The purpose-built 300-seat concert hall has recently undergone a major upgrade to its audio systems in partnership with Autograph Sales & Installations. Led by the company's new business engineer Phil Nicolaou, the project centred on the specification and installation of a new front-of-house loudspeaker system and included an upgrade to the existing mixing console, new equipment racks and mains power management systems.
Phil takes up the story: "The centre is a modern performance space that hosts a diverse range of music, from acoustic and orchestral works through to jazz, world music, opera and choral works, so it's a good test for an installed sound system. Having assessed the space, the available budget and the intended use of the kit we realised that EM's new Halo-C was just about perfect in every respect.
"Our design uses a compact left-right flown design where each side comprises five EM Acoustics Halo-C line-source elements and one Halo-C Sub. This arrangement provides ample full-frequency coverage for the entire auditorium without needing any delays or side-fills - in fact the only supplementary audience loudspeakers are five EMS-61s mounted along the front edge of the stage as near-field fills."
The entire system - including six EM Acoustics M10 monitors which are used for on-stage monitoring - runs off just eight power amplifiers. Autograph specified Lab.gruppen IPD-Series amplifiers for their extraordinary combination of audio quality, reliability, reasonable pricing and a feature set that offers more than similarly priced products.
At the heart of the IPD platform is a latest-generation DSP engine equipped with up to a total of 40 real-time, multi-slope parametric EQs along with adjustable gain, input and output delay, and both high- and low-pass filters adjustable to any frequency.
The DSP also provides extensive protection for a loudspeaker system, in the form of the innovative software-controlled Speaker Protect Limiter, configured with ease from within IntelliDrive Controller software. Harnessing all of this power is child's play thanks to the IPD LoadLibrary, a collection of Lab.gruppen released presets - for quick configuration and optimization of a wide range of loudspeaker systems, both generic and popular brand models.
Phil continues, "The IPDs make this kind of installation so much easier, more versatile and cost-effective. No outboard controllers are needed because all the processing for the loudspeakers is done within the amplifiers, and because they also provide Ethernet-based networking we can tune and control the whole system remotely if necessary.
"The centre already owned an Allen & Heath GLD-80 digital mixing console, and to expand the system and deliver a whole new level of control we specified and supplied a new multi-media card for the console, plus two iDR Out digital expanders / audio breakout modules. Along with an iPad and a wi-fi access point, which we also supplied, this allows the desk and PA to be controlled via an app on the iPad from anywhere in the room, so the house engineer can move freely around the auditorium and tune the system to suit the circumstances and type of performance."
Daniel Thomason, Centre Technician said, "We asked Autograph to tender for this project and we were immediately impressed with their attention to detail and thorough and clear proposals. From design to completion we were kept well informed and had all our requirements met. As a result the finished product has exceeded our expectatio
