Having upgraded the MARC Theatre in Salt Lake City with Martin Audio Wavefront Precision arrays in time for the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, cinema specialists DBPC recently returned to implement a sonic upgrade utilizing TORUS constant curvature systems at the Egyptian Theatre in Park City, one of the festival’s oldest and most recognizable venues.
Due to the pandemic, 2023 marked the event’s first staging in front of a live audience since 2020, the year that Boston-based DBPC was formed by Dan Beedy, a long-term member of the event’s technical crew (and later project manager), and another Sundance veteran, Ben VanDonkelaar. They have been tasked with systematically upgrading sound systems used in the event’s theatres to keep pace with the advances of digital screen technology.
“In 2018 we added permanent surrounds to the theatre,” Beedy explains. “Since the Egyptian is a year-round theatre not operated by Sundance, we had a lot of restrictions on what we could do. The theatre is historic, so we had even more limitations on placement. It was agreed with the theatre that we would install them at the bottom of the soffit around the ceiling. The soffit was plaster only, so a light and small speaker had to be chosen.”
Ultimately the loudspeakers—four on each wall—were hung from the ceiling all year round, but the placement was less than ideal for cinema. “The height and the size of these speakers made them under-powered and underwhelming for the audience,” notes Beedy. “For this year’s festival, getting the speakers lower was one of my main goals.”
Martin Audio Northeast regional sales manager Martha Callaghan brought TORUS to his attention. “Although I hadn’t heard them before, Ben was aware of them and felt they would be an excellent choice,” Beedy says. “And I’m glad I trusted his instincts! Having a wide pattern would represent a real upgrade, and would help realize the filmmaker’s intention in their sound mixes. In addition to that, we wanted to add the [Martin Audio] WPM line array as the behind-the-screen workhorses for the left-center-right part of the system.” These are reinforced by SXH218 subwoofers, with the whole rig powered by Martin Audio multi-channel iKon processor amps and run over Dante.
The Egyptian is a bijou 200-seat theatre and thus three TORUS T1230 enclosures on each wing provided the necessary side surrounds. Due to the protective nature of the house, some lighting instruments were moved to make way for the loudspeakers, which were set in lighting alcoves at optimal height for surround speakers and distributed as single boxes.
“We were aiming for complete horizontal coverage in the space while limiting the amount of vertical spread that would be reflecting off the opposite theatre wall. The effect of the T1230 was amazing! We had limited reflection off the walls and were able to direct the sound mainly at the audience,” Beedy says.
Martin Audio’s tech team of Joe Lima, who was responsible for the initial system design, and Will Harris, who became de facto system tech, handed over the new system to Jim Barlow from Dolby for final tuning.
The new components replace a 30-year-old point source system from which they could only achieve a sound field of about ± 6 dB from the front to back and about ± 5 dB side to side. That’s now been replaced by ± 1 dB front to back and side to side. This consistency underscores Beedy’s advocacy of combining cinema products with loudspeakers purposed for live work.
“I’ve always felt that we can achieve a better end product for the audience combining the best practices from both disciplines,” he concludes. “Since we are often tasked with turning non-cinema spaces into cinemas, we as a company feel using products designed for those spaces is typically a better choice. Martin Audio has been an excellent choice for us over the years. We’ve used their CDD, O-Line, WPS, WPL, and MLA products to great effect in movie premieres and film festivals.”
