12 Facts About LARES

LARES is an electronic sound enhancement system that uses microprocessors to control multiple loudspeakers and microphones placed around a performance space for the purpose of providing active acoustic treatment.

Since then, hundreds of LARES systems have been used in concert halls, opera houses performance venues, and houses of worship from outdoor music festivals to permanent indoor symphony halls.

Early versions of LARES were incorporated into prefabricated practice room products offered by Wenger Corporation, and related sound-shaping algorithms, based on the LARES research, have been implemented by Lexicon for home and professional listening spaces.

The name LARES is an acronym of Lexicon Acoustic Reinforcement and Enhancement System.

Two LARES mainframes were used, one for the 60 underbalcony speakers and one for the 56 loudspeakers in the main ceiling.

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In 1993, LARES was nominated for but did not win a TEC Award in the category of "Signal Processing Technology".

In 1995, LARES Associates was established in Belmont, Massachusetts to differentiate the LARES product from the rest of Lexicon's product line.

Since that time, hundreds of LARES systems have been installed throughout the world in performing arts centers, concert halls, opera houses, houses of worship, arenas, recording studios, conference rooms, sound stages, and outdoor concert venues.

At the Vienna Festival in May, 1995, a LARES system was used outdoors to augment the Vienna Philharmonic's performance of Beethoven's Symphony No 9 conducted by Zubin Mehta.

In 1999, LARES was used in a similar fashion in an outdoor production of Turandot at the Forbidden City performed in China at the Imperial Shrine just outside the Forbidden City; staged by Oscar-nominated film director Zhang Yimou and again conducted by Zubin Mehta.

Formerly characterized as having "sponge-like acoustics", the Sunset Center's LARES-enhanced acoustics made coughs and rustlings from the audience be heard too loudly on stage, and reverberation in the audience area was likened to "the Grand Canyon" by one observer.

LARES loudspeakers are positioned adjacent to the normal distributed sound system loudspeakers, to bring appropriately delayed reinforcement sound as well as synthesized ambience to each listener.