Teer Engineering and Harman Professional Prove Great Sound And Green Policy Go Hand In Hand At Reliable Plaza, The Greenest Commercial Building In Orlando

18 June, 2009, Orlando, Florida, United States

In a demonstration of how high-quality, innovative audio components can help integrators deliver premium sound coupled with energy savings, Teer Engineering recently completed the installation of high-performance, networked audio systems from Harman Professional for the conference room facilities at the redesigned Reliable Plaza building in Orlando, Florida. The systems for four discrete, networked conference rooms, comprise components from BSS, Crown, and JBL in addition to playback, video and control technologies from other providers such as AMX. Considered to be the greenest commercial building in downtown Orlando, Reliable Plaza is designed to meet Gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification and houses municipal and commercial offices including the Orlando Utilities Commission customer service center.

Reliable Plaza is designed to use 28 percent less energy than a typical similarly-sized facility of its kind so the audio systems for the conference rooms needed to be highly automated and energy-efficient while providing uncompromising audio quality to enhance communication and collaboration. BSS Soundweb BLU-160 and BLU-120 processors were deployed in each conference room. “With BSS you get outstanding control and the versatility to handle all streaming audio. We consistently select BSS London because it is easy to program, highly reliable and competitively priced,” explained John Teer, President of Teer Engineering.

All Soundweb London units offer configurable I/O, configurable signal processing and CobraNet audio and has open architecture which is fully configurable through HiQnet™ London Architect. “With HiQnet you have a greater ability to control the audio system, which means you only run components when you need to,” Teer added.

Two Crown CTs series amplifiers power 10 JBL Control 26 loudspeakers in each of the conference rooms. “Crown amplifiers make increasing sense in a world where customers are looking to manage their energy costs and their carbon footprint,” Teer notes. “This is because — unlike many other amplifiers in the field, they perform to spec’ all the time. I know that I’ll go back and check on this project in a few months and the CTs amplifiers will be performing quietly, effectively and energy efficiently! It’s also easy to network the amplifiers through HiQnet System Architect™, which was another major benefit of going with Crown. As an integrator I have great confidence in these amplifiers!”

The JBL Control 26 loudspeakers were also installed in multiple locations throughout the building including hallways, reception areas and lobbies. “There are two reasons that the Control® Contractor Series have become a standard among leading integrators: coverage and sound quality!” Teer explains. “As a result, you need less speakers to deliver better sound than the commoditized imports. The byproducts here are less materials, less waste and less energy consumption! Since this was going to be a green building we had a lot of restrictions with what could be installed overhead. The JBL speakers were a non-issue in terms of the boundaries within which we had to work.”

Commenting on the installation, Michael MacDonald, Harman Executive Vice President of Marketing & Sales, noted, “Between our consumer, automotive and pro divisions, Harman invests more in audio R&D than almost all of our competitors combined, but at the same time we recognize that we will never stop learning from the experience and expertise of our integration customers like Teer Engineering. Harman is deeply committed to helping customers reduce their energy costs and lower their carbon footprint and I am confident that with the combined inventiveness and ingenuity between our team and the integrator community, you’ll see more success stories just like Reliable Plaza!”