The Science Museum of Virginia recently finalized upgrades to the projection, lighting and audio systems at both its Richmond and Danville planetariums, marking a significant enhancement in the overall audience experience.
Nestled within Richmond’s historic Broad Street Station building, the Science Museum of Virginia invites visitors of all ages to embark on a journey of curiosity and discovery. Spanning an impressive 223,000 square feet, the museum offers interactive exhibitions that delve into wellness, innovation and the physical sciences. Among its prominent features is The Dome, a five-story planetarium theater equipped with cutting-edge technology to transport guests through a myriad of immersive experiences, from traversing America’s national parks and venturing into the depths of the ocean with great white sharks to exploring the mysteries of dark matter at a particle physics laboratory and embarking on cosmic expeditions in search of the elusive ninth planet.
As part of its renovations, the Science Museum of Virginia sought to modernize The Dome—as well as the planetarium at its affiliate location Danville Science Center—to offer visitors enhanced immersive audio experiences. Collaborating closely with HARMAN Professional Solutions, Jamie Gorman of Acuity Audiovisual spearheaded the design and installation of a cutting-edge planetarium audio solution, leveraging JBL Professional CBT Series loudspeakers.
“The Science Museum Planetarium projects presented a unique and exciting opportunity for our integration team,” said Jamie Gorman, Principal, Acuity Audiovisual. “While immersive planetarium audio is not our specialty, partnering with HARMAN Professional’s engineering afforded us access to expert resources for optimizing our design and delivering an awesome audio experience for Science Museum patrons.”
The challenge of creating an immersive experience within a planetarium necessitated speaker devices capable of reaching the maximum percentage of seated patrons from each location. Gorman identified JBL CBT loudspeakers as the ideal choice due to their wide horizontal coverage, linear frequency response and high SPL output. In the case of side surround locations, Gorman utilized horizontally angled CBT columns to ensure perpendicular coverage to the audience seating, surpassing the capabilities of traditional cinema surround speakers. Additionally, Gorman integrated CBT1000E low-frequency extensions for the front L-C-R channels, yielding enhanced vertical directivity and improved volume consistency from the front to the rear of the planetarium.
Gorman integrated smaller JBL CBT70J-1 and CBT70JE-1 loudspeakers at the Science Museum of Virginia’s affiliate Danville Science Center planetarium to ensure an immersive audio experience tailored to the venue’s dimensions. Gorman equipped both facilities with AE Series subwoofers renowned for their capacity to reproduce very low frequencies. Additionally, Gorman strategically placed JBL SCS surround speakers at overhead locations in both planetariums, further enhancing the enveloping effect and creating a truly immersive auditory environment.
By routing the audio tracks directly from the audio servers’ Dante outputs to Crown DCi Series amplifiers, Gorman’s signal chain remains in the digital format from start to finish, ensuring minimal loss of signal integrity. This meticulous approach to audio transmission plays a crucial role in preserving the fidelity of the sound throughout the immersive experiences at the planetariums.
The end results of these upgrades were met with enthusiastic reception and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. With over 90,000 guests annually visiting the two planetariums, and a diverse range of show programming available, the newly JBL loudspeaker systems ensures that each guest can fully immerse themselves in the awe-inspiring sights and sounds of the cosmos, enhancing their overall experience at the Science Museum of Virginia.
