A Martin Audio WT2 theatre system has been specified into the 450-seat auditorium on the new £120m deHavilland Campus brown-field development at the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield, Herts.

QAV (Quality in Audio Visual) were awarded the contract for sound and vision after being placed on the tender list following work they carried out for the University on its original site in College Lane.

The Cambridge-based contractors were tasked with creating the infrastructure for a multi-functional venue that can act as a lecture theatre (incorporating distance learning), a conventional theatre entertainment venue while providing video-conferencing links and allowing the University to patch in and call up feeds from any projector in the theatre.

QAV sales and project manager, Julian Moore, says his company is a big fan of Martin systems. “We have used their components on previous projects and we run WT2’s as our hire touring rig along with Martin Audio amps.”

The WT2 is a powerful, compact theatre system which can be used as a stand-alone enclosure in a distributed system or arrayed in multiples. QAV specified two mounted either side of the proscenium arch, with a pair of floor-mounted WS2A’s handling the sub frequencies. Front fills are provided by a pair of Martin WTUB’s.
While the latter are generally used as under-balcony fills here they are positioned in the stage apron to project over the orchestra pit as near fills into the first few rows. This is necessary as the dispersion of the WT2 doesn’t really peak until
the centre of the stalls, believes Julian.

For stage side fills he has selected the dependable Martin Audio miniature WM0.5 monitors while six of the larger LE350 floor wedges will provide foldback sound for any touring acts.

The system — which also takes feeds from standard playback formats — is powered by QSC RMX amplifiers and EQ’d using Yamaha’s DME-32 Digital Mixing Engine.

A 24-channel Soundcraft k2 mixing desk, Sony Freedom radio mics and ASL wireless comms are also included in the sound specification, which was originally drawn up by consultants Theatreplan. There are two 10U racks which, when plugged into the floor box, initialise the Crestron management system under which the entire installation runs. Also operating under Crestron control are Sony digital powered mixer amps, with mic inputs to handle the mixing away from the Soundcraft desk.

QAV have made a generous provision of patch bays, floor boxes and datapoints to provide system headroom and to allow for incoming productions. There is also a live position at front-of-house.
Acoustically designed by architects RMJM, the building was constructed by Carillion — the main contractors for the entire site.