L-Acoustics Sound Systems Power Immersive Timewalk Exhibition

Journey Through 12,000 Years of History at Immerse LDN

Timewalk brings guests into five dedicated projection-mapped rooms where the sound remains completely invisible to the eye. Produced in collaboration with DEM Museums, the exhibition moves audiences from the ritual gathering grounds of Göbeklitepe to the hanging gardens of Babylon, the temples of ancient Egypt, the observatories of the Maya, and the Moai of Rapa Nui. L-Acoustics solutions were specified following a rigorous selection process.

Rather than simply identifying a hardware package, the initial brief focused entirely on outcomes. Organizers required that visitors remain completely unaware of the physical equipment. Sound needed to connect directly to an image, whether a bird flying overhead, water moving beneath the floor, or a voice traveling across the room, while delivering a consistent experience for everyone inside the space.

Timewalk wanted an environment so cohesive that visitors wouldn’t be aware there were loudspeakers in the room. Buğra Kezan, project engineering manager at Asimetrik

Audio carried the exact same emotional weight as the visuals throughout the exhibition. The system also needed to run unattended at identical quality levels every single day.

Overcoming Architectural and Power Constraints

Each of the five rooms runs continuous projection, creating a constant broadband noise floor via cooling systems. This dynamic range required careful mixing to keep quiet passages clear above the background bed while limiting loud passages to preserve intimacy. All five rooms feature independent content running simultaneously all day without audio bleed between spaces.

The building’s architecture presented strict physical limitations. Because projection surfaces sit close to the walls, engineers could not mount cabinets in front of them. Every enclosure required recessed custom-built housing inside the wall.

That is where L-Acoustics separated itself from the alternatives they evaluated, Buğra Kezan

The housings had to avoid coloring responses, restricting directivity, or compromising sound isolation between rooms. They also could not intrude upon fire escape corridors directly behind the walls, leaving a fixed, non-negotiable depth. Electrical infrastructure set another hard capacity limit alongside heavy projection loads. According to Kezan, The cabinet dimensions relative to the SPL we needed let the recessed housings stay within the depth the escape corridors allowed. And the combination of loudspeaker sensitivity and amplifier efficiency delivered the same acoustic result at a materially lower power draw.

Acoustic Layouts Across Five Discrete Zones

Göbeklitepe uses a 9.1 layout comprising three X8i, six 5XT, and two SB15m units. Meanwhile, Babylon, Ancient Egypt, and the Maya rooms employ full L-ISA 360-degree configurations with floor-level layers so sound arrives from both below and around guests. These three spaces parallel five X8i, six X6i, and eleven 5XT units across three separate lines, alongside two SB18i subwoofers apiece.

Rapa Nui serves as the most demanding chapter, featuring both a below-ear-level layer and an overhead layer. This allows L-ISA to place sound genuinely above or beneath visitors rather than just around them. It runs five X8i, two A10i Wide, 29 X6i, and three KS21i subwoofers, while three additional 5XT cover the connecting corridors.

In total, Timewalk utilizes 114 loudspeakers and 11 subwoofers powered by 15 amplified controllers, including LA7.16i, LA4X, and LA2Xi models running on Milan-AVB. Sergey Becker, L-Acoustics application engineer, collaborated with Asimetrik on final calibrations, while Pavel Aheunin provided sales management support from start to finish.

A Permanent Asset for Future Productions

The producer’s content team quickly embraced the sonic results, and the site’s audio engineer easily mastered the day-to-day workflow. Because Immerse LDN rotates its exhibits, the underlying infrastructure functions as a permanent investment.

We specified this for the room, not for the content that happens to be in it, Buğra Kezan

New productions can be authored against the existing loudspeaker layout and object rendering, requiring little more than a simple recalibration and a fresh show file. Earlier this month, L-Acoustics also earned B Corp certification from B Lab, joining a select group of roughly 70 companies in the arts and entertainment sector.