The Pete Maravich Assembly Center (PMAC) in Baton Rouge, which serves as the 13,500-seat home of Louisiana State University Tigers basketball, has a new sound reinforcement system headed incorporating Ashly Audio KLR-5000 amplifiers and processing driving Sound Bridge loudspeakers.
“It was time to get some excitement into the building,” states Tim Landry, principal of audio integrator Tim Landry Sound Construction (Mandeville, LA), “and the sound system was the obvious fix. Fortunately, a generous and well-to-do LSU alum donated the money to do it.”
Landry rented several loudspeaker systems anonymously and evaluated their performance in the PMAC, with Sound Bridge emerging as the winner.
Landry drew up the original plans with a different amplifier manufacturer in mind, “but then I spoke to Ashly,” he recalls. “I have a lot of respect for Ashly’s gear and the people behind it because in all the years I’ve been installing Ashly amps and processors, the only units that ever failed went underwater during (Hurricane) Katrina. Even still, two of those units came back to life and are working to this day.
“Anyway, Ashly said the new KLR-5000s amplifiers would be coming on line, and they seemed perfect for the job.” Landry ordered 35 of the new amplifiers – 34 for the system and 1 for backup. “On system critical installations, I always include a backup unit,” he said. “But when Ashly is involved, I have yet to need it.”
For processing, Landry turned to the Ashly ne24.24M. Two units provide all of the processing for the PMAC. “There are two modes,” he explains. “One for the student operators that contains some limiting to prevent them from blowing anyone’s eardrums out and a second, more liberal setting. We called it ‘Terrance Turbo Mode’ in honor of the system’s primary operator. Terrance has a key that effectively removes that limiting and gives him full access to the full 165,000 watts of power surging through the KLR-5000s. Terrance is very pleased.”
In addition, the ne24.24Ms replace the old physical relays that caused so many problems. Now the operators can select which clusters play via the software.
The logistics of the installation were particularly demanding because LSU books the PMAC with an event almost every day. “We definitely had to work around their schedule and not the other way around,” says Landry. “I admit I was a bit nervous about receiving serial numbers 1 through 35 on the KLR-5000s, but, as I said, I’ve come to trust the folks at Ashly. They really came through and made sure we had the units when we needed them – it would have been a bloodbath if they hadn’t. And the amps worked flawlessly from day one and continue to do so.”
