Quito, Ecuador – October 2008… When the time came for city officials in this capital city of Ecuador to find a new home for many of the country’s cultural treasures, the decision was made to convert an old hospital into what would soon become the Museum of Contemporary Art. After an extensive renovation, the rejuvenated building sparkles with character. To ensure that visitors can clearly hear the presentations and stay informed as they tour the facility, the museum’s audio system is comprised of numerous loudspeakers from the Arco and Artec catalogs of D.A.S. Audio.
Electronic Amusement S.A (EASA) of Quito, which serves as the Ecuadoran distributor for D.A.S. Audio products throughout the country, was awarded the contract to provide the museum’s new sound reinforcement system. In addition to the company’s sales efforts, EASA also serves as a design/build firm and handled both the design and installation of the new sound system at the Museum of Contemporary Art.
Diego Ojeda, EASA’s project director, discussed the challenges the renovated facility presented. “As an old building,� explained Ojeda, “many of the rooms throughout the museum are large and have high ceilings. To ensure even sound coverage and a high degree of speech intelligibility, we wanted loudspeakers with robust SPL (sound pressure level) performance. Similarly, the various exposition rooms—with their multimedia displays— required loudspeakers with a proven track record for both music reproduction and speech intelligibility. In addition to the special presentations, these loudspeakers are also used for both background music and paging applications.�
After evaluating the projects requirements, the EASA team selected and installed a distributed audio system consisting of more than 200 D.A.S. Audio Arco 24T surface mount loudspeakers, which are now located throughout the museum’s corridors, living rooms, waiting areas, and the rear courtyard. The D.A.S. Audio Arco 24T features a molded, high-impact ABS enclosure incorporating two 4-inch woofers with weather resistant polypropylene cones coupled with a 25 mm neodymium dome tweeter for reproduction of high frequency program material.
In each of the museum’s five exposition halls, the EASA team installed 6 D.A.S. Audio Artec 28 loudspeakers. These areas house various multimedia presentations that document the country’s journey to independence. The D.A.S. Audio Artec 28 employs a birch plywood enclosure that houses twin D.A.S. 8B woofers for low frequency reproduction coupled with a 1-inch annular diaphragm compression driver that provides brilliant highs.
Customer service is key among Ojeda’s numerous reasons for being an enthusiastic D.A.S. Audio products supply house and this was an important consideration for selecting D.A.S. for the Museum of Contemporary Art. “The D.A.S. folks in Miami are a pleasure to deal with,� says Ojeda. “The Miami group is consistently responsive to our requests for assistance and they most always have the products we need in stock. This is a huge benefit for us, as it enables us to respond to our customers in timely fashion.�
With the Museum of Contemporary Art now open, Ojeda reports that sound quality throughout the facility is everything his client had hoped for. “The museum’s management staff has been highly complimentary,� reports Ojeda. We’ve received numerous reports that the loudspeakers look good and sound great.�
About D.A.S. Audio
Headquartered in Valencia, Spain, D.A.S. Audio is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of loudspeaker systems, power amplification, signal processing, and related components. For better than thirty years, D.A.S. Audio products have been found on tour with the world’s greatest performing artists and installed in many of the most prestigious facilities. For additional information about the company, visit them online at www.dasaudio.com.
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