Bose Professional Loudspeakers Chosen for the New The Salvation Army Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center

	The interior of the recently opened The Salvation Army Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center in Norfolk, Virginia. Photo: The Salvation Army.

The Salvation Army Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center recently opened in Norfolk, Virginia, bringing the number of The Salvation Army facilities put in place by the late Joan Kroc, widow of legendary McDonald's entrepreneur Ray Kroc, to more than 25. Since 2003, Joan Kroc's estate has supervised the establishment of these centers of opportunity, education, recreation, and inspiration throughout the United States, using a 1.5-billion-dollar trust dedicated to that purpose. Each Center in cities including Atlanta, Louisville, Boston, Charlotte, and San Francisco, is operated by The Salvation Army and offers activities ranging from sports and education to fitness and worship. The new location in Norfolk takes this community gem one step further: it is completely fitted with sound system components from Bose Professional.

In Norfolk, the 92,000-sq.-ft. structure includes a 370-seat chapel/theater and multiple classrooms, as well as event rooms that are available for rent by local individuals and businesses. A large gymnasium and fitness area offer various health and wellness programs to the community. The Kroc Center also features an aquatics area that includes a multiple-story water slide, lazy river, zero-entry pool area, and lap lanes. The majority of these areas feature Bose loudspeakers and PowerMatch amplifiers.

Designed and installed by Bilbro Systems, a leading Atlanta-area AV integrator, each system fits the exact needs of their distinct space. Bose FreeSpace DS 16F flush-mount and DS16SE surface mount loudspeakers are installed throughout the facility in areas such as lobbies, dressing rooms, and around the pool, offering full-range background music and highly intelligible speech for paging. Bose Panaray MB4 Bass and FreeSpace DS100SE Loudspeakers are installed in the fitness, spin, and dance areas offering full range sound for a workout. In the Fellowship Hall, the Bose Panaray MA12EX Articulated Array provides wide 160-degree horizontal coverage and outstanding vocal intelligibility. Bose FreeSpace DS40F pendant speakers give The Kroc Center's classrooms highly focused sound, allowing for excellent concentration. A Bose RoomMatch loudspeaker system, made up of one RMS218 sub, one RM9020 and two RM12020 modules, offers clear, musical sound for the chapel. The gymnasium features two additional RoomMatch arrays, each made up of an RM7020 and an RM9040 loudspeaker. The presence of both arrays in the gym allows for a unique benefit: the gym can now be split into two distinct spaces with the use of a room divider, each with its own sound system. A combination of the Bose ControlSpace ESP-00 II Processor, an extensive Crestron control system, and a Dante networking system allows audio sources from an event in one room to be routed to anywhere else in the Center for overflow crowds.

That networking capability extends to the Bose PowerMatch PM8500N networked amplifiers. These highly flexible amplifiers not only can be controlled on the network, but also greatly contribute to helping control costs for this non-profit enterprise. "We had another brand of amplifiers slated to be used here," recalls Blake Bilbro, president of Bilbro Systems. "But when we factored that the PowerMatch amplifier has eight discrete channels of power, and has built-in Dante networking capability, we realized that they would be far more cost-effective, because we would have had to buy many more units of the other originally specified amplifiers, by a factor of at least four to one. That resulted in a substantial savings. And the PowerMatch amplifier was very easy to integrate with the Crestron system. This helped us to configure the entire sound system in such a way as to be very simple and easy for anyone at the Center to operate."

Sean Sauve, IT/AV coordinator for The Kroc Center, stated, "Bilbro is a great integrator and really listens to his customers. The Bose system put together and implemented by Bilbro is the right solution for our needs. Every element is what it needs to be. The sound quality is excellent -- notably the RoomMatch array in the chapel; it really fills up that room."

At the end of the day, noted Bilbro, it's all about the quality of the sound, and that, he says in a word, is, "Magnificent. No matter where you are in the building, whether it's background music or speech or a live performance, Bose components give us what we need."