“I think there’s a world market for about five computers.”
THOMAS WATSON, founder of IBM

Room Optimizer™
RPG®’s Room Optimizer™ has been nominated for a Mix Magazine TEC Award for new software. We are very proud of this honor and encourage our friends and users to support the program with your ballot in the August issue. The Room Optimizer™ is the first automated program that determines the optimum location for loudspeakers, listener, and acoustical surface treatment material. It accomplishes this by coupling a geometrical acoustics image model with an intelligent search engine to simultaneously minimize the speaker-boundary interference and the modal response.

Also of note: The Room Optimizer™ has been reduced in price to $99.99, so don’t delay, find out what proper location of your loudspeakers and listening position can mean to the sound in your room.

Look for a review of the Room Optimizer™ by Chris Pelonis, President of Pelonis Sound and Acoustics, in the June 1999 issue of Mix Magazine.

Cinerama

"Acoustics to "rival any symphony hall in the world," making use of special building materials, air diffusers, a series of computer-designed sound baffles, and a revolutionary sound-wave-shaped ceiling, the first of its kind in the country."

RPG® is proud to have been chosen to provide the acoustical treatment for the new state-of-the-art THX® certified Cinerama theater in Seattle, Washington. Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menance opened on May 19 to rave reviews. Cinerama now represents a new era of movie exhibition, with the world’s first “active” movie posters, a breakthrough sound system, RPG® acoustics to rival a concert hall, and capacity for digital or “filmless” cinema.

The theater originally opened in 1952 with the debut of ®This is Cinerama,” a thrill-packed travelogue that joined three separate images from three different 35 mm projectors to create a single image on one giant screen, curved at a 165-degree angle. In March 1998, Paul Allen purchased the theater for $3.75 million and selected Boora Architects of Portland, Oregon and acoustician Neil Grant of Harris Grant Associates, UK to renovate the space. RPG® collaborated with the design team to integrate its wall-mounted Diffractal® sound diffusors to enhance the surround-sound listening experience. In addition, RPG® utilized its proprietary Shape Optimizer software to optimize the shape of a revolutionary new wave-shaped, sound-diffusing ceiling. The use of sound diffusion in commercial and home theaters is vital to the full appreciation of the surround sound experience. As the pioneer of the sound diffusion industry, RPG® is leading the way in providing this diffusion technology.

Digital Acoustics
Now that digital discrete 5.1 surround sound is becoming a standard listening experience, there has been a need for the acoustics industry to provide innovative acoustics to meet this challenge. RPG®’s BAD™ Panel is the first digital diffsorptive Home Theater panel. The panel is digital, because the sound diffsorbing surface is derived from optimal binary sequences in which a zero represents an absorptive surface and a one represents a reflective surface. Together the absorptive and reflective elements create a diffsorptive surface. This surface is called a binary amplitude diffsorber (BAD) panel. It represents the evolution of the traditional “absorptive-only” fabric wrapped panel, which is incapable of providing an enveloping surround sound experience.

Mix StudioPro99 on Emerging Technologies & The Future of Audio Production is being held at the Universal City Hilton in Los Angeles, June 14-15, 1999. RPG® is honored to be invited back for a return engagement to participate in Bob Hodas’ seminar entitled Studio and Control Room Acoustics: Practical Solutions To Common Problems.

The seminar description follows: “From miking instruments to listening back to mixes, acoustics play a crucial role in shaping the sounds we record and the mixing decisions we make. Few of us are in a position to start from the ground up in pursuit of acoustical perfection, but most of us could probably use some realistic suggestions on improving the rooms in which we work. Focusing on common acoustic problems, this panel of noted studio designers and operators will discuss solutions for existing facilities in areas such as sound isolation, symmetry, ergonomics, creating a flexible sound space, acoustic treatments and working within budgetary constraints.”

This year Dr. Peter D’Antonio will make a presentation on Acoustic Treatments for Small Spaces.