L-Acoustics L-ISA Brings Immersive Sound to Manhattan's Venerable 92nd Street Y posted: 24/01/2020
92nd Street Y's Kaufmann Concert Hall, home to a new L-ISA Hyperreal Sound technology design from L-Acoustics
As the first US performing arts center to install L-ISA Hyperreal Sound technology,
the Kaufmann Concert Hall is prepared for its next century of much more modern shows
The Kaufmann Concert Hall at the 92nd Street Y is a quintessential bit of classic New York City cultural history. The 92Y itself was opened in 1874 as the Young Mens Hebrew Association (YMHA) but evolved into an institution, serving people of all races and faiths, with education, social services and entertainment. Central to its mission is the Kaufmann Concert Hall, which opened there in 1927 to host classical and other acoustic music genres, as well as world-renowned lectures and performances. Notably, Dylan Thomas did his last reading of Under Milk Wood there two weeks before his death in 1953.
The L-ISA Controller screen, positioned above the hall's Yamaha Rivage PM10 house mixing console
Today, the 92Y has become an indispensable part of the New York City landscape. The honored stage of the Kaufmann Concert Hall hosts regular panel discussions with leaders in all sorts of fields: former heads of state, government leaders, supreme court justices, members of the news media, movie stars, and celebrity chefs-talks designed to enlighten and inform the citizens of NYC in a topical and interactive forum. Combined with a rotating program of musical theater, cinema experiences, rock and acoustic acts, and special events, the 92Y has grown into a cultural beacon on the Upper East Side.
But this venerable space desperately needed an upgrade to its nearly 20-year-old audio system, which often worked against the naturally reverberant space and intimate programming of the hall. The main challenge for this concert hall is that the interior is largely made of wood, and it's very reverberant, explains Kaufmann Concert Hall Technical Director Sean Fogarty. It was built in the 1920s and meant for classical music, so when we did amplified music, it could easily overwhelm the space.
Enter L-Acoustics' L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal technology, which was selected to solve these issues and bring the audio of the 905-seat Kaufmann Concert Hall into the 21st century. The technology has since reinvigorated the venue, bringing spacious, natural sound that is localized to the presenters onstage, while also blending into the notable architecture.
To match the historic venue, the L-ISA installation is in itself historic, marking the first US installation of L-ISA in a performing arts center. A true collaborative effort, the system was sold through local rental and integration mainstay See Factor, and installed by the Kaufmann Concert Hall's IATSE Local One technical staff, with guidance from See Factor's Alex Jones, L-Acoustics and Hudson Scenic Design.
As part of a broader update of the venue's sound, which included the installation of a new digital FOH console and recording and broadcast infrastructure also supplied by See Factor, Fogarty and his team, including house sound engineer Anthony Lombard, reviewed all of the needs and challenges to design a system that would allow maximum flexibility and ease of use to handle the variety of events in the hall, while ensuring clear, intelligible, and exciting sound. The large network of systems had one overriding directive: integrating seamlessly and unobtrusively into the historic architecture of the venue.
Another view of 92Y's 905-seat Kaufmann Concert Hall
The answer was L-ISA. A demo of the system, at See Factor's Queens, New York facility across the East River from 92Y, provided ample evidence of how L-ISA could address all of those contingencies. We had gone to the venue for a site survey, and to speak with Sean and Anthony about what their needs were for a sound system, says L-Acoustics Application Engineer Jesse Stevens. The more we discussed the acoustic properties of the space, the design directives, and the varied programming, it became clear that L-ISA was the key to solving this puzzle. So we all hopped a cab to the L-ISA studio space at See Factor so that the Kaufmann team could hear and mix in L-ISA in real time.
Stevens designed a system comprising five arrays of Kiva II-with six enclosures per hang-across the width of the stage, and four SB15m subwoofers. This frontal system would solve a key issue in reinforcement: localization. The ability to localize the reinforced sound to the source onstage became a key factor to improve intelligibility, creating a cohesive blend of live and reinforced sound.
For the immersive aspect of the system, a total of 20 X8 loudspeakers-four X8 coaxial loudspeakers per side and four in the rear for balcony and orchestra-allow the Kaufmann staff to use the entire venue to place sounds for cinema, or enhance the space using the L-ISA integrated Room Engine. Furthermore, 5XT under-balcony fills, six X4i ultra-compact coaxial frontfills on the lip of the stage, and two Syva colinear loudspeakers as proscenium nearfills complete the system, which is powered by 11 LA4X amplified controllers, fed via AVB from the FOH infrastructure. Finally, there are two L-ISA Processors (main and backup) located at FOH, and managed by the L-ISA Controller software, running on a Mac Mini.
Audio into the L-ISA system first starts at the console, a Yamaha Rivage PM10, which sends each audio channel post-fader and post-processing into the L-ISA Processors via a MADI stream. From there, the resulting objects are placed and layered in the L-ISA Controller-with the spatialized outputs sent to the corresponding loudspeakers. FOH Engineer Anthony Lombard notes, The ease of use of the L-ISA Controller is so natural. I ca
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
L-Acoustics L-ISA Brings Immersive Sound to Manhattan's Venerable 92nd Street Y posted: 24/01/2020 
