor applications at the J.W. Marriott, as well as other hotels in South Florida. We’ve also had very good success with them in over-the-counter sales to several cruise ship companies; which is the worst imaginable outdoor environment for a loudspeaker.”
Rick adds, “Technomad makes a very good quality loudspeaker that sounds great in for harsh environment installations. They are my first choice for harsh outdoor environments where sound quality and reliability are paramount.”
Prosound Inc. has offices in Miami, Florida and Las Vegas, Nevada.
For additional information, please contact:
Prosound Inc.
Rick Scharmann, Vice President
scharmann@prosound.net
1375 Northeast 123’d St., Miami FL 33161
P: 305 891 1000
F: 305.891.300
Chattanooga Sound Installs Vernal 15-T’s at Rock City
Chattanooga, Tennessee Chattanooga Sound recently completed the installation of a seven zone, outdoor distributed sound system consisting primarily of Technomad Loudspeakers at Rock City, one of the oldest natural and historical attractions in the state of Tennessee, if not the entire Southeastern United States. Chattanooga Sound, founded in 2000 by owner Charlie Rhodes, is Southeast Tennessee’s premier systems integration and sound Rental Company. The successful Rock City installation project represents Chattanooga Sound’s first use of Technomad loudspeakers in a geographic area that experiences Tennessee’s harshest weather conditions: 1200 feet above the city of Chattanooga on Lookout Mountain.
Located 6 miles from downtown Chattanooga, Rock City is a 15-acre marvel of nature featuring massive ancient rock formations, gardens with over 400 native plant species, and the breathtaking “See 7 States” panoramic views. The Rock City sound system installation consists of 25 Technomad Vernal15-T 70-volt transformer model loudspeakers augmented with 15 rock loudspeakers, distributed in seven zones, with each zone consisting of two to eleven loudspeakers per zone. Technomad Vernal 15-T loudspeakers are mounted on rock faces or concealed in shrubbery using an assortment of existing mounting hardware as well as Technomad proprietary loudspeakers mounts. Two Technomad Vernal 15-T loudspeakers are installed above the main gate area and an additional four Technomad Vernal 15-T loudspeakers provide background music in the concession area. Rock loudspeakers are utilized for fill loudspeakers or in places where Technomad Vernal 15-T loudspeakers cannot be hard-mounted.
According to Charlie, “At such a high elevation, Rock City is exposed to every weather condition imaginable. The mountain is often times shrouded in dense fog in the mornings, worse in the winter, and at this elevation, rain, cold, heat, humidity, and dampness is common 365-days per year. The last sound system was installed back in 1990, but while the front-end of the system represented the best technology of the era, loudspeakers were the one component that seemed to be replaced every two weeks with disposable ten dollar product. The owner wanted to install a quality loudspeaker once, and forget about it, for, well, at least another 15-year.’
Now that Charlie has the system completely installed and equalized,” the entire installation is sounding outstanding,’ he says. ”The rock formations create a lot of natural acoustics. The beauty of the job was working with the natural acoustics that, in many cases, really augments the overall sound quality from the Technomads without having to add a lot, if any, signal processing. We have the Technomads tucked in bushes or concealed on rock faces, and I’m using opposing rock faces to reflect the sound to create an illusionary stereo effect, even though it’s a monophonic system. As you walk through natural rock corridors, come around a corner, or out from an overhang, one zone drops out the next picks up with a very natural, smooth sound.’
”I just rely on quality components and that’s 75% of the job,’ Charlie states. “When doing an outdoor installation with Technomad loudspeakers, you really just mount and plug them in and forget about them. You can’t do that with many, if any other, loudspeaker product. Weather resistance seems to be a real common in the loudspeaker industry these days, but only Technomad loudspeakers say, hose me down, I can take it and still sound great for a long, long time.’
Vernal 15-T Speaker Installed at Rock City
Two White Vernal 15-T Speakers Installed at Rock City
Vernal 15-T Speaker Installed at Rock City
Two White Vernal 15-T Speakers Installed at Rock City
Technomad Vernal 15T’s at the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel and Casino
Technomad Loudspeakers Perform on the Las Vegas Strip for Half a Decade.
Installed as part of a massive rebuild of ”Bugsy Siegel’s’ Flamingo, the first of the glittering Las Vegas Strip casinos, Technomad Vernal 15-T loudspeakers have been shrugging off the punishing summer sun and heat and winter cold and rain of the for half a decade. According to Peter Chachere of Las Vegas, Mojave Systems, and the leading systems integration firm that installed the Technomad loudspeakers on the façade of the Flamingo Casino. ”They sound as perfect as when we first turned them on five years ago.”
Established in 1996, Mojave Systems, the low voltage systems integration division of Mojave Electric, specializes in the design, build and installation of audio, video and voice and data systems. The firm has serviced countless Las Vegas Casino Resorts and businesses, including the design and installation of the fiber optics systems for the newly completed Las Vegas Monorail system.
Mojave Systems sales and purchasing manager Peter Chachere has a unique understanding of his client’s needs based upon an extensive 30-year background in music, show production and pro audio sales and systems design and installation.
Peter Chachere is a man with impeccable credentials, so when he talks of his satisfaction with certain brands of audio equipment, his word is golden. A student of both the Conservatory of Music of Barcelona, Spain and the Conservatory of Liceo of Barcelona, Peter’s complete understanding of music far outstrips that of his competitors. After several additional years of formal education in electronics, Peter states, “No sooner did I graduate then I found out l liked what was happening behind the scenes more than that of actually being a performer. I got very involved in entertainment production, artist management and audio systems design.’
Peter’s understanding of the emerging technologies used in live theater production, such as lighting, audio, rigging, multimedia, and staging, lead him and his business partner to begin designing and installing sound systems in theaters throughout Europe. As his career developed, Peter gravitated towards professional audio equipment sales and international distribution before he wound up in Las Vegas in 1998 to manage Mojave Systems.
Mojave Systems installed 11 Technomad Vernal15-T loudspeakers, powered by QSC Audio CS204V power amps, every 15 to 20-feet along the casino’s full Las Vegas Strip-length. Program material, which runs 24/7/365, is fed to the Technomad Vernal 15-T loudspeakers from the house system. Peter notes that the Technomad Vernal T loudspeakers deliver impressive full-range and uniform music coverage along the entire sidewalk area in spite of the high level of automotive and pedestrian noise coming directly off the strip.
Appropriately enough, the Flamingo resort is also home to a flock of live Chilean Flamingos and a collection of and more than 300 other birds in the authentic Wildlife Habitat. Consisting of fishponds and foliage imported from around the world, this moist and damp environment can be as equally adverse to loudspeakers as the Las Vegas Strip. Six Technomad Vernal15-T loudspeakers, again powered by a QSC Audio CX204V power amp, deliver both background music and live, spoken word program material, by wildlife specialists who perform five presentations per day, everyday of the year.
”We’ve never had a negative result with Technomad loudspeakers,’ concludes Peter. “Anywhere the Technomads have been installed; it’s one of the few product lines where the results have always been extremely positive. The product is extremely reliable under the very worst conditions and the fidelity is of the utmost quality.’
White Technomad Vernal 15T installed outside hotel
White Technomad Vernal 15T installed outside hotel
White Technomad Vernal 15T installed outside hotel