Meyer Sound Creates Celestial Aural Environments in the New Shanghai Astronomy Museum

	Photo: Arch-Exist

The gleaming new Shanghai Astronomy Museum, now the world's largest museum devoted to the celestial sciences, echoes the "music of the spheres" with its bold curvilinear exterior devoid of any straight lines or right angles. On the inside, the museum's two primary venues enhance stellar visual programs with complementary Meyer Sound immersive audio systems supplied by Shanghai Broad Future Electro Technology Company, Ltd.

Designed by Ennead Architects of New York, the 39,000 sq. m. museum encloses three main exhibition zones -- Home, Cosmos, and Odyssey -- with the free-flowing architecture encompassing three dominant architectural features: Oculus, Inverted Dome, and Sphere.

Occupying the interior of the Sphere is the 8K Dome Theater, which hosts an audience of 250 for a 20-minute all-enveloping spectacle covering 4.6 billion years of cosmic evolution. Designed using Meyer Sound's MAPP 3D system design and prediction tool, the theatre's immersive audio system comprises of 32 Meyer Sound UPJ-1P loudspeakers that encircle the 20m dome in three tiers. A cluster of four 900-LFC subwoofers delivers visceral low frequency emphasis, while three-dimensional spatial sound trajectories are created using the Spacemap feature in CueStation. Up to 64 tracks of audio program source are available from the DWTRX recording/playback module of the D-Mitri digital audio platform, the company says.

The Optical Planetarium, nestled inside the Home Zone, combines stunningly realistic recreations of constellations and planetary movements with a film about nature and the universe. Here the audio system encircles the audience with 36 UPJunior loudspeakers on four levels, again augmented by four 900-LFC subwoofers for low frequency effects. Loudspeaker optimization is provided by one GALAXY 408 and two GALAXY 816 Network Platforms.

"The Shanghai Astronomy Museum is currently the largest museum focused on the astronomical sciences in the world, and we are honored to be part of the project," says Zhu Sihai, managing director of Shanghai Broad Future Electro Technology. "The linear sound reproduction and immersive technologies offered by Meyer Sound help make the experience here unique and breathtaking. We expect to bring this heightened level of experience to more venues around the country."

Opened earlier this year in Lingang New City in the Pudong New Area district, the Shanghai Astronomy Museum is the latest addition to the larger Shanghai Science and Technology Museum. The museum has been awarded a three-star rating in China's Green Building System, the highest level attainable.