"The reason for the expansion," explained DM Audio’s Lars Wern,"is that when the arena has hosted touring artists their sound engineers have often received complaints from the audience seated in the highest seats. Most tours do not bring enough equipment, or simply could not tilt the speakers upwards enough (the catwalk is situated 36 metres above the floor). To help the visiting sound engineers, it was decided to install a delay speaker system that could be added to the main system, and at the same time beef up the installed centre cluster in the arena.
This called for a more sophisticated solution and resulted in a system that included six clusters - three on each side of the arena. Each cluster will support three Martin Audio Wavefront W8C speakers, powered by QSC Powerlight 236 and Powerlight 218 amplifiers. A Rane RPM 26v digital matrix mixer handles the equalization, delay settings and dynamics. To be able to switch on and off individual speakers in each of the cluster a Rane Via 10 Ethernet bridge is used to communicate with relays in the amp racks.
The whole installation is managed by a QSControl II computer control system, and the control PC can either remain in the control room or be connected at the actual bleacher covered by the speakers. In this way individual adjustments may be made to tailor the sound from the delay speakers to the main clusters. The system has now been in use for a variety of events and artists. The high seats have gained in value and the audience is now participating in the events much more enthusiastically.
(Ruth Rossington)