ISE 2013: Tannoy launches flagship QFlex system

Loudspeaker manufacturer Tannoy has introduced its new flagship digital beam steering loudspeaker array at ISE 2013 – the QFlex 64.

Extending the performance capabilities of the QFlex range, QFlex 64 complements the six existing models in the award-winning line, offering new possibilities for the product in particularly demanding applications.

QFlex is a range of digitally steerable, self-powered column array loudspeakers aimed at the high performance installation market. Designed for applications with problematic acoustics and where good intelligibility is required, QFlex technology gives the system designer a unique set of tools for controlling sound in large, acoustically challenging, highly reverberant spaces.

The system can produce equivalent SPL results in both the near and far field. Precise full-range beam control allows the system designer to steer the beam away from surfaces that cause reflections. This makes it the first digitally steerable array to maintain music quality over the desired area of coverage.

The QFlex 64 is now the largest model in the range, with 64 individual drivers each with their own amplification channel and DSP, in a 5.5-metre high column enclosure. The new model offers greater low frequency directivity control (down to 110 Hz), increased effective range and throw, and greatly improved headroom and SPL.

Typical applications for the QFlex 64 are large public concourses, major transport hubs and other long-throw situations where intelligibility and LF control over distances are particularly important.

“The ability of any steerable column to control directivity vs. frequency is proportional to its length. Our new QFlex 64 is nearly twice as long as the existing QFlex 48 model. As a result, what a QFlex 48 can do at 200 Hz, a QFlex 64 will be able to achieve down at 110 Hz,” explained Philippe Robineau, Tannoy’s director of engineering. “Of course, in environments with challenging acoustics, having effective beam control down to 150 Hz is important to achieve exceptional levels of intelligibility, especially in spaces with particularly high RT60.”

The QFlex 64 will also benefit from a new feature update, which will apply across the whole QFlex range, providing two on-board steering presets. This new feature will allow users to quickly reconfigure an installed QFlex column to an alternative coverage pattern with the flick of a remote switch, or via third party control such as AMX or Crestron. The feature upgrade will be available across all QFlex models shipping from Spring.

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