Stoffo, whose Professional Wireless Systems (PWS), a Masque Sound company, is based in Orlando, Florida, supplied the RF microphones, receivers and antennas, while sound production company ATK AudioTek supplied the 3000 Series personal monitor systems. Every handheld comprised a Sennheiser/Neumann hybrid RF mic, which combines a Sennheiser 5000 Series wireless transmitter with Neumann's KK105 capsule.
"But the cool thing this year," says Stoffo, "was that there was a surround sound mic with five outputs - left, right, surround left, surround right, and top - and those were on Sennheiser SK50 transmitters, zapping back to me. The guy ran around the field during pregame, the anthem and halftime, and picked up surround crowd noise, and it went out on the broadcast."
"Relying on wireless transmission for the surround mic was groundbreaking," says Stoffo. "We were only the second people to do this. The only other time that's been done on an RF link was one time in Europe. Everybody loved it and it was crystal clear."
During the pre-game entertainment, there were 24 mics in use and at least 10 Sennheiser personal monitors. For Alicia Keys' tribute to Ray Charles she used an RF link to Stoffo and back to her on Sennheiser mic and ears. "She was rock solid," says Stoffo. All the entertainment mics went into PWS combiners on the company's proprietary helical antennas. "We used Sennheiser tuned splitters fed from the helicals," he notes. "We even used Sennheiser parts for a comms splitter."
There were over 1,000 channels of RF on the field, according to Stoffo, including all the various production and game communications systems, plus television requirements. "This year, there were so many comms that I had to have the coach comms kill their stuff when we were up, and I would kill my stuff when the game was on so the coach comms and ref mics worked. We had to literally take turns."
But it was the lengthy introduction by Michael Douglas that made Stoffo most nervous. He comments: "He was out there for the longest amount of time holding an RF mic that was critical to the show with no wired backup. He was probably 150ft away from my position at the receivers, and there was a sea of reporters between us." As an aside, he adds: "My dad handed him that mic. Out of all the performers I figured that was the only guy he'd recognize, so I gave him the mic to give to Michael Douglas!"
With the Grammy Award telecast setup days away, Stoffo and his PWS crew had some extra work to do after the Super Bowl before shipping the Sennheiser in-ear systems back to ATK in Los Angeles. "That stuff shipped straight back to the Grammys, so I had to sit in the compound after we struck and my guys tweaked all of the frequencies to new bands to work at the show."
(Lee Baldock)
