AT&T Park
This treasure, located in the industrial waterfront area known as China Basin, is celebrating its 10th anniversary as home to the San Francisco Giants with a significant upgrade to its original 200-plus QSC PowerLight amplifiers and custom JBL WRX Series weatherized loudspeakers.
This past off season, ProMedia of Hercules, CA implemented a QSC Q-Sys system that dramatically upgrades the control of the amplifiers, routing and loudspeaker voicing.
“The original system was copper, and it was 10Base-T,” sates Demetrius Palavos, ProMedia Senior Designer. “Now, because of fiber optics and the HP ProCurves networking, we are actually controlling each individual DSP node and monitoring and controlling each amplifier, truly distributing every audio source and monitoring it through the process from the point that it gets converted from analog to digital, to the point that it leaves the amplifier.”
Tweaking by the technical teams also played an essential role, according to Palavos.
“The through-put time of the Q-Sys system is significantly better, so we had to make some delay time changes, as well as how they deal with the algorithm of the parametric EQs along the various bandpaths, as well as the zones within the facility. What we found was the ways in which they processed the various algorithms within the Q-Sys system was quite significant in its transparency compared to the old DSP.”
Citi Field
Celebrating its grand opening last year, Citi Field in Flushing, Queens, New York, presents a welcoming new environment for the New York Mets, with coverage by more than 550 EAW MK and AX Series loudspeakers installed under the supervision of TSI-Global.
A key to the project proved to be a customized version of the full-range EAW AX364-210 arrayable loudspeaker modified to fire simultaneously forward, down and to the rear.
A pair of 10-inch woofers was also added to the cabinet, aimed downward to cancel low-frequency buildup in what is, essentially, an architectural bass trap. Three of these enclosures were installed at the clubhouse level, one of the most challenging spaces in a stadium of this design.
The power, processing and control approach mirrors that taken at Target Field, comprised of PIP-Lite-equipped Crown CTs amplifiers (more than 220) and BSS Audio Soundweb London processors (more than 50) as well as advanced audio networking via Harman HiQnet configuration and control protocol.
Twenty Soundweb London BLU-120, 14 BLU-160, 10 BLU-80, and eight BLU-800 devices handle control of all stadium audio. “The Soundweb London processors are incredibility easy to program, and that is essential in a large venue,” states Paul Murdick, Vice President of TSI-Global.
Citizens Bank Park
Home to the reigning National League champion Philadelphia Phillies the past few years, Citizens Bank Park features close to 600 Community Professional loudspeakers, the vast majority coming from the company’s WET (Weather Environmental Technology) and R-Series full-range installation loudspeakers that are engineered to resist extreme weather conditions.
They’re all outfitted with proprietary technologies such as three-layer protective grilles, dual-layer power coating process on grilles and yokes, grade 304 stainless steel hardware, and more.
SPL (Signal Perfection Ltd., now AVI-SPL) installed the Community loudspeakers on all levels of the grandstand in groups of two and three, depending upon the coverage requirements of each zone. Some were custom painted to blend further into their surrounding aesthetics. The park also has Community i2W8 monitors on hand for performances and presentations, when needed.
Power is delivered to the loudspeakers by QSC CX Series amplifiers operating under Q’S Control. A Soundcraft K3 console fronts the system operator position, with signal processing provided by BSS Soundweb (original green version).