Built in 1939, the hall was home to UA's basketball teams in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as regularly hosting graduations, lectures, concerts and other large gatherings. The building is named for Autherine Lucy Foster, the first black student to be accepted and enrolled at UA.
With the opening of the neighbouring Coliseum, the building eventually lost its standing as the campus' largest indoor structure, and in recent years had fallen into disrepair. Recently, Foster Auditorium underwent a major renovation, reopening as home to the school's Crimson Tide basketball and volleyball teams.
The Auditorium's new sound system is designed around the iBOX system from Community Professional Loudspeakers. The system comprises 18 iHP1596 and two iHP1564 two-way systems, arranged in single and dual clusters as a distributed system. As Brian Leighton of Sheffield, AL-based Sutherland Sight and Sound explains, the venue's acoustics made the iBOX an appropriate choice.
"It's a bit of a special venue," says Leighton. "The primary seating area is located about 10-foot above the playing surface, with continuous glass windows just above it, so it's a very reflective environment. The distributed design allowed us to keep the loudspeakers relatively close to the seating area and the iBOX's tight pattern control focuses the sound on the seats, and away from the glass."
(Jim Evans)
