Aptly named, The View at Fountains in Murfreesboro, Tennessee features floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking beautiful greenspace. All of that glass makes the space acoustically challenging, and that challenge is compounded by tile flooring, an exposed concrete ceiling, and dry wall. Hesitant to upset the beautiful visual aesthetic, regional AV integration firm Centerline Audio Visual recommended Danley Sound Labs SH95 loudspeakers, which use Tom Danley’s patented Synergy Horn technology to deliver incredible fidelity while keeping sound from bouncing off the walls and ceiling.
“Scott Graby owns the building and is also the sound tech at Franklin Road Baptist Church, where we had done some work involving Danley loudspeakers,” explained Scott Oliver, owner of Centerline Audio Visual. “The View at Fountains is a beautiful event center that is perfect for weddings, conferences, and banquets. Unfortunately, all of the reflective surfaces in the room caused a lot of intelligibility problems, and Scott [Graby] received complaints.”
“Scott [Oliver] did a room profile of the space, and his graph showed sound bouncing all over the place,” said Graby. “He put together a quote for sound absorption panels that was not only costly but, would have marred the aesthetic of the space. As an aside, he mentioned past success with Danley loudspeakers in challenging spaces and was curious about whether we could reduce the number of acoustic panels by swapping our existing loudspeakers for Danleys. Scott [Oliver] plugged them into his room profile and was stunned. Apparently, the profile showed that Danley loudspeakers might eliminate the need for sound absorption panels altogether.”
Using the existing amplifier and the existing subwoofer, Oliver simply swapped in a pair of Danley SH95 loudspeakers. Each projects a 95-degree horizontal by a 55-degree vertical coverage pattern that, owing to Tom Danley’s patented Synergy Horn technology, extends the coverage pattern octaves below where conventional designs become effectively omnidirectional.
“Danley offers what I like to call ‘smear-free performance,’” Oliver said. “A typical horn-woofer loudspeaker is inherently ‘smeared’ all by itself and placing it in a reflective environment just amplifies the ‘smear.’ In contrast, Danley output is phase-coherent out of the box and minimizes reflections with tight pattern control. As a result, Danley intelligibility is off the charts!”
Graby agreed, “The Danley difference has been transformative. We no longer get complaints about echo, and we’ve not added a single sound absorption panel. I’m not sure how this is even possible, but I’m very impressed.”
