Ric Wallace, Technical Director for the Tate Student Center, chose to fly arrays of 19x NEXO GEO T line array speakers per side to support the 71-piece orchestra, with accompanying vocalists. CAMCO amps and a rack of NXamp 4×4 amplifiers powered the system, which was mixed front-of-house on a Yamaha PM5D.
“The existing stadium PA system has a very long delay time when you stand at mid-field,” states Wallace. “The NEXO system enabled me to achieve the sound pressure I needed in the upper seating levels.” Wallace said that if he had used an alternative brand of line source, he would have had to build a scaffold sound tower over 70 feet tall, at a huge expense. Because of the very low per-cabinet weight of the GEO T, he was able to build a 50-foot tall truss tower at a greatly reduced cost.
“The NEXO system keeps making us wonder how we ever lived without it all these years,” says Wallace. “Every time we deploy it, we are amazed at the precision of focus and uniform response these cabinets provide. The speaker simply does not excite the walls and ceilings in reverberant rooms, and RT60 is massively reduced. Slapback phenomena from distant walls is a thing of the past because the laser inclinometer in the bumper paired with GEOSoft2 allow you to precisely focus the wavefront on the audience instead of the walls. Getting the math right with this system means that many common acoustic problems disappear.
“The vocal detail and stereo image are truly stunning with the GEO T. I can get a thick, heavy mix working with plenty of guitar in the mix, and when I push that lead vocal fader on the console up, the voice literally jumps out of the PA system; just pops right out on top of the mix like a gem!”
Wallace typically walks the room he’s working in to get a better feel for the mix.’ “With the GEO T, it sounds almost exactly the same everywhere in the sound field with very nearly the same SPL in the near field as 100 feet away. Everyone in the audience needs to experience a great sounding performance, and it’s pretty nice to be able to deliver a really good performance on a consistent basis no mater what the room sounds like. Let’s face it some rooms are really hard to mix sound in because of the horrible acoustics and long RT60 times. The NEXO system eliminates those problems when deployed correctly.”
For more information:YAMAHA COMMERICAL AUDIO SYSTEMS
