I have been asked to quote on a Sound masking system. I have done these before in smaller offices, ie. 10,000 square feet, but this is 40,000 square feet. I have always done the traditional systems with up or side firing speakers above the ceiling. To make matters more complicated, the roof is peaked, with fire walls which partition the space above the ceilings. 3' of space at the walls, 26' in the center. There is also an 5000 square foot area that has 6" of Fiberglass insulation on top of the tiles. I ran a configuration program (Atlas) which came up with 150 traditional, up firing 8" 70v speakers. They have also mentioned they may want to use the system for paging (Not reccomended, I know)
So I have several questions:
Has anyone tried using fewer speakers at a higher SPL in a system this large? If so, what speakers did you use, and were there any ill effects?
Has anyone ever tried sound masking over a paging system? And related, what about using regular ceiling speakers, (particularly in the area with fiberglass on top of the tiles.)
Has anyone used the Voice Arrest system? If so what are your thoughts?
Any help is appreciated.