Usually, one would install outdoor speakers for their outdoor sound capabilities, but in a unique decision, custom integrator FORTECH designed and installed an indoor audio system leveraging some high-performance speakers. The special space for this experiment? A mammoth indoor ‘Toy Box’ – a 50 x 100-foot metal warehouse with 25-foot ceilings in Chattanooga, Tenn.
Housing all of the client’s ‘toys,’ including classic cars, a neon golfer sign, and a British phone box, the warehouse required not only a powerful yet discreet audio solution, but also an innovative approach to design and installation.
“This is a first: Coastal Source’s outdoor sound systems have never been installed inside a building such as this,” says Jon W. Lancaster, Design Consultant at FORTECH.
“It’s well built, and fairly well insulated, really serving its purpose as a climate-controlled environment for the classic cars stored there, but it’s basically a big garage or storage warehouse full of ‘toys’ and would just be a big open space if it were emptied out.”
The Toy Box client, whom FORTECH has worked with on previous projects, wanted to be able to pipe audio from his TV around the warehouse – particularly golf coverage – alongside Bluetooth streaming, so he could “shake the dust off the rafters,” according to Lancaster.
Lightapalooza took place in late February, and the growth of the event has mirrored the rapid ascension lighting fixtures and controls.
The FORTECH team recognized that this was a tricky space that brought equally large challenges in terms of acoustics and filling it with sound. The team brainstormed, considering how they could feasibly move enough air within the warehouse, and agreed on specifying a brand they already knew really well: Coastal Source.
“We started thinking, If Coastal Source does amazing things outdoors, imagine what it can do in here,” Lancaster says.
“The main reason I chose Coastal Source really came down to performance and quality. In my mind, if you have a building with a Lamborghini Huracan, a Porsche 356 Roadster, a Pontiac Firebird Bandit, a Chevelle SS and a Ford Mustang Bullitt, you are surrounded by high-performance, so to install anything less than the best betrays the spirit of the building.”
“I’ve never seen these products indoors like this before,” enthuses Chris Cowdrey, president of High-Tech Network, Coastal Source’s southeast sales rep.
“This is a unique installation. The first time – as far as I’m aware – that Coastal Source outdoor audio has been utilized within a building of this kind. It was an exciting and challenging project, and the FORTECH team was the ideal choice to deliver it!”
Once FORTECH thought of using Coastal Source audio, any other options fell by the wayside for the integrator and customer.
“The client has always appreciated quality, and anything we can do to insulate ourselves, and him, from failures related to poor workmanship in products, is a good thing,” Lancaster adds.
“So, as I have before when working with him on previous projects, I chose higher-end equipment – possibly higher than needed – to effectively give us ‘headroom’. The idea is that he’ll never push the gear beyond its normal capabilities, but since Coastal Source solutions are ‘overbuilt’, even if the client does push it, it won’t fail.”
Lancaster specified eight Coastal Source RZ220 3-Way Razor loudspeakers, in a white finish – with custom-designed, engineered, and optimized ultra-shallow drivers for the slim enclosure – as well as two 18.0 Bollard subwoofers.
The Razor loudspeakers are driven by a Coastal Source CRS 2800W 4-channel Rack Mounted Amplifier, with a CRS 1400W 4-channel Rack Mounted Amplifier fueling the two subwoofers.
A Control4 system with numerous streaming services built in delivers the audio sources.
For maximum audio delivery and minimum obtrusiveness, the integrator decided to hang the loudspeakers from the warehouse ceiling with custom-made brackets.
The biggest challenge, Lancaster recounts, was figuring out the most effective height for the ceiling drop to ensure that the 110-degree cone dispersion of each Razor overlapped with one another for max sound dispersion. And so that the audio field wasn’t compromised by downlights, AC vents or any of the client’s “toys.”
This involved a great deal of trial and error, with a FORTECH technician making adjustments on a scissor lift for two days, Lancaster notes.
The main challenge FORTECH faced was figuring out the optimal height to fly the Razor speakers from the ceiling. (Courtesy of Coastal Source)
“There are no hot spots anywhere in this building now. You walk around; it sounds the same. Dust absolutely falls from the rafters,” he says.
“But it wasn’t just about audio performance; appearance was really important too. We didn’t want them to be that obvious, and when you look at images of the installation, although you can see the lighting, you don’t really notice the loudspeakers – or the subs, which we hid behind the neon golfer sign, positioned on a custom-built shelf, and this worked phenomenally well.”
To dampen potential vibration from the neon golfer, the FORTECH team decoupled it from the wall and fixed Neoprene foam to its rear. They also used Dynamat and Neoprene on the base of the shelf to decouple the subwoofers from their base as much as possible so that they “float in the air.”
“The subwoofers are 2 or 3 feet away from the steel girder that holds the building together, but it’s not resonating at all. It does not echo – pretty amazing when you consider the build,” Lancaster explains.
“The ‘toys’ within the building are also doing a great job of catching some of the resonating sound. We explained to the client that we would do our very best to fill the space with sound, but cautioned him that as it’s effectively a big metal box, it wasn’t going to be easy. Thankfully, Coastal Source’s Razor speakers put the sound exactly where it needs to be. It’s not vibrating backwards. It’s not shooting sideways. It moves forward.”
The installation also required creative thinking when it came to the cabling, but FORTECH ran heavy-duty cables down the existing rafters, and using them as additional support for the Razor loudspeakers.
“This was an exceptionally creative project,” Cowdrey says.
“It sounds and looks amazing. I’ve seen countless Coastal Source projects and they’re all extraordinary in their own unique way, but they’re usually outdoors. Even the team at Coastal Source was scratching their heads a little bit about how this would work out, but I can tell you the execution of it is phenomenal.”
Lancaster adds: “It’s very rare that technicians want to go back to a job site, just to listen to it, but at Toy Box, everybody has. I’ve also caught the client demoing it to about half a dozen people so far. It’s a good feeling to know he’s showing it off on his own.”
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