The Juilliard School – Morse Hall

Adwar Video was contracted for the audio-visual integration in The Juilliard School’s Morse Hall – a versatile performance space that serves as a recital room, classroom for film and music, and venue for special guest lectures.

The audio design for the room consisted of Tower LCC84 columns as the main left and right supported by WSUB45is with Cannon C8s as delays. The Tower LCC84s were instrumental in this successful audio design. The Tower’s narrow dispersion pattern of only 5º of the top of the speaker was helpful in this room with shorter ceilings. Their controlled cardioid behavior helped in limiting reflections behind the speaker and eliminating potential feedback with microphones on the sides or near the loudspeakers.

The two WSUB45i subwoofers were mounted flush to the wall. These compact subwoofers, stand only 6.5 inches from the wall and are fast-responding, deep subwoofers with melodic sound quality. For the delays further back in the room, two Cannon C8s were mounted and angled with their C-Clamp accessory. The C8s are full-range loudspeakers that are capable of a high SPL that paired seamlessly with the SPL capability of the Towers.

This resulted in an audio system with great clarity and even coverage throughout the space. This system sounds intimate at lower volumes, for example, to support a performance, yet has the capacity to get louder maintaining its detail and depth for a film scoring class.

For Morse Hall, Juilliard needed an audio system that could support the hall’s versatile programming, while showcasing details within music to support their music education. The goal of the audio design was to have loudspeakers with high sonic clarity and a design that would only enhance live performance not distract from it.

Adwar Video believed 1 SOUND had the right tools for the job and brought them in for an on-site audio demonstration for The Juilliard School AV team and administration of music professors. During the presentation, the room was captivated at the start. “The conversation quickly shifted from talking about audio to talking about music” shared the Juilliard team.

After understanding these loudspeakers could provide audio support, Adwar Video started considering which loudspeakers would be best for the physical space and how to deploy them. The room had a short ceilings with a drop ceiling lip in the center. Utilizing the Tower LCC84 solved for not creating audio build up in the ceiling or reverberation to the ceiling. They were precise in achieving the perfect angle for the loudspeakers as their dispersion pattern is quite controlled. The Towers also solved for the mounting location of the loudspeakers needing to be somewhat on the stage. The stage space at the front of the room is narrow so they needed to make sure the system would not feedback, be difficult to use, and would have wide coverage for the center front rows. 1 SOUND’s Tower column is a true line array with 20dB of rear cancelation and a wide 120º dispersion, solving for positioning the sound outward and not on the side and rear of the loudspeaker.

With limited space for subwoofers and wanting to keep them off the floor, Adwar was able to use 1 SOUND’s WSUB45i which fit perfectly in the lip of the ceiling and mounted flush to the wall. This subwoofer provides deep bass and can sonically reproduce low frequencies in a musical way. This resulted in being able to clearly understand lower frequencies in music to be able to distinguish timbre.

New York City’s, The Juilliard School in Lincoln Center, is renowned for its excellence in music and teaching. That persisted in the process of implementing the audio system for its Morse hall. Adwar Video delivered a seamless audio system that fit each of their different needs for audio in the room. Adwar Video provided detailed work and even brought in 1 SOUND to tune the system ensuring it was perfect for the space. This was a collaborative effort between Adwar, 1 SOUND, and the Juilliard AV team and even some faculty who were excited to critically listen to music through the system.

Between the first listen at the audio demonstration and the final result, this project speaks volumes Adwar Video’s attention to detail and 1 SOUND’s sonic quality.

In the end, The Juilliard School was proud to keep the stock black speakers as they wanted to showcase them for what they are as a music institution. Professors and staff were impressed with the seamless integration of supporting sound, approving the setup for their diverse programming needs. Ryan Muldoon, Audio Visual Design Engineer for The Juilliard School, explained, “Working with Adwar Video, Lou (audio designer at 1 SOUND), and  the 1 SOUND team was an absolute pleasure! From the first listen at the audio demonstration, we were all completely blown away by the clarity and depth of the sound. The detail and soundscape of the 1 SOUND loudspeakers is outstanding. It has been going great since the installation of the Morse Hall system. It really sounds amazing!”