Wheel of Fortune is celebrating its 30th year this week with a series of episodes that were shot last month at Madison Square Garden in New York, where PRG provided more than 230 VUE Audiotechnik i-Class loudspeakers for sound reinforcement.
“This is an extremely loyal fan base that has a well-established expectation for how the show should sound,” says Bill Daly, system engineer and designer for PRG Audio. “It was essential that the theater sound very natural-almost like the speakers they hear when they’re watching the show at home.”
With more than 1,500 seats to cover, creating a sense of intimacy required the PRG team to consider a less conventional configuration. Daly’s approach was to extend the sound stage into the seating area by installing over 230 VUE i-2×4.5 compact two-way systems under the chairs throughout eight carefully defined zones.
“The main PA handled most of the music and sound effects, but the majority of the spoken word came directly through the VUE speakers,” explains Daly. “The VUE system handled about 70 percent of what the studio audience actually heard.”
An XTA DP448 processor ensured correct delay to each of the eight zones while also helping to keep the theater audio within the seating area to avoid spillover into the broadcast feed. Lab gruppen FP Series amplifiers delivered the necessary horsepower while a Yamaha M7CL console provided the means to mix.
“For broadcast shoots like this it’s always challenging to keep the house sound from bleeding into the broadcast feed,” Daly says. “Between the XTA processor and the clean directionality of the VUE speakers we were able to achieve really good isolation with minimal effort.”
This was not the first time this unique “under-seat” configuration was deployed by PRG. According to Daly, he’s revisited this approach numerous times throughout recent years, and utilized many different compact loudspeakers in the lead role.
“I’ve deployed similar systems with speakers from most of the major manufacturers,” Daly notes. “We’ve always encountered an unnatural bump in the 180-400Hz range. Not only did the VUE speakers not exhibit this problem, but they sounded so good right out of the box that I didn’t need to apply much EQ at all.
“The VUE i-Class is easily the most natural sounding option I’ve found yet for this type of application,” he adds. “I’m really impressed and am looking forward to trying out more VUE products in the future.”