A perfect sound for the Royal College of Surgeons' Banqueting Hall

d&b compact 5S provides the perfect blend of quality and aesthetics

The Banqueting Hall of the Royal College of Surgeons had suffered from bad acoustic design for many years, with wooden floors, high vaulted ceilings and wooden panelled walls contributing to almost incomprehensible after dinner speeches, as well as giving the sound engineer operating the lectern microphones an impossible task.

Orbital was called in to deploy its skills in handling listed building installations. After a thorough investigation, numerous faults were identified with the existing infrastructure, as well as the initial choice of PA, Microphones and loudspeaker placement.

The most important part of the installation to the client (apart from their guests' ability to hear clearly and the quality of the amplified sound) was the visual impact of the loudspeakers. The Orbital design team decided to use the compact 5S loudspeaker from d&b audiotechnik, colour-matched to the wooden walls.
The cabling infrastructure for the loudspeakers needed replacing, as some of the cable runs were over 70m long, and the initial installation had used 1.5mm cable - meaning the impedance lost on the cable run would have only just given the existing loudspeakers a signal, resulting in what was actually at the loudspeaker being only a very tinny high frequency.

Twelve loudspeakers were equally spaced in the room to give an even coverage and using the built-in delay on the d&b D6 amplifiers, Orbital was able to time the system back to the stage. Using the d&b R1 remote system, different presets were set up for different room configurations giving the user a truly flexible system.

The installation included a new mixing console (Allen & Heath Mix Wizard did the job without over complicating things), plus six new radio microphones (4 permanently installed and 2 for mobile use around the building), and then finally cardioid lectern mics.

"The end result has given RCS Banqueting Hall another lease of life, and it's been a pleasure to work with the Orbital team."