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Hello all,

I am looking for recommendations and practical insights on directional or highly focused speakers used successfully in gallery settings.

I would appreciate hearing about:

• Specific products or manufacturers you have used
• Situations where directional audio worked well in exhibitions
• Key considerations when selecting speakers (sound bleed, clarity, mounting, durability, system integration)
• Features that have provided the most long term flexibility (ease of content changes, zoning, scalability)
• Any challenges or limitations encountered

Thanks in advance for sharing your experience.

Mark

Mark,

The College Park Aviation Museum has just bought a small, AS-168iX from Holosonics (and I mean just bought, we received it this week). This is our first directional speaker, and it's been easy to test and set up. We requested it have a motion sensor trigger and a micro SD card, to pre-load the audio. The exhibit it's for won't open for another month, so we don't yet have anything to share re. how it sounds in its final space or its durability. It was affordable, with the mount, motion sensor, and microSD slot, it was less than $1,300. They shipped a demo speaker and you can buy a previously demoed speaker for a 15% discount.

The other directional speakers we looked into were

1. Audfly - https://www.audflyspeaker.com/products/
2. Dakota Audio https://dakotaaudio.com/products/
3. Brown Innovations - https://www.browninnovations.com/sonicbeam-directional-speaker

Hope it helps and good luck,

Luke Perez

Hello Mark, 

I had the pleasure of managing a great sound installation for the Peabody Essex Museum's Asian Export Art permanent collection installation. It was done in partnership with Jason Reinier of Earprint and is still on view.  This blog post sums it up pretty well and includes some technical information, but Jason is the guy to speak to about the latest and greatest technology options. 

Cheers, 

Jim

Holosonics have a very narrow footprint and narrow bandwidth. Okay for voice delivery to a single visitor. Typically I would recommend footprint decals on the floor to tell visitors exactly where to stand. Even a foot left or right changes the quality of the sound, which is not great to begin with. I do not recommend for music, or anything where the music is important, or even for baritone voices as they have no low end. This is typical of directional speakers since lower frequencies are not directional.

I prefer Dakota speakers for narrow beam directional. Still highly focused but a larger footprint with controls for beam width and slightly better fidelity. Can serve two people side-by-side. 

Brown Innovations has an array of directions solutions from domes (highly focused) to narrow focus. Domes can provide stereo at higher bandwidths (music). I prefer  narrow focus speakers  with careful volume control rather than highly focused "beams" like Holosonic and Dakota. Beams serve a purpose, but jumping immediately to highly focused speakers ignores many more important factors. Physical acoustic control (spacing, barriers, absorption, proper volume control) should be the first concern. Some controlled spill is important to "energizing" a space so it does not feel like a cathedral. While you may want an art gallery to be silent as a tomb, most museums benefit from the "what's that over there" effect. If you do want the cathedral effect, I recommend hand-held audio and/or headphones.

Recently we swapped out holosonics in a design for JBL Control 67Hc speakers which are narrow beam pendant speakers. The client wanted pools of sound, not visitor isolation. We considered Dakotas but decided that even these were overkill. The JBLs are designed for high ceilings but can be used for close listening and will provide enough control in our environment to mitigate spill from one exhibit to another without sacrificing fidelity.

Mark,

You might want to check out this conversation from a couple months ago with a rather different set of answers to a slightly different question.

Same topic was discussed a few years ago, too. I get asked about directional speakers a lot, so I save these threads.

Cheers!

Jason

Thanks for the links to other discussions Jason!

Hi Mark, 

We use Holosonics (AS-24iX) directional speakers. 

We've found directional speakers to be to thin/tinny in a lot of our installations. Has anyone found a good way to counter act this? Special mix or extra hardware? 

-Wing

Thank you to those of you that chimed in. I found these comments very helpful.

Best

Mark