Revamped masterpiece adds clarity to its delivery

[WHILE ROCHDALE’S Grade One-listed Victorian Gothic Town Hall is one of the finest municipal buildings in Britain, renowned for its unique and detailed architecture, it also functions as the ceremonial headquarters of Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council and houses local government departments, including the borough’s civil registration office.

The extensive work being carried out will also create an open and accessible community space, featuring exhibition rooms and a new Bright Hall next to the Great Hall, for community events to take place.

It’s magnificent Great Hall is a beautifully expansive, but highly reverberant and difficult acoustic space. Improving speech intelligibility was a major goal of the restoration and improvement works.

Audio visual and stage technology specialists Torpedo Factory Group were consulted to improve audio quality and speech legibility for the wide variety of special events that will be hosted in the Great Hall after it reopens next year, while blending discretely with the stunning and intricate hall.

After a detailed consultation, the Torpedo Factory Group installed a robust and discrete HK Audio solution, based around CT108 speaker enclosures from HK Audio’s ConTour series.

The equipment installed comprises six HK Audio Contour CT108 loudspeakers, powered by two LAB Gruppen C28:4 four-channel installation amplifiers. The system is controlled by a Symetrix Radius 12×8 system controller supported by four Symetrix remote control panels. It includes a Tascam CD-200iL CD player, two Sennheiser G3 radio microphones and an Audio-Technica ES915SC18 lectern microphone.

The installation has resulted in a major improvement in sound and speech quality, clarity and intelligibility for the events it will host. It means the Great Hall is set to become a hugely popular and well-known venue which will be suitable for a wide variety of special events. q • Torpedo Factory Group has spent over 60 years in the audio visual industry, providing innovation and technical expertise to those seeking the best in audio visual presentation and performance technology. With offices covering the UK, including their London HQ in a former WWII torpedo factory – hence the name – and with a wide range of highly-skilled staff, they are able to provide rapid on-site technical pre and post-project sales support.