Hospitality

NeueHouse Madison Square

Indoor

X Series

Context

The Team

Provider

SeeFactor

L-Acoustics Services

System Calibration

Elegant Sound for NeueHouse Madison Square

In the heart of Manhattan, New York City’s NeueHouse Madison Square has been a private members club and mainstay of the English professional class since Victorian times and is the epitome of Hollywood’s Golden Era. After a recent renovation, it’s now a nexus of private work and social spaces for creators, innovators, and thought leaders to gather and connect; complete with performances by entertainers such as Lee Ranaldo and Philip Glass and talks from thought leaders Arianna Huffington, Ndaba Mandela, and Diane von Furstenberg.

The Challenge

According to Anthony Farina, NeueHouse Madison Square’s Assistant General Manager and Head of AV Technology, members come to NeueHouse to work, experience interesting shows and talks, and feel at home. With a lushly planted reception desk, bistro-type tables and chairs along the windowed wall, and a curved and comfortable bar, around a corner from an elegant buffet, the sound quality and esthetics were equally important to the creative team at NeueHouse. The sound had to be as unique and dynamic as the environment—whether it’s speech, music, or ambient sound.

The Solution

With Soundvision creating the sonic map needed for speaker placement, the solution was to create a highly customized sonic environment comprised of L-Acoustics speakers and amplified controllers, designed and installed by AV systems integrator See Factor. Two L-Acoustics X12 speakers form a left-right array, with an X8 speaker in the center, all flown. A pair of SB18 subwoofers are available when needed—for DJ nights—can be patched into floor pockets fitted below window columns. Four more X8 covers the upper part of the seating and adjacent floor areas. Five ultra-compact 5XT speakers add delay zones around the main space, while even smaller X4i systems provide intimate audio for a pair of compact cabañas facing the buffet area: two LA2Xi and two LA4Xi amplified controllers in a tech closet power the whole system.

The Result

See Factor Installed Audio Supervisor Alex Jones says that Soundvision modeling software from L-Acoustics was critical in determining exactly where to place each speaker to assure proper coverage and imaging. “In conjunction with the X12 and X8 speakers, whose pattern signatures match each other exactly, we had the perfect solution to keep the sound on the seats and off the walls and floor.” The sound dispersion was so precise that X4i speakers were added to the cabañas because they were so well isolated from the rest of the room’s sound.

Project photos

The space sounds so good, and it works for speech and music and everything in between. It has all the horsepower we need, yet you’d never know it was there if you didn’t hear it. It’s exactly what we wanted for a very special place like this.