Karma-AV partners Foundry RP22 showcase project

Premium AV distributor Karma-AV has announced its involvement in Foundry, a new cinema design showcase, created as a model execution of CEDIA’s RP22 Immersive Audio Design Recommended Practice guidelines.

Conceived during the four-year creation of RP22, Foundry is the brainchild of Ben Goff of Cinema Lusso, Christiaan Beukes, owner of Cape Town based integrator Sphere Custom and Cinema Lusso Creative Director (now resident in the UK), and Officina Acustica Partner and CEDIA/CTA RP22 Chair Peter Aylett.

In the process of defining the RP22 guidelines, which focus purely on objective performance, they recognised the importance of providing a demonstration facility that transcended the usual limitations of brand or budget.

Built by Cinema Lusso, in partnership with Karma AV and Officina Acustica, Foundry comprises two rooms: an uncompromising cinema and a luxury media room space.

“Foundry is not your average showroom. Not a space where you'll see brand logos, lines of product or stacks of boxes,” says Beukes. “Foundry is a space that's been thoughtfully designed and ergonomically engineered with the aim of pushing the boundaries of performance and innovative aesthetics together in such an unobtrusive manner that it doesn't seem designed at all…it’s as much an industry wide R&D facility as it is our showroom, office, design studio, training/meeting space and CPD outreach venue.”

Perlisten Audio and Ascendo Immersive Audio were selected from Karma’s line-up as having the performance and data quality necessary to complete ‘textbook’ RP22-guided installations.

“Both rooms deliver the highest performance audio and video reproduction possible within their physical constraints using a free choice of products guided exclusively by our technical requirements,” explains Goff. “Speaker specification for each room led us in totally different directions to products from different continents but sharing a dedication to creating exceptional solutions to specific engineering challenges. Little coincidence that Perlisten Audio and Ascendo Immersive Audio also shared a partner in the UK, having chosen Karma AV as their distributor.”

Commenting on the partnership, Karma-AV’s Ian Severs said “we’re delighted to have been invited by Foundry to supply speakers from our fastest growing high-end lines, and we recognise the importance of solid engineering and the transparency of performance data to this choice. Perlisten and Ascendo allow us to offer integrators a great range of technically advanced products for the best product fit when designing truly immersive experiences in a wide variety of project applications.”