When Northern Light won a competitive bid to provide an advanced technical infrastructure for the new £35 million Aylesbury Waterside Theater, the company set out to design a fully-integrated system that was versatile, reconfigurable and able to carry out remote system diagnostics over a LAN via the house PC.
Evenly dispersed sound was key since Aylesbury has three audience tiers (including fixed-seating balcony and upper balcony levels) and optional ground floor seating wagons to enable the 1200-seat auditorium to convert into a larger 1800-capacity standing space.
Thus Northern Light project manager Simon Cooper decided to base his sound reinforcement solution around Martin Audio’s purpose-designed Wavefront theater systems.
For the primary system, he chose 14 purpose designed WT3 arrayable 3-way compact theatre enclosures.
These are designed in three vertical pairs on either side of the proscenium arch, focused onto each balcony, with a single enclosure at the base.
The proscenium system is complemented by a centre cluster of seven W3P arrayable compact enclosures to provide true L/C/R imaging, while two WS18X subs, either side of the stage, add LF extension.
Providing stage fills are Martin Audio WT15s, while high up the building four WT2s and a pair of S18(F) subs are mounted on the second lighting bridge to form the delay system for the second balcony.
Finally, under-balcony support is provided by Martin Audio’s C6.8T ceiling speakers, six on each level.
Martin Audio amplifiers drive the main PA system, which is situated in a rack room close to the proscenium arch in order to reduce cable runs. These consist of 13 x MA5.2K, 2 x MA12K and 1 x MA1.3s, while the Martin Audio ceiling speakers reside on a separate circuit.
Simon Cooper commented on the design, stating that he had previous experience of seeing WT3’s designed in a similar configuration — and his concept received the full support of Martin Audio’s Peter Child, who assisted with the design.
