State of the State
The balcony was also a concern over at the State. “The area under the balcony, which is where the engineers mix from, narrows down very low at the back,” Olson says. “George Georgallis did a tremendous job of designing and implementing the main speaker hangs to address this issue. And he complemented the mains with Xi-1082s under the balcony, which proved to be just the right combination to properly cover this area.”
In all, five Xi-1082s are used at State for under-balcony fill. The same model is also used for front fills, with four installed and two more for special situations. For mains the 24 XLC127DVX elements are flown in L/R hangs of 12 each just outside the proscenium, and eight Xsub subwoofers are stacked directly underneath, four per side.
“The Xsubs have high output, and their size was a great match for the limited space we had to place them in,” Olson says. Subs, mains and fills are all powered by Electro-Voice Tour Grade amplifiers, with four TG-7s and 14 TG-5s. All 18 amps are equipped with RCM-26 cards, which enable FIR filtering and system monitoring via IRIS-Net.
While the XLC system was more complex than the system it replaced, Olson says, “the historic nature of the building meant that we were essentially stuck with the State’s existing rigging points and previously-installed wiring. Luckily the rigging points worked out just fine due to the compact nature of the XLC box, and we were able to keep the sightlines unimpeded despite changing the speakers.”
For wiring, the group worked with Scott Cummings of Pro Audio Services in Lakeville, MN, who had actually worked on the previous installation.
“It goes to show how thinking forward in your design can translate into less work for future installations,” Olson says. “Because what saved us was the over-sizing of the wiring in the previous installation. Luckily a little extra room was available within the existing conduits to pull some additional runs and the old break-out boxes could be modified for the new system.
“So we were able to come up with a wiring and patch plan for the new system which worked mostly off of already installed wire.”
Throughout the installation process, Olson says, “the team at EV was definitely around whenever we needed them. Plus whenever we had a question we could call anyone at EV and get an answer right away so that we could move quickly to the next task. And EV was also present for the tuning of both rooms.”
With both systems now up and running, Olson is excited about the “clarity and intelligibility” of the final result. “The response to our PA upgrades has been overwhelmingly positive. Our regular clients have been impressed with the increased intelligibility the system has brought, and the improved sightlines that the compact XLD arrays have provided at the Pantages.”
Olson is also pleased with the way that visiting engineers have been responding to the new systems. “The engineers who come to our venues expect a top notch system,” he says, “and with our new EV arrays we’re able to provide that. Just this morning we had a band engineer walk into the Pantages and say, ‘these are my favorite boxes.’ Everyone knew right then that it was going to be a good day.”