In 1999, the city of Detroit and the Detroit Lions franchise of the National Football League announced the construction of Ford Field, a new stadium in downtown Detroit. Three years later the Detroit Lions hosted the Green Bay Packers in the inauguration of the new $500 million, 65,000-seat domed facility.

Acoustic and sound consulting firm Wrightson, Johnson, Haddon & Williams (WJHW) of Dallas supplied the sound system design for the facility, with installation by Sound Media of Whitmore Lake, Michigan.

The system includes six JBL Precision Directivity (PD) Series loudspeaker arrays hung from the ceiling, positioned above each corner of the field and above midfield on either side. Over 1,000 speakers were used throughout the facility, including 158 PD models in the main clusters.

Thirty JBL Custom Shop FFT8 three-way speakers, with four 12-in low frequency drivers, were used to provide full range sound for the endzone seats. FFT9 three-way speakers have been installed for delay and extra coverage in the upper seats. Compact JBL Control25-AV speakers are in several areas including concourses and at the inside and outdoor ticket booths.”

"Most football stadiums have a distributed system, or a single end-fired cluster system situated above the endzone. A distributed system approach, where 30 to 50 positions are outfitted with speakers to cover a small portion of the stadium, was not adopted here,” said Brad Ricks, design engineer for JBL. “This building, which is asymmetrical, did not offer consistent mounting points throughout or have steel supports at all of the points necessary to accommodate a distributed system.

“There was however, enough structural steel on the ceiling to allow the use of only six large clusters of speakers above the field,” Ricks continued. “Ford Field is unique, in that this is actually a very large arena-style cluster - it's like a big arena, but because the building is so large, these are some of the largest clusters in the country.”

The clusters, designed to deliver 105 dB at the seats, needed to be very large to fill the entire stadium. With coaxial designs and very lightweight/high-powered components, the PD Series arrays were able to meet the requirements in a system that is considerably lighter and smaller than other systems available.

In addition the PD125's offer ability to steer the low frequency energy to specific areas of the stadium, providing coherent, controllable low end. Also, the PD Series has an effective throw of 200 to 230 feet due to the dual high-frequency drivers in the PD700 Series speakers, which makes the ceiling mounted system viable.

Acoustic treatment was also included in the WJHW design. White baffling material is hung from the ceiling to help reduce echoes and acoustic distortion. The suites have a minimum of glass and have no doors to reflect the sound.

"It was a difficult sell at first," reported WJHW Principal Jack Wrightson. "Originally the developers had decided to eliminate virtually all acoustical treatment from the design."

After literally three years of lobbying for the treatment, it was added to the project in the winter of 2001, nearly four years after the start of the project. "With the addition of the recommended sound absorption, the stadium went from having potentially the worst acoustical quality of any domed stadium around to one of the best," according to Wrightson. "The combination of the acoustical treatment, and the excellently controlled directivity of the PD boxes allow Ford Field to have far better speech intelligibility in comparison with other 'hard top' domed stadiums. We've had the PD series product in four projects now with good results. The stuff just works."

One of the larger PD arrays.

"Hanging the PD clusters and the accompanying cabling was the biggest challenge - the cabling was 170 feet in the air. Our first intention was to install the speakers to the roof before it was lifted, but we opted not to do this, as we did not want to leave the speakers outside all winter," stated Steve Robinson, President of Sound Media. "Once the roof was installed, we brought in cranes to lift the speakers. The cranes were also used to help pull the cabling." Each cable was almost 2" in diameter and each cluster used three cables. The amplifier racks were also lifted up to the catwalk by the cranes, as each rack weighs about 1000 pounds.

The sound system was designed and modeled using EASE 3.0. On site, the main cluster is processed by a BSS FDS-366 Omnidrive Compact Plus, controlled by Soundbench software. The back-of-house system includes 19 different zones, all controlled via BSS Soundweb. All speakers are powered by QSC amplifiers, which are monitored using QSControl software.

In addition to the sound system, the stadiums video system is massive and extensive. Two 97 x 27 feet Daktronics LED digital scoreboards offer scores, videos, and advertising in each end zone. Hundreds of TV monitors also provide a closer look at the action in the suites, extensive press area on the seventh level and primary concourses.