Transparent Audio, Saco, ME

"RPG® did a fabulous job of coordinating every aspect of our room treatment needs with our engineering consultant, Scott McConville of Gateway Studios. To begin with, the BAD™ Panels and diffusors arrived on time, which was critical to our busy contractor. The BAD™ Panels were beautifully covered with our choice of fabrics, and the natural maple Diffractals® and FlutterFree® had a gorgeous satin finish. RPG® was quick to respond when we needed a few adjustments to some panels. It was a matter of a few days before we had exactly what we needed. Our contractor could stay on the job doing fit-and-finish work rather than move on to another client's job that would haved delayed our grand-opening date. Our room opened up on time, and it is a truly beautiful place to work or be entertained. The room has also given us a huge credibility boost with our clients and industry colleagues, because it reinforces our message of "quality at every level." The performance of the room exceeds our expectations. The room was designed to support 2-channel listening as the priority, but it was also configured to handle the frequency dispersion, range, and sound pressure levels required to reproduce multichannel, movie-track sound. The room is the perfect balance between absorption and reflection for our applications. The room is so quiet and "honest" that it has significantly streamlined the listening portion of our research and development process. The listening portion has been and continues to be a big portion of the time investment that goes into the design of any new Transparent product. Although the Transparent Music and Film Studio was a big investment, the time savings that the room provides will pay off this investment within a relatively short period of time. We thank RPG® for making sure we got the results we wanted and needed with the Transparent Music and Film Studio." Karen Sumner, President, Transparent Audio, Saco, Maine Transparent Audio's beautiful new building is located on 10 acres in a new office and industrial park area of Saco, on the scenic coast of Southern Maine. Transparent is particularly proud that the building received the 1999 "Best of Manufacturing Category" award from Varco-Pruden Buildings. The building encompasses nearly 14,000 square feet of warehouse, manufacturing, and office space. In addition, Transparent's new state-of-the-art 13,000 cubic foot music and film studio is completely isolated within the new building. Transparent's significant investment in their new studio facility and the component systems within will pave the way for more and better interface products for home and professional music and film applications. The new studio has been in full operation since October 1999. The room's concrete floor has its own footings to support the walls and ceiling — which weigh approximately 10 tons! In addition, the concrete floor of the sound room has been physically de-coupled from the rest of the building. The walls of the internally isolated room are constructed with five layers of 5/8 inch drywall. Inside this second "isolation chamber" is a custom designed framework which supports a massive set of RPG® absorption and diffuser panels, each specifically selected for its position within the listening environment. Scott McConville of Gateway Studios coordinated and developed the room's acoustic design with the RPG® engineering staff. The Transparent studio also has a dedicated, whisper-quiet heating and air conditioning system. The room's lighting has a totally separate AC source from the room's impressive power station for audio and video equipment. Each audio or video component has its own circuit. The AC includes 4 dedicated 220 volt 40 amp circuits for amplification alone, and sufficient dedicated AC lines for all other future needs. To develop the most flexible and accurate cable components for all high performance audio, video, and power applications, the Transparent studio will house a wide range of the best audio and video components available. To this end, Transparent's audio paths include Mark Levinson and Proceed components from Madrigal Audio Laboratories and components from Krell, Audio Research Corporation, VTL, Wadia, Conrad-Johnson, TAG McLaren Audio, and many others. The primary speaker system is from Wilson Audio Specialties. It consists of 3-Grand SLAMM channels, 2-MAXX channels, and 1-XS subwoofer. Sonus Faber Guarneri, Aerial, Genesis, Martin-Logan, Quad, and Revel also serve as valuable 2-channel references. The video path will initially include a Vidikron Vision One Video Projector, a Stewart Film Screen, a Snell & Wilcox Gold Video Interpolator, and a Sony 7700 DVD Video Player, and a Pioneer Elite DVD Player. A PHAST Home Automation System will control lighting and video operations. PHAST will be invaluable in the development of new power conditioning products that will be adept at linking high performance audio and video components with home automation systems. Mike Pyle of Audition Audio in Salt Lake City, Utah engineered and set up the audio, video, and PHAST system installation. Transparent intends to continue adding products to this impressive list to keep pace with the changing interface needs of the audio and video industries. Power conditioning, analog, digital, and video cabling in the new studio is, of course, all Transparent.

Installed Products