In November 2017, Mosley High School Florida opened its state-of-the-art Gretchen Nelson Scott Performing Arts Centre
Designed by DAG Architects of Destin, Florida, the centre’s open, airy auditorium features a Renkus-Heinz sound system designed by Chuck Walthall of Walthall & Associates Inc.and installed by Music Masters Pro AV Systems Group. Siebein Associates designed the room’s acoustics.
Chuck explained: “Of all the projects I’ve done in my career, this one was truly special.
“There were no major challenges with the room; it was a ground-up new build, acoustician Gary Siebein of Seibein Associates, architects Jack Baker and Owen Gipson of DAG, and I worked closely to tailor the room, the footprint, and the shape. It all came together on the front end and was verified before the first spade of dirt was turned. Les Stephenson and the Music Masters team did a terrific job on the install. It was a model project.”
The auditorium is essentially rectangular and seats 600 to 800. For the main system, Walthall chose a left-right pair of Renkus-Heinz IC Live Gen5 ICL-F-DUAL-RD digitally steered arrays.
Chuck added: “Renkus-Heinz is a go-to loudspeaker, for this system, we needed a small footprint for what was going to be an elegant interior. We didn’t want to subject the space to suspended line arrays.
“With IC Live, we achieve the performance and coverage in a very compact column array. Between the architecture, the acoustical design, and the IC Live’s steerable beams, we had no issues. With no balcony to cover, the beams were steered in a manner to minimise energy striking the back wall.”
Stephenson’s Music Masters team mounted black Renkus-Heinz ICL-F-DUAL-RD columns on the beige walls but thanks to their slim profile, the loudspeakers aren’t visually intrusive.
To complement the IC Live mains, Walthall specified two Renkus-Heinz CF151-2 powered, compact, two-way, Complex Conic loudspeakers as centre fills. Four Renkus-Heinz CFX41 compact, four-inch, coaxial, two-way loudspeakers built into the front of the stage serve as front fills.
Four Renkus-Heinz CFX121M-8 non-powered, two way, Complex Conic loudspeakers provide stage monitoring. The CFX121M-8 features a 12-inch heavy-duty woofer and a 2-inch titanium HF driver and can easily handle 500 watts of program power.
The system utilises a QSC Q-SYS Core 110f audio processor, and an 8-channel Bose PM8500N amplifier provides power for the non-powered loudspeakers. An Allen & Heath GLD-series digital mixing system and Crestron control panels provide total system control.
Chuck concluded: “I am a proponent of self-powered, steerable loudspeakers. The Renkus-Heinz products provide the coverage and quality we require for a variety of spaces. Mosley High School’s performing arts centre is a beautiful venue. The architecture and acoustics are enticing, the project was well coordinated from design to completion, and the result rendered a venue worthy of the fine arts.”
