AVSI Group Sharpens up CenterPoint Energy Corporate Auditorium with HARMAN’s JBL Intellivox Loudspeakers and Crown Amplifiers


HOUSTON, Texas – Looking to upgrade the audio system for the 300-seat auditorium in its Houston headquarters, CenterPoint Energy recently hired systems integrator AVSIGroup to install a new audio system for the space featuring HARMAN’s JBL Intellivox self-powered steerable arrays and JBL AE Compact Series loudspeakers powered by Crown amplifiers.

“As is so often the case in these projects, aesthetics and performance were the overriding concerns”, said Steve Peters, Technical Sales Executive and System Design for AVSIGroup. “The architect wanted the audio system to be visually discreet, and speakers had to be mounted in the extreme corners of the room — a location that just wouldn’t work for most loudspeakers.”

The room was acoustically challenging as well, with the floor sloped at such a degree from front to back that the loudspeakers would be located about 20 feet below the elevation of the farthest listeners  in the back of the auditorium.

“Looking at the specs, the Intellivox loudspeakers seemed like they were tailor-made for applications like the CenterPoint auditorium, where we needed great coverage, powerful output and a high level of speech intelligibility but had very specific and limiting restrictions on placement,” Peters noted.

Peters had previously heard the JBL Intellivox loudspeakers at a local house of worship, where they were completely hidden from view. “I figured that if the loudspeakers could be made to work and sound great in a situation like that, they would work well at CenterPoint,” he said. “Also, the JBL Invellivox DC808 is just a few inches wide, which made it easy to fit into the design requirements.”

AVSIGroup installed just two of the Intellivox DC808 loudspeakers, one per side, complemented by a pair of JBL AC28/26 compact 2-way loudspeakers at the front of the auditorium to provide downfill for the front rows, along with a JBL ASB6125 dual-15-inch subwoofer and Crown CDi 4000 and CDi 2000 amplifiers. “I selected Crown amps because they’re bulletproof and provide me with the appropriate power for a variety of applications,” Peters said.

JBL Intellivox loudspeakers employ digital beam steering and shaping technology, in which the phase and relative amplitude of each of the of the speakers in the array is controlled using DSP techniques. The DSP also offers a wealth of additional features (volume, parametric EQ, delay, etc.) and all of these parameters can be controlled from JBL’s proprietary WinControl software and network connectivity. This sophisticated digital signal processing enables the speakers to deliver precise coverage in a manner impossible to achieve using conventional loudspeaker designs, with an opening angle, aiming angle and focus distance that overcomes problematic acoustics and overly reverberant rooms, and high volume that belies the speakers’ slim-profile design.

“The JBL Intellivox system works perfectly—they do exactly what they’re designed to do and enabled us to provide outstanding performance in a challenging situation where we would not have been able to achieve such results otherwise,” Peters said. “The sound is exceptionally clear and smooth from the first row to the back, and CenterPoint is thrilled about how great the room sounds now, this room has gone virtually unused for the past 10 years because the audio was terrible, now it stays booked for various events” Peters concluded.

For more information on AVSI Group please visit: www.avsigroup.com.

HARMAN (harman.com) designs and engineers connected products and solutions for consumers, automakers, and enterprises worldwide, including audio, visual and infotainment systems; enterprise automation solutions; and software services. With leading brands including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon®, Mark Levinson ® and Revel®, HARMAN is admired by audiophiles, musicians and the entertainment venues where they perform around the world. HARMAN also is a technology and integration services leader for the Automotive, Mobile, Telecommunications and Enterprise markets. More than 25 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and infotainment systems. The Company’s software solutions power billions of mobile devices and systems that are connected, integrated, personalized, adaptive and secure across all platforms, from the work and home to car and mobile. HARMAN has a workforce of approximately 25,000 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia and reported sales of $5.9 billion during the last 12 months ended March 31, 2015.
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