The national championship of the Elite Club National League (ECNL) premier U.S. women’s traveling soccer league, held at the Aurora (Colorado) Sports Complex in suburban Denver in mid-July, featured sound reinforcement by Denver-based Summit Group Event Services, which chose to deploy Grund Audio Designs GALA Series line arrays and GA-L15 subwoofers.
“For this year’s event,” Summit Group owner Paul Kocel explains, “we deployed three Grund Audio GA-1021Z enclosures per side atop two GA-L15 subwoofers. I typically refer to this setup as our ‘small’ corporate rig. We ground stack this setup on custom made carts where the subs are positioned upside down on their fly frames and mounted to the dolly.
“We set three GA-1021Z’s on top of the two subs, adjust the angles and, at that point, we’re ready to do the show. Since the left and right stacks are both on wheels, it’s very easy to position the system. This is a really quick setup with a surprisingly compact profile that delivers a very robust sound.
“Vocal clarity is paramount for events like this,” Kocel continues. “We simply cannot find another rig that reproduces a natural, clear vocal tone as found in the GA-1021Z’s anywhere near the price point. Further, the enclosure’s compact size enables us to assemble a rig that doesn’t visually detract from what’s truly important—in this case, the players and the presentation of the awards.”
In addition to providing a high level of speech intelligibility out on the field, Kocel was equally complimentary of the equipment’s build quality. “The weather was an absolute nightmare,” Kocel notes. “In addition to rain, it was extremely windy at times. Over two dozen canopies were lost at this event and even Nike’s tent—held down by multiple 55 gallon barrels filled with water—was destroyed.
“The covers for the Grund GA-1021Z system were pulled off one night, but the specially designed Grund speaker grilles didn’t let a drop of water onto the cones. Any other company’s product would have been destroyed with the weather we endured over those four days.”
