"Our relationship with Turbosound goes back more than 20 years," notes founder and president Mike Southard. "When it was time to expand into a line array system, it was easy to see the benefits of the Flex Array. It's a great-sounding PA, very loud for its footprint, with easy and straightforward rigging - a perfect complement to our existing inventory."
That system was put to the test at a recent 11,000 seat show featuring Snoop Dogg at the Coliseum of West Virginia University. Advance work and on site operations for this event were handled by Southard Audio partner Jason Misterka. "This was our first arena event for the school, and it was the largest concert audience the school had seen at this venue," recounts Misterka. "As you can well imagine, an arena event with a national hip-hop act requires a substantial amount of horsepower. We ran the prediction software and were pretty amazed at the numbers, and during the show we had all the level we needed - quite a feat for a mid-sized line array."
The main FOH PA for the show was two speaker arrays comprised of 13 Flex Array boxes each. Five TFA-600H boxes topped each array to handle the long throw duties, complemented by the wider dispersion of eight TFA-600HW speakers beneath. Subwoofers were Turbosound TSW-721, a single-driver, 21-inch horn-loaded design. A total of 24 subs were set up as a delay arc, with six stacks of four subs spread across the front of the stage.
"The delay arc sub array is a key element. You lose a little of the overall energy, which is why we used so many enclosures," Southard statess. "But it gives you a much more even distribution of bass information throughout the venue and virtually eliminates the 'power alley'. This way audience members on the extreme edges of coverage still hear a balanced, musical sound."
Turbosound also played a vital role on stage, with a mix of ground-stacked Aspect TA-880 loudspeakers providing side-fills, augmented by eight more TSW-721s for bass.
(Jim Evans)
