AES Section Meeting Reports

L to R: Rob Deslaurier, Dave Clark, Chris Noakes, Stephen Siegel, James Weir, Rob Poretti, Frank Lockwood — Toronto AES Section -- November 15, 2016.

Meeting Topic: Hershey Centre Tour — Mississauga, Ontario

Moderator Name: Frank Lockwood

Speaker Name: Jeff Bamford - Engineering Harmonics; Chris Noakes & James Weir - Hershey Centre; Dave Clark - Engineering Harmonics; Stephen Siegel & Rob Deslaurier - Fulcrum Acoustics & SF Marketing; Rob Poretti - Solotech

Other business or activities at the meeting: Executive Chairman Frank Lockwood welcomed everyone to the meeting. He thanked each of the evenings' sponsors.

He reminded members from outlying areas they specify Toronto as their secondary sections. He asked for volunteers to join the executive committee and announced some upcoming meetings for the next few months.

Meeting Location: Hershey Centre - Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

Summary

The Hershey Centre's sound system for the main arena was over 18 years old, and was showing its age with increasing equipment failures. The decision was made to install a new sound system. Engineering Harmonics designed the new system to be louder with better coverage, increased intelligibility, and more automation.

Frank Lockwood introduced Jeff Bamford from Engineering Harmonics (and also executive committee member) who went over the evenings agenda. Jeff, who managed this project, summarized the various phases of the project such as the consultation and design.

Next, Chris Noakes spoke briefly and introduced James Weir who runs the A/V department at the Hershey Centre. He mentioned one of the many challenges they faced in the process of the new installation was that the previous three installations were all undocumented.

Dave Clark, while operating independently, worked with Engineering Harmonics on this project. With the aid of slides, he spoke about expectations, the design considerations and objectives. Some of the objectives were consistent coverage and levels, good intelligibility everywhere including private and bar seats, and both sophisticated and simple mixing control.

Rob Deslaurier and Stephen Siegel discussed the specific products provided by their company Fulcrum Acoustics. For this setup at the Hershey Centre, a separate subwoofer system is used. Its usage depends on the sound operator and the presentation needs.

Finally, Rob Poretti of Solotech discussed the challenges of precisely placing and hanging the speaker installations. One other challenge was that the system had to be installed in an extremely limited amount of time during September because of various time constraints and schedules.

This concluded the first half of the meeting. The presenters were given Certificates of Appreciation and AES coffee mugs, by Frank Lockwood.

The attendees took a break and had refreshments.

The meeting concluded with a tour and demonstration of the facilities.

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