RIT Gene Polisseni Center
Completed in September 2014, Rochester Institute of Technologies’ Gene Polisseni Center is home to the RIT men’s and women’s hockey teams, though the multipurpose facility also hosts commencement exercises, concerts and performing arts events. Having experienced the limitations of its old arena, the RIT team had clear ideas about the sound system for their new arena. Even better, they were able to articulate their ideas to engineering firm and systems integrator Smith + Andersen who in turn, had a clear idea who to call for a solution: Fulcrum Acoustic.
Challenges
- Intelligibility was a factor as the project required a sound system loud enough to create a great fan atmosphere at games, give the home team the advantage and intimidate visiting teams
- For hockey games, the school wanted the ability to configure the system to hit the ice separately from the bleachers so they could pump up the team during pregame
- The sound system needed to be compact enough to avoid obstructing spectator sightlines to two video scoreboards
- The sound system needed to provide low frequency extension without subwoofers
Solution
Working with an EASE model based on the building architect’s plans, Fulcrum and Smith + Andersen came up with a distributed speaker system based on 20 Fulcrum Acoustic Prophile L-Series 3-way coaxial loudspeakers to serve the bleachers and CX-series 3-way coaxial loudspeakers along the concourse. A rigging grid used for event rigging served double duty for hanging the speakers. The distributed design offered more flexibility, including the ability to reconfigure the space for different events and even activate just part of the hall if it was not full. During the planning stage, it was known that video scoreboards would be installed, but their exact location was not known until late in the project. Fulcrum loudspeakers were low-profile enough that there were no problems with sightlines regardless of where the scoreboards were ultimately placed.
Fulcrum loudspeakers were low-profile enough that there were no problems with sightlines regardless of where the scoreboards were ultimately placed.
Project Details
| Location | Rochester, NY |
|---|---|
| Market | Sports Stadiums and Arenas |
| Type | 4,300-seat arena for hosting ice hockey games and other events |
| Fulcrum Products | (12) CX12 – Compact 12” Coaxial Loudspeaker |
| (8) CX8 – Compact 8” Coaxial Loudspeaker | |
| Supporting Products | (20) L-Series Dual 12 inch Coaxial Loudspeakers, 75° x 75° |
| Lab.gruppen Power Amplifiers | |
| BSS Soundweb London DSP |
