Quest Releases Innovative Rigging System for its HPI Series

The HPI-110 is a high powered compact speaker system that has a number of key technical innovations to improve performance in real venue environments; bearing in mind most venues potentially degrade the performance of standard sound systems due to acoustic conflicts with interior and structural designs.

One consistent problem in reproducing intelligible voice in a venue is the degrading effect of wall reflections. When a listener receives equal or more sound from the reflected (reverberant) field than the primary sound system, loss of speech intelligibility results. This location in the room is known as “beyond the critical distance”. The HPI system extends the “critical distance” by utilising a custom HF wave guide. The design of the HF wave guide is such that it directs the sound away from the walls and ceiling. The effect is to direct the sound to where it is needed, not to the reflective surfaces of the surrounding area. This is achieved by the asymmetrical wave guide design that provides 60 degrees horizontal dispersion at the base of the flare and 30 degrees at the top. Vertical dispersion above the box is limited to 15 degrees. The horn wave-guide can also be rotated 90 degrees for horizontal installation.

To get the best from the HPI-110 system, a multi-purpose light weight flying/installation system has also been developed. All HPI speaker systems in the range have been manufactured to have a very high “power to weight” ratio. An array of three HPI-110 speakers has a combined weight of 47 kg. Adding the mass of the rigging makes this one of the most light-weight high powered systems in the world. This is particularly important if the system has to be installed in a heritage building or an existing space with strict weight restrictions for installed devices.

The rigging system is innovative in its approach utilising a “top spine installation bracket” (an i-Spine) system for single speaker systems. Additionally, various attachments can be connected to make up almost any type of pan/tilt wall mount, truss mount or multi-box hanging array. These mounting systems are known as the Quick Rig (QR) System.

Eight QR-System kits are available, each addressing several possible installation options. In addition to these kits, extension components and single kit pieces are also available allowing for further configurability for installations with exceptionally unique attributes.

For more information on the available kits please see the QR-System Quick Reference Sheet.

Group Technologies