Can one stereo pair really cover a 25x20ft lobby?

For soft, ambient background coverage in a common area — not a critical listening position — yes. Cane's 92dB sensitivity and wide horizontal dispersion give it real reach, and a lobby's brief is even, unobtrusive coverage rather than a precise stereo image at one seat.

Why mount the speakers beside the mantel?

Symmetrical placement either side of the fireplace mantel keeps the room's classic architectural focal point intact while giving the pair balanced, centred coverage of the seating area in front of it.

Does a common area need the same amplifier as a private room?

The same XSCACE Air Amp and Acacia 10 Powered subwoofer used in private living rooms cover this lobby too — the product combination doesn't change for a commercial common area, only the placement and coverage expectations do.

What's the goal of audio in a formal lobby, versus a living room?

A lobby's goal is soft, immersive audio that complements conversation and enhances the room's elegance — background presence, not a focal point — versus a living room system, which is often expected to carry cinematic entertainment at full attention.

Is this the largest room XSCACE has fitted with a single 2.1 system?

Among the published XSCACE case studies, this 25x20ft lobby and the 20x35ft lounge are the largest single-zone rooms using one stereo system; larger or multi-zone spaces are typically split into zones, as covered in the audio BOQ guide.

Does a lobby system running all day need a different specification?

Yes. A domestic system plays for a few hours; a lobby runs continuously through opening hours, and sustained output is a thermal question. Specify a speaker with headroom above the level you actually need — Cane is rated to 110dB maximum SPL and a lobby rarely runs above the seventies — so the system is never working near its limit for hours at a time.

Case Study: Hotel Lobby Sound System, 25x20ft Common Area

A hotel lobby is a public room with a private-room brief: soft, immersive audio that supports conversation and formal hosting without ever calling attention to itself, in a space more than twice the size of a typical living room. At 25×20ft, this lobby's classic marble fireplace and symmetrical seating set the terms for where the sound could go.

The System

A pair of XSCACE Cane speakers, wall-mounted symmetrically beside the mantel
One XSCACE Acacia 10 Powered subwoofer
One XSCACE Air Amp, 2.1 stereo

Why Sensitivity, Not Just Power, Covers a Room This Size

XSCACE Cane slim array speaker in an architectural interior installation

Covering 500 square feet with a single stereo pair sounds like a job for raw power, but Cane's 92dB sensitivity is the more relevant number: it reaches usable output at relatively low input levels, and its horizontal dispersion spreads that output across a wide seating area rather than beaming it at one point. For a lobby's brief — soft, ambient, complementing conversation rather than commanding it — that reach matters more than headroom for concert-level peaks.

Case Study at a Glance

XSCACE Acacia 10 powered subwoofer paired with Cane slim array speakers

Room: Hotel lobby / common area, 25×20ft
Use case: Formal hosting and ambient sound
System: 2× XSCACE Cane, Acacia 10 Powered, Air Amp
Placement: Wall-mounted symmetrically beside the mantel for balanced coverage
Goal: Soft, immersive audio complementing conversation with invisible technology integration

Read the home bar case study for the same system in a much smaller room, or see how to build an audio BOQ for multi-zone commercial projects.

How this room was planned, controlled and calibrated

Every XSCACE installation follows the same three stages: planned in the simulator, controlled from the app that matches the hardware, and calibrated with measurement. A commercial room is judged on consistency — the table by the window should hear what the table by the bar hears.

Planned

XSCACE Floorplan Sound Simulation takes a plan from trace to bill of quantities in the browser. For a room like this the outputs that matter are:

Coverage checked table by table, so no seat is the bad seat

Room modes located before the fit-out covers the structure

A bill of quantities the operator can price against

XSCACE Floorplan Sound Simulation showing room modes on a traced room plan

Trace, place, predict — before anything is ordered

Controlled

Day-to-day control is XSCACE Controller on iOS and Android. It handles volume, EQ and grouping, and the streaming amplifiers also appear natively as AirPlay 2 and Spotify Connect targets, so the app is for control rather than for getting audio into the room.

Calibrated

The calibration toolkit inside XSCACE Studio measures what the room actually does — eleven instruments covering SPL, delay, levels, polarity, frequency response, THD, sub alignment, transfer function, RT60, RTA and export, free on macOS. Here the ones that earn their place are:

RTA noise rating, NC-15 to NC-65, setting the level the system must clear once the room is full

SPL measured at each zone against the design target

RT60 to ISO 3382, showing whether hard surfaces need treating as well as covering

XSCACE Studio calibration toolkit — SPL Meter

Cane runs down to 150Hz against Acacia 10 Powered's 35Hz, and the two records recommend different crossover points (200Hz and 300Hz). Which suits the room is a measurement, not a preference.