The Montana State University football team first took the field in 1897 and with capacity crowds squeezing into the 12,000-seat Bobcat Stadium in recent seasons, the school funded a plan to upgrade the facility, including the addition of 5,200 seats as well as a sophisticated new scoreboard and a new sound reinforcement system.
The system is headed by a Danley Sound Labs Jericho Horn JH-90, which throws “near-field quality” audio up to 400 feet from its position on the new Bobcat Stadium scoreboard. In fact, the Jericho can deliver up to twice this distance.
The old sound reinforcement system suffered from poor coverage and a noticeably uneven frequency response.
“Before the renovation, Bobcat Stadium was very obviously built on a ‘home side vs. away side’ plan,” says Steven Shewlakow, lead designer at Michael Garrison Associates (MGA), the company that designed the new audio system. “The PA was attached to the press boxes on the home side. It provided coverage both for the home side, which ended up being too loud, and for the away side, which ended up too quiet.”
The university did not want a new distributed system, so before MGA began participating on the project, the only solutions being considered were typical for scoreboard systems: multiple “arrayable” loudspeaker boxes.
“It was very, very far from ideal,” comments MGA principal Michael Garrison. “The available space within the scoreboard cabinet was limited, so no matter how many traditional boxes you could manage to cram in, the lack of coherency and limited maximum output would ensure poor sound quality, inadequate levels and even worse uniformity of coverage.”
“Line array technology could theoretically deliver the desired sound levels and sonic quality,” Garrison continues. “But, besides the fact that there was far too little physical space to contain such a system, there was also far too little budget. Furthermore, though I would not presume to challenge the science behind the much-advertised coherent summation between line array elements, in my admittedly limited experience, I’ve only ever heard a lot of beaming and sonic variation; quite disappointing, especially given the cost of these types of systems.”
Officials from Montana State University traveled to the University of Arizona, where a Jericho Horn demonstration had been arranged, and came back impressed.
“In this industry, there is room for differing opinions and preferences, and I would never claim that our way is the ‘best’ or ‘only’ way to get it right,” says Garrison. “But, we greatly prefer the sonic purity and relative uniformity of coverage that we achieve with true point-source-based loudspeaker systems. Therefore, the unique design of the Jericho Horn definitely intrigued us. And after hearing its performance at Bobcat Stadium, we are convinced that it is inherently a superior solution for stadium and other large format applications.”
Advanced Electronic Designs of Bozeman, led by owner Bryan Robertus, was responsible for performing most of the audio system installation. MGA did the final aiming, setup, programming and tuning.
A single Danley Jericho Horn JH-90 end-fires from the scoreboard to cover both sides of the field, the seating across the field, and the field itself. A pair of Danley SH-46 full-range loudspeakers provide fill for seats immediately adjacent to the scoreboard.
A Lab.gruppen ST6000Q and two Lab.gruppen ST10000Q amplifiers provide audio power, with a BSS London processor providing overall system balancing, as well as time delay settings for the SH-46s, and input mixing. A Danley DSLP48 provides turnkey processing for the Jericho Horn JH-90.
“We had heard demos of the Jericho Horn and we knew it was going to work well,” says Shewlakow. “But it was still impressive to actually hear it in Bobcat Stadium. The coverage was surprisingly consistent, both in terms of fidelity and volume.”
Garrison adds, “Even before we had the system tuned, the head of the athletic department and the other dignitaries on hand were ecstatic about the fidelity they were hearing. The whole experience was great. It turns out that the Jericho Horn JH-90 is a very cost-effective solution. When you consider what it would require from other manufacturers to even approach that level of performance, it’s obvious that any other system would cost way more money and take up way more space.”
