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Welcome to our latest Newsletter
Sound Associates is celebrating its 60th birthday this year and I am delighted to be able to report that 2018 has got off to a flying start, with many unique installation projects, and a focus on training - for our engineers and for me! I had the opportunity to attend a fascinating Q-Sys course dedicated to cinema sound at QSC headquarters in LA. This was so inspiring, I have spread the word in our office and we have used Q-Sys audio and control systems in several of our recent installations, replacing the traditional cinema audio processors completely.
There is a lot of competition in the cinema integration marketplace at the moment and there are some really crazy prices being offered. We at Sound Associates continue to offer cost effective and economic solutions to our customers which starts from the initial enquiry, systems design to provide the right individual solution right through to installation, commissioning, training and support of the installation for many years through our Support and Service Agreements.
On a slightly bittersweet note, I must announce that Derek Soden, our Project Manager, has retired after an incredible 32 years with SA. He joined the company shortly after I did and we were installation buddies on many sites. There are no words to express my gratitude for the dedication and professionalism and entertainment(!) he has provided, we all really do wish him and Dorothy many years of relaxed, happy times together.
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Projects:
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Towner Art Gallery
Sound Associates are proud to have helped bring DCI compliant projection facilities to the Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne. We installed a Sony R510 digital projector and a Dolby CP750 processor, so they can now offer a broad range of features, complementing the art installations and learning programmes. The projection room is very small which meant that we had to be inventive when fitting the digital equipment – we placed the projector onto a purpose-built track to allow it to be moved forwards for presentations, and back for service and maintenance.
Towner Art Gallery welcomes over 150,000 visitors a year, this new variety of arthouse films and Hollywood blockbusters will expand the selection of visual arts on offer.
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The Hospital Club
The Hospital Club is a private members’ club in Covent Garden and Sound Associates were invited to upgrade the audio system in their screening room to a JBL 5000 Series speaker system. The room is used on a very frequent basis for private hires and members’ screenings and there have been many nice comments from members who have noticed the improvement.
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Firmdale Hotels, Charlotte Street
SA were asked to undertake a second project for Firmdale Hotels. This time we assisted with the refurbishment and upgrade of the screening room in their Charlotte Street Hotel.
The projection room already had a pair of Kinoton 35mm projectors and a Barco DP1200 digital projector, all were removed and brought back to the Sound Associates workshop for a good service and a clean, while we built a new rack and base for the Barco and the sound equipment.
We designed a new sound system and automation system for switching and automating the various matrix switchers and video switchers using a QSC Q-Sys control system. The 12U of amplifier space previously required, was replaced with 4U of QSC DPA-Q series networked power amplifiers to provide Bi-amplification for the stage channels and an upgrade from 5.1 to 7.1 surround playback. Everything was condensed from 2 very full and complicated 27U high equipment racks into one 37U rack moved to the corner of the room to make the most of a very small and compact space.
The six radio microphones and six additional stage audio feeds were all routed and controlled by a compact QSC Touchmix16 mixer which was then connected to the Q-Sys system for routing and playback through the cinema sound system.
An iPad allows for the entire system including the Touchmix mixer to be operated from within the Auditorium.
We commissioned the 35mm projectors, giving the screen the best of old and new technologies. This, together with new carpets, seating and curtains, gives Charlotte Street Hotel a wonderful, state of the art screening room.
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The Olympic, Barnes
SA are proud to be part of the major expansion of this very popular cinema. The focus has been on Screen 2 and soon on a new Screen 3. We installed Dolby Atmos in Screen 2 using a very compact Q-Sys sound system with 30 speaker channels built into a single 18U high soundrack and their Barco DP2K and been upgraded to a Laser Phosphor light source. Screen 3 will be an exciting addition in the basement, scheduled to open in 4-6 weeks.
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Grove, Dunstable
The Barco projector and Dolby server at the Grove gave them many years’ faithful service but the site decided to upgrade the entire system to a Sony SXRD R510 4K projector. They have been very pleased with the end result and there have been many positive comments from their regular cinema goers at this great multipurpose venue.
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Dome, Worthing
This Grade 2 listed building will soon be home to 3 screens. Sound Associates have upgraded the audio equipment in Screen 1 and Screen 3 at the front of the current cinema will soon be completed using a pod system to house their new Barco DP2K-6E. We will also install a complete audio system using a Dolby CP750 audio processor along with QSC amplifiers and speakers.
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Engineer Training:
We have carried out a lot of internal training sessions for our engineers to ensure that they are fully up to speed with installing and maintaining the equipment that we sell and install. Engineers from Dolby came to our offices to offer hands-on training on Dolby Atmos configuration and commissioning as well as training on the latest products from Doremi, who Dolby purchased a couple of years ago. It is always useful to keep our skills up to date with latest technology updates.
Some of our engineers also attended training at Sony HQ, Basingstoke to understand the latest service and maintenance requirements for Sony projectors.
Q-Sys training
Q-Sys is a network audio processing, routing and switching system allowing multiple audio streams to be fed down a single network cable between the central processing unit (The Core) and the power amplifiers. This network connection also allows the health of the entire system to be remotely monitored and configured allowing audio signals to be re-routed in case of equipment failure.
When Graham was recently in LA, he attended a 4-day training course on Q-Sys at QSC Head Offices. You may have seen on Twitter, that he found it hard work sitting still in a classroom environment for so long, but what he learned and the experiences shared by other delegates from all over the world were invaluable. Graham has been busy teaching our engineers his new skills and together they have already designed some impressive Q-sys audio and automation control systems.
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New Products:
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Sennheiser
Sennheiser microphone sets, either handheld or worn on the head, are an exciting new addition to the conferencing facilities we can now build into your cinema.
They have receivers that can be paired to the entire portfolio of different microphone types. Operating at the 1.9Ghz frequency band they are licence-free.
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QSC
QSC headset accessibility solutions.
Two channel IR headphones for Hearing Impaired and Visually Impaired audio. The headphones receive audio over any infrared system.
We used to distribute the RX15-2 headsets from Williams Sound which were very popular but were withdrawn by Williams Sound. These new headsets from QSC now offer the same capabilities as the old RX15-2 headsets. Please contact us for pricing and availability.
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CinemaCon, Las Vegas
Today sees the start of CinemaCon in Las Vegas and we look forward to seeing many of you here. Come and have a chat! And as always, we are keen to assess new products and technologies that are on display at the Trade Show. There are big announcements due from several manufacturers at the show and we will bring these to you as they are made – keep watching our twitter/Facebook feeds! |
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Derek’s Retirement
For 32 years Derek was an invaluable member of the SA team. Being as multi-talented as Derek is, he was involved in so many projects, team events, publications – his cartoons are amazing, and of course no SA Christmas party was ever complete without Derek!
Here is one of his illustrations clearly showing part of the technological journey we all went on together: it is from our 2006 Calendar – right at the start of the ‘digital revolution’!
Thank you for everything, Derek. Enjoy the holidays and the music making |
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