Offering an image quality that is unmatched by projector-based systems, LED walls, MicroLED and OLED displays are increasingly popular in residential media systems. Unfortunately for companies designing dedicated audio systems for immersive audio, those displays pose audio challenges because speakers can't be placed directly behind the acoustically transparent screen as in many home theater setups.
German company Ascendo took the challenge to its R&D department and designed the Director, a patent-pending solution that is able to offer powerful sound from a flush-mount, in-ceiling speaker used as part of a larger Ascendo immersive audio system.
The Director was developed based on Ascendo's research that found engineering shortcomings in competing LED wall speaker systems. Some use a mix of line and point source speakers, yet line source speakers require audience members to sit in select seats for optimal sound. Others reflect frequencies off the wall itself, introducing timing and phase issues. LED wall audio systems that deploy smaller speakers suffer from poor performance and inadequate sound pressure levels.
Ascendo tackled the problem with a direct-radiating point source speaker to provide consistent, captivating, and powerful sound to every seat. The solution was to design a flush-mount in-ceiling system that integrates invisibly in elegant home theater and media room designs, while keeping the focus on the screen.
"Our design approach, as always, is using a point source. In this case, we are using an asymmetrical, controlled-dispersion pattern waveguide to achieve our goals," says Geoffrey Heinzel, Ascendo co-managing partner. "Only point source speakers can deliver the desired seat-to-seat performance consistency in multi-seat home theater environments, and only a direct-radiating system is capable of the highest-performance results."
The company designed, developed, and tested 3D-printed special waveguides for the Director's tweeter and woofer to find the best coupling between them without significant lobing or cancellations. The speaker’s AMT-driven waveguide has asymmetrical horizontal and vertical sound dispersion and HF dispersion lens. Its performance is scalable and can easily exceed 130dB SPL.
In rooms with high ceilings where steep listening angles exist, Ascendo uses psychoacoustics through a time-aligned, equalized, and level-matched balancing speaker positioned below the LED wall to lower the perceived phantom sound source.
"Ascendo continues to innovate with application-specific solutions for challenges like this one," says Todd Sutherland, owner of Sutherland AV Marketing, distributor for Ascendo in the United States and Canada. "The Director is unlike anything available, giving the audience a realistic and exciting LED wall audio experience from an in-ceiling system that lives up to Ascendo’s reputation for sublime sound."
CEDIA Expo attendees are invited to experience The Director in Ascendo's Sound Room 3, in combination with StormAudio’s ISP Evo20 processor for audio. The room will not be equipped with a LED Wall but will use a Seymour-Screen screen and a Christie M 4K15 Pure Laser projector, and madVR’s Envy Mk2 video processor. Other demo partners include German-made moovia bespoke seating and Kaleidescape servers.
www.sutherlandavmarketing.com
www.aia-cinema.com
