Muzeum Historii Polski

Already globally recognised with a Prix Versailles award for its breathtaking architecture, The Muzeum Historii Polski (Polish History Museum), sought to create a cutting-edge auditory experience to drive visitor engagement. To reach visitors on a deeper level through an immersive, natural, and high-fidelity sound environment across its multifunctional venues, they entrusted ESS Audio who specified a TiMax SoundHub-based solution that met the sonic challenges the project presented.

The first of the challenges was the museum’s award-winning architecture. The lively and reflective interior created highly reverberant conditions, making it difficult for traditional audio systems to deliver clear sound without interference or loss of intelligibility.

The museum also required an audio system capable of supporting a wide variety of events for its two key performance spaces—the Auditorium Hall and the Cinema & Theatre Hall. The variety of content imagined for these spaces – from acoustic concerts and theatrical performances to film screenings and conferences – demanded different audio configurations, without sacrificing consistency or quality.

Finally, the client insisted on an audio experience that led the pack so that every visitor benefitted from an equally superior auditory experience from any seat. However, whilst the system was required to offer advanced functionality it had to remain intuitive for the multifarious sound engineers and guest users from the wide variety of events held, that would use the system.
ESS Audio specified two TiMax SoundHub processors—one in each hall— each delivering TiMax’s exclusive dynamic delay-matrix processing to create flexible, object-based spatial audio environments to work in a variety of room configurations.

The precise delivery of localised sound sources delivered by TiMax harmonised seamlessly with the venue’s natural acoustics, helping to tame the reverberant space. The TiMax spatial audio and control were integrated with Digico, Yamaha and BSS systems via Dante and MIDI, and distributed to the museum’s loudspeaker system made up of JBL arrays and Sonance ceiling speakers.
Further features of TiMax in play which enhance both realism and engagement are TiMax’s onboard playback and showcontrol, hailed for its reliability on events of long durations, and TiMax’s configurable event presets which enable an instant changeover to a different event set up. This feature bestows the ability for sound engineers to easily switch between concert, cinema, and theatrical modes, preserving audio integrity while simplifying workflows.

This project sets a new benchmark for museum and public space audio. It exemplifies how cutting-edge spatial audio technology can be harnessed to solve complex acoustic challenges posed by award-winning architecture—enhancing rather than detracting from the space, demonstrating how thoughtful, innovative sound design can elevate cultural institutions, enhancing their mission and visitor engagement.
ESS Audio was able to create a bespoke solution tailored to an acoustically demanding, architecturally award-winning space. Where traditional systems would have faltered, the powerful and versatile spatial capabilities of TiMax, which works with any brand of loudspeaker, in minimal and flexible locations to suit the venue not the processor, masterfully tamed reverberance without compromising aesthetic integrity.

The Polish History Museum is dedicated to storytelling and cultural history. With the TiMax solution in place every type of historical or cultural showcase can be easily set up in a room configuration that suits its style and purpose so that every guest—regardless of their seat—receives an auditory experience of the same breathtaking sound quality and immersive realism, crucial in a museum. The result is an immersive, hyper-realistic audio environment that heightens the emotional impact of every performance, enhancing the museum’s ability to tell Poland’s story compellingly and inclusively.

TiMax performs complex roles in an audio system but is both reliable and intuitive to use, two important factors in a cultural space such as the museum of Polish History. The project delivers technical brilliance but also practical usability. The system’s adaptability empowers staff and visiting engineers alike, providing powerful capabilities through an intuitive interface. Its adaptability allows seamless transitions between various event formats without extensive reconfiguration, saving time and resources while ensuring consistent quality. This level of flexibility is rare in such complex systems.