A new sound reinforcement system recently implemented at the Marion Palace Theatre, a 1,500-seat multi-purpose facility original constructed in 1928 in downtown Marion, OH, is headed by Adamson IS-Series and Point Series loudspeakers.
“It’s a very high-quality system, and the company’s ability to deliver was huge,” says Tom George, senior design engineer at Clair Global Integration’s Cleveland office, which handled the project. The new system is serving a mix of concerts, theatre productions, films, and special events.
Designed by Architect John Eberson, the venue was constructed to give audiences the impression of attending a show at a “Palace in Old Spain.” Over time, care has been taken to ensure that the theatre’s setting remains as impactful as it’s ever been.
After Marion Palace was acquired by the non-profit Palace Cultural Arts Association, it underwent restoration/renovation and has since been upgraded via a series of structural improvements and updates to the backstage and front-of-house areas. The audio systems have evolved as physical changes to the venue were made, but until the replacement of the venue’s previous 1980-era point source loudspeakers with the Adamson rig earlier this year, they were lacking in terms of coverage and output.
The new system is comprised of three arrays of Adamson IS7 in a left-center-right configuration with two IS219 subwoofers placed on the floor to either side of the orchestra pit and eight Adamson Point 8 to provide under-balcony fill. “We basically did a vocal tuning for the center cluster and a more ‘musical’ tuning for the left and right arrays,” George says.
System tuning was done within the Lab Gruppen amplifiers driving the system (multiple D 120 amps for the LCR elements and one D 200 for the subs) and is “locked out” in the amps, he continues. However, visiting engineers can put their own stamp on the sound via a pair of Lake LM44 processors at FOH and the venue’s pre-existing Yamaha GL5 console. The system was also reconfigured to be run on Dante.
“We go into the LM44s and then to the amplifiers (over Dante), and we have an interface there for visiting operators to drop in a visiting console,” George adds. “It allows guest engineers, touring artists, anyone who uses the space, to utilize Dante and reroute things easily,” says Brian Jester, the venue’s acting technical director and head of local audio firm JCR Studio & Sound.
The size and weight of the loudspeakers were also beneficial, George adds: “The IS7 has such a compact footprint and being able to have a large enough array to cover the room and fit within the physical parameters, was a big part of the choice. We’re also fortunate because they’re about the same weight as what we took down – the center cluster was actually lighter. So, we were able to reuse much of the existing rigging.”
Other longstanding issues were also addressed, among them, the replacement of a 70-volt system that the under-balcony loudspeakers previously used with a low-impedance system. New cabling was also installed for the roughly 100-foot run from the stage to the balcony FOH mix position.
George says that the new system is providing “far superior coverage of the venue and far better audio quality overall.” Adamson provided the loudspeakers with custom color matching to blend with the Palace’s ‘courtyard’ walls to either side of the stage, and to make the center cluster virtually disappear into the background of the red velvet drapes framing the proscenium.
“We’re completely vertically integrated,” explains Adamson CEO Marc Bertrand. “So, when matching RAL numbers, we’re able to control the end result seamlessly; from the machine shop and woodshop, all the way through wash, powder, and wet spray. Because we’re not outsourcing the job and just waiting for product to come back, we can ensure the coverage is right, the metal is matched up properly, the powder matches the wet spray on the wood, and we can choose other colour elements for the silkscreen to make the match even closer.”
Marion Palace executive director Kirk Detweiler adds, “Adamson matched the curtain colors without overshadowing the architecture of the proscenium, and the two side arrays also blend in very well. We haven’t had a big show in since the system was put in, but for the movies, it’s sounding great, and we had a four-person vocal group in that sounded awesome.”
“As you can imagine, in any older theatre, the deep balcony, the multi-levels of coverage (present challenges),” Jester explains, “but the system Clair designed does everything it should and more. My only experience with Adamson is with some of their older boxes from the late 1990s/early 2000s. So, hearing the evolution of their speakers was very encouraging.”
