The 3,000-seat Grand Theater at the Choctaw Casino & Resort – Durant, located in Oklahoma 80 miles north of Dallas, TX, recently underwent an audio upgrade headed by Meyer Sound PANTHER large-format line arrays and supporting components in a project by Dallas-based integrator Crossroads Audio.
The venue, a two-time winner of the Academy of Country Music (ACM) award for Casino of the Year – Theater, aims to deliver concert experiences similar to more sophisticated tour venues. Case in point, Choctaw Casino & Resort and Live Nation recently agreed on a partnership deal to bring to names in entertainment to the Grand Theater.
“We work with some of the biggest names in entertainment and giving them the best sound experience is something they’ve come to expect,” says Frank Deal, assistant casino manager at Choctaw Casino & Resort – Durant. “By upgrading to the PANTHER system, our sound system rivals that of larger venues, and with the new system, we can elevate the concert experience even more.”
The Grand Theater housed Meyer Sound LEO line arrays for nearly a decade. “It still sounded great; nothing was wrong with it,” Deal explains. “To give our guests and artists the best concert experience in southeast Oklahoma and north Texas and to stay in the forefront of the industry, we knew it was time to update and upgrade.”
Robin Magruder, co-owner of Crossroads Audio, states, “We have a great deal of confidence in Meyer and its products, and the whole design philosophy and production manufacturing philosophy,” with co-owner Ed Spoto adding, “And, the fact that Meyer Sound loudspeakers are designed and built here in the U.S. is an advantage to a lot of end users, especially in this market, since a lot of the casinos we work with are Native American.”
The Choctaw Grand Theater and the Crossroads Audio teams heard systems utilizing PANTHER in venues such as San Francisco’s The Fillmore and supporting Metallica on tour. “To me, it sounded natural,” says Deal. “As a music venue, we’re always looking for a more transparent sound than a ‘sound.’ That’s what PANTHER showed us: that bands would sound like they intend their music to sound like.”
The system at the Choctaw Grand comprises 10 narrow-coverage and four wide-coverage PANTHER loudspeakers per side and a dozen 2100-LFC low-frequency control elements in a central gradient array, supplemented by 10 LEOPARD‑M80 out fills per side and eight LEOPARD front fills as well as two ULTRA-X42 loudspeakers for extra out fills; stage monitors comprise products from the MJF range. The system is managed by Galileo GALAXY 816 and 408 processors.
“We were very pleased with the way that the system sounded right out of the box,” says Spoto, adding that when they aligned the system with Meyer Sound’s product management team, they were able to dial in extremely consistent coverage — within one-and-a-half dB — throughout the entire venue. “I was very pleased that we were able to get all the seats sounding identical; it was a much better end result than we could have ever hoped for on paper.”
Installing a gradient subwoofer array was significant when it came to consistent bass coverage, adds Deal. “With the new gradient array, the low end is even all the way across the room.”
Magruder notes that the system’s SPL ratings lived up to published specs. “At the client’s request, during listening and testing, they wanted it flat-out. And we were hitting 123 dB. It was pretty extreme, but that was still with significant headroom left, which was very impressive.”
When listening to reference tracks on the system, Deal says he was impressed by PANTHER’s level of detail. “I’ve listened to these tracks all my life. And I actually heard instruments in one song the other day that I had never heard until I heard it through PANTHER. It’s almost magical. I don’t know how they do it.”
