The new Dollar Loan Center in Henderson, NV, offering more than 5,500 seats for spectators of a variety of sporting events as well as being the home of the Henderson Silver Knights of the American Hockey League and the Vegas Knight Hawks of the Indoor Football League, is equipped with a sound reinforcement system headed by a DiGiCo S31 console specified by AV systems designer and consultancy Anthony James Partners and installed and by C.V. Lloyde Audiovisual.
“I’d like to say it’s just cost, but the fact is that DiGiCo consoles deliver for both the budget and sonic quality,” says Jack Covert, director, audio and AV design engineering at Anthony James Partners, headquartered in Richmond, VA. “In my opinion, DiGiCo consoles sound better than any other console at the same price.”
Covert cites the S31’s ease of use, operational flexibility, and sound quality. “DiGiCo is doing things that other consoles are not, so they’re at the cutting edge,” he adds. “At the same time, in a venue like this, the console is going to be used by a wide range of mix engineers for sports and other applications, and ease of use and familiar operation are important on those counts, too. And while we’re using Dante to connect here, the S31 can interface with other systems in any number of ways. It’s not just flexible for users, it’s flexible for consultants and integrators, too.”
Stephen Morris, president and CEO of Champaign-Urbana, IL-based C.V. Lloyde, also says that sonic quality was important in the choice of console. “The owners of the Henderson Silver Knights also own the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights, and they wanted consistency of things like operator training, system routing, and ease and intuitiveness of use between both this venue and the T-Mobile Arena,” where the Vegas Golden Knights play, even though there are different console brands in each venue, he explains. “We knew that the DiGiCo was going to sound great, but it had to meet all of those other criteria, too, which it does incredibly well. The S31 was a perfect fit for all of that.”
Matt Langley, C.V. Lloyde Audiovisual’s technician on site for the installation, explains, “We can have the stage box in the rack next to the patch panels, and because it’s such a slim design, we were able to position it backwards so that the I/O are actually in the back of the console,” he says. “That gave us a very clean look to the install, which really does make a difference for the client’s confidence in the installation. We wouldn’t have been able to do that with a typical bulky stage box.”
Morris adds that the S31’s DSP is also being used for the back-of-house audio’s management. “The heavy lifting for all that routing is all done in the DSP, with a separate control screen on the console for that. I don’t think any other console could have hit all of those marks as well as the S31.”
