AV Issue 65

Education Solutions.

On Display.

Transform education venues into collaborative idea sharing environments with Samsung’s Fl!p and e-Board.

Teachers and participants can enjoy meaningful productive and convenient learning through intuitive touchscreen interaction and single-source content sharing.

FOR ENQUIRIES PLEASE CONTACT OUR BUSINESS DESK T: 1800 31 32 33 | E: businessdesk@samsung.com Please visit WWW.SAMSUNG.COM/AU/BUSINESS for more information. *55” wheel based stand sold separately ^Optional tray sold separately

PROFESSIONAL AUDIO VIDEO SOLUTIONS IN AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND Production Audio Video Technology (PAVT) is a proudly Australian-owned and operated company that has distributed professional audio, video, conferencing, and production products for over 30 years, establishing ourselves as a leading AV provider for corporations, smallto- medium business, institutions, public buildings, and live production houses. With a highly skilled technical

department delivering design, simulation, measurement, and commissioning services, PAVT can take your project from conception to operation while supplying industry benchmark products that will reliably deliver

Visit us at Integrate 2019 on Stand i6 for a beer and a chat.

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Over 30 Years in Business To find your nearest Integrator/Reseller, please visit

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Production Audio Video Technology Pty Ltd 4/621 Whitehorse Road, Mitcham 3132, Victoria PH: 03 9264 8000 sales@pavt.com.au NEW ZEALAND OFFICE PH: +64 21 410 050 tim@productionaudio.co.nz

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ISSUE 65

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Editorial Director: Christopher Holder (chris@avapac.net) Contributing Editor: Derek Powell

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FEATURES

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COLLEGE RING CHANGES Managing the school bells is just the beginning.

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CHAMBERS NOW ORCHESTRATED Rutledge sorts council with Lumens lecture capture.

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SHOWTIME Liverpool Catholic Club’s presentation theatre is something else.

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Publisher: Philip Spencer (philip@avapac.net)

IN THE RIGHT BALLPARK A Melbourne baseball stadium uses AV to give people an all-American night out.

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Graphic Designer: Daniel Howard (daniel@avapac.net)

DREAMING IN LIGHT Epson shines at Adelaide Fringe.

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ANGLO AMERICAN’S ‘HOLOGRAM’ Transparent LG displays for sci-fi wow.

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CAIRNS PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE CPAC a FNQ cultural epicentre.

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IT’S ALL ’G Huge d&b bowl PA leads $25m audio upgrade.

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CUTTING EDGE: DESIGNING UTS CENTRAL Behind the scenes look at AV for the new UTS city campus Hub.

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THE COLISEUM Immersive audio makes jump from page to the stage.

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SHOWROOM SHOWCASE AV at the heart of impressive new Mercedes-Benz Brisbane showroom.

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Assistant Editor: Preshan John (preshan@alchemedia.com.au)

Additional Design: Dominic Carey (dominic@avapac.net) Accounts: Jaedd Asthana (jaedd@alchemedia.com.au) Subscriptions: (subscriptions@avapac.net)

alchemedia publishing pty ltd (ABN: 34 074 431 628) PO Box 6216, Frenchs Forest, NSW 2086 Australia info@alchemedia.com.au All material in this magazine is copyright © 2020 Alchemedia Publishing Pty Ltd. The title AV is a registered Trademark.

Apart from any fair dealing permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. The publishers believe all information supplied in this magazine to be correct at the time of publication. They are not in a position to make a guarantee to this effect and accept no liability in the event of any information proving inaccurate. After investigation and to the best of our knowledge and belief, prices, addresses and phone numbers were up to date at the time of publication. It is not possible for the publishers to ensure that advertisements appearing in this publication comply with the Trade Practices Act, 1974. The responsibility is on the person, company or advertising agency submitting or directing the advertisement for publication. The publishers cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions, although every endeavour has been made to ensure complete accuracy. 10/4/2020

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REVIEWS MEYER SOUND ULTRA-X40 Meyer releases a worthy successor to the legendary UPA.

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FEATURE

College Rings Changes With Q-SYS

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eelong College has been around a while — almost 160 years, in fact. The first bell system isn’t much younger. The infrastructure is still in situ — AC power gives the bell clapper a blast; racket ensues. As the 20th century progressed the system became a little more sophisticated but until recently it still involved a keypad and a dial to program the times for each day — Day 1, Time 1, Set… repeat. Forget about zoning or easily programming an ad hoc bell.

After some fruitful conversations with Melbourne-based audiovisual experts, Corporate Initiatives, Geelong College’s AV team tapped its long-time AV integrator of choice, MultiTek Solutions, to help the school to improve the quality of its audio and announcement systems.

At its heart is Q-SYS hardware, controlled by a highly flexible Q-SYS control interface.

Meanwhile, in the back office, the school had been working on its evacuation and lock-in policies.

The school’s AV lead, Chris Price and his young network-savvy AV tech, Joel Lay, wondered aloud: ‘Is there any way we can use Q-SYS to modernise

our bells system and take care of our evacuation and lock-in measures?’.

The short answer is: ‘yes’. Q-SYS is more than capable of managing the programming and zoning of all the school alerts.

Within the last 12 months, Chris, Joel and MultiTek have engaged its Q-SYS Core 110f (now with a redundant second core in place) to take care of full campus-wide paging; an electronic class bell with zone control and full timetable management; lockdown control with door access system; full monitoring via SMS and email from both Q-SYS and the school network; emergency management notifications (text and email) to all staff; and fire panel monitoring for six existing fire panels, wired via GPIO inputs on Q-SYS devices. What’s more, during an emergency, the classroom Vivi panels will be automatically taken over (and will soon be automatically turned on via HDMI-CEC).

Chris and Joel are continuing to eye off anything that can be turned off/on via GPIO, and bring it into the Q-SYS fold: windows, blinds, air conditioning, gates and more.

All new speaker installs feature fire-rated speaker cable and all Q-SYS peripherals are connected to a separate UPS in case of power failure.

After an evacuation, the warden can speak to the school in the evacuation meeting point through three TOA horns. A Shure ULX-D mic is on charge waiting to go, with wireless paddles on the oval to ensure quality of reception. “We’re using Shure batteries and chargers now so we can monitor battery life via the network,” notes Chris Price.

The flexibility of the Q-SYS system isn’t lost on department heads who are requesting bespoke iPad interfaces to manage their local audio (and bells) needs. Q-SYS can even manage the footy scoreboard countdown and siren.

Geelong College will no doubt continue to surprise many with what it’s using Q-SYS to manage and schedule.  TAG (QSC): (02) 9519 0900 or info@tag.com.au MultiTek Solutions: (03) 5241 3777 or multiteksolutions.com.au Corporate Initiatives: thecigroup.com.au

We’ve just unboxed a new addition to our family Hello HARMAN Professional Solutions!

MadisonAV appointed the Australian distributor of HARMAN Professional Solutions.

We’re thrilled to be the newly appointed distributor of AMX, SVSI, and install ranges of AKG, BSS, Crown and JBL Professional in Australia. So in the spirit of great changes, Madison Technologies’ dedicated AV business will now be trading as MadisonAV. Sales Enquiries 1800 00 77 80 www.madisonav.com.au

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FEATURE

Chambers Now Orchestrated

C

ouncils are now required to record their chamber meetings. Say it quickly and it sounds easy. In practice, it can take some reasonable AV firepower.

Rutledge AV was approached by Port Macquarie council to bring itself in line with its obligations and upgrade its presentation systems.

Audio is taken care of by a Bosch Dicentis wireless conferencing system.

The camera to capture the councillors in action is a new wide-angle 4K Panasonic UE4 (“the council was adamant they wanted one single, wide shot, not something that was stitched together,” explains Rutledge AV’s Andrew MacDonald).

A handful of LCD panels are in the room, designed to display the order of business and discussion points. An additional panel hangs in an adjoining public space to show live video of the room.

RING MASTER

Now what Rutledge AV needed was a system that could glue all these components together.

Something that would do the recording, some switching, mixing and live streaming.

The hero of the project is the Lumens LC200 lecture capture system and it can do all the above.

The LC200 records the individual video feeds (in this case the camera and the graphics), but it also has a native multiview feature that allows the screen in the overflow public space to have

a side-by-side image of the camera feed and the discussion point graphic. The device also takes care of the live stream.

“There are other lecture capture systems on the market but the Lumens product impressed me with its video processing,” explains Andrew MacDonald. “Especially the nine different multiview templates I could get out of it, which you can change on the fly and recall as presets.

And the fact that it can do three simultaneous streams (two screen view in-house, plus the live stream) as well as the facility to record each individual channel meant it impressed me more than traditional lecture capture platforms.”

ORDER ORDER

The system needed to be drop-dead easy to use.

The client’s interaction with the system is via a stripped back Crestron touch panel: turn the system on, select a source to display and control audio volume. Next to the touch panel is a PC running a piece of software called Space Manager (a third-party piece of software that talks to the Bosch API) that serves up all of the active presenters and those waiting to speak using the Dicentis wireless conferencing system. That UI is presented as a floor plan of the room. The operator can click and identify the mics on the UI. They can drag people on the UI to become a public speaker or they can drag them into waiting. Or they can dump them if they wanted to as well. The

system auto cues, but Space Manager provides an alternative interface for moderators.

The third level of control is located in the server room — a rackmounted monitor displays the web interface of the Lumens LC200. “A technician can walk up to the rack, stick a set of headphones on, satisfy themselves that it’s recording,” explains Andrew MacDonald. “In fact, you can operate as a director and change scenes on the displays. But that’s locked in the rack.”

The Lumens LC200 back panel features four HDMI inputs but it can accept any number of NDI cameras via the network. As it happens, all the AV in the chambers runs on the network.

“We’re using Crestron NVX, which has proven to be very reliable,” continues Andrew MacDonald.

“We’ve powered everything off the network switch, that way we don’t have to worry about one-dollar PSUs in the field that will inevitably require a call out. And even if one of the NVX boxes did happen to go down, we can remotely configure another one of them to act like the box that’s failed, because they’re all transceivers. So the system has built-in redundancy.”  Rutledge AV, A Diversified Company: rutledge.com.au Corsair Solutions (Lumens): (03) 9005 9861 or corsairsolutions.com.au Panasonic: panasonic.com.au Jands (Bosch): (02) 9582 0909 or jands.com.au

“ The dBbox2 stands out as not only being a quick and powerful field tester, but a quality calibration and measuring tool in the same package.

All our key staff have one” — Chris Dodds, Managing Director The P.A. People

The CTP dBbox2 handheld audio test unit now released with V2 software, allowing monitoring, metering and generation of analogue, AES/EBU and SPDIF audio in the field.

“The dBbox2 now forms the backbone of our touring fault finding capability and with so much reliance now on digital systems this box handles everything superbly.

So much so that there is at least one on every single show we put out through the door! ” — Mark ‘Magic’ Ellis-Cope Sound Dept Manager

• The dBbox2 is an invaluable tool for all temporary outside broadcast situations where identification, levels and audio quality tests are needed to ensure the show wiring grid is solid.

• Offers monitoring of analogue mono and stereo, AES/EBU balanced or unbalanced digital audio as well as Midi receiver/ transmitter ID on a pass through.

• The audio generator covers tone, tone sweep as well as glitz and EBU with tone level adjustments and with the inbuilt loudspeaker and microphone many detailed tests are possible.

Contact Us at 03 9489 0010 | sales@eavtech.com.au | www.eavtech.com.au

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Showtime

T

here are some big clubs out west. Few are bigger than the Liverpool Catholic Club.

The club has completed some significant renovations and a new build. Part of that work is an extraordinary theatre/cinema space. The 275cap raked room functions as a cinema once or twice a week. At other times it’s used as a theatre/ presentation space.

Umow Lai designed the AV system from the ground up in consultation with the project manager, Joe Pirrello from Census Advisory, the club’s admin/IT manager, Gary Parisi, and the Architects, Trevor Hugh from Altis Architecture. Exact Technologies won the Security and AV section of the project and they subcontracted Justin Baker and IPG to install the AV. TWO PA SYSTEMS

The AV for the cinema theatre is an unusual beast. Rather than attempting to install an audio system that caters to both cinema and other live production and presentation applications, Umow Lai spec’ed two systems.

Taking care of the main PA requirements is a pair of Martin Audio WPM line arrays. There are five compact two-way passive WPM line arrays elements aside supplemented by dual-18-inch WPM subs. For live performances, 12-inch, low-profile Martin Audio foldback monitors are provided.

Meanwhile, the cinema audio system is taken care of by QSC’s cinema loudspeaker range, with left/centre/right SC-412C loudspeakers ranged across the top of the LED screen, SR-

FEATURE

Liverpool Catholic Club’s presentation theatre is something else.

8200 speakers taking care of the surrounds, and SB5218 dual-18-inch subwoofers for the rumble.

Some 20 years ago, Umow Lai’s Mal Barnes ran a cinema install business, in fact, thousands of cinemas across the region still have his technical fingerprints all over them. “I was very pleasantly surprised by the performance of the QSC cinema range. It sounds great. I had the Dolby guy commissioning the surround system and he was hugely impressed by the QSC PA as well. In my opinion, this space is like the best ‘gold class’ cinema in the country.”

MARTIN WPM

Gary Parisi called Umow Lai in (with Mal Barnes running point) after being dissatisfied with the original AV consultant’s proposal. Mal Barnes was able to tap into his considerable experience to design an audio system that not only cost his client less than the original design but also gave the club two systems.

“The Martin WPM PA sounds great,” commented Mal Barnes. “I recently spec’ed a WPM system into a Shire christian school and the results were spectacular. I looked at this space and I immediately knew it would sound just as good.

The best thing about WPM, due to its scalable resolution, is the even coverage. Every seat in the house is getting the same sound.”

Powering the cinema system and the Martin Audio PA is a rack of QSC CXD four-channel amplifiers. The WPM elements are passive boxes, with only one CXD amp channel per box required.

Text:/ Christopher Holder

“I now use the four-channel QSC amps everywhere. They’re absolutely bulletproof. I can connect them into the Q-Sys network and my client loves it. Gary is an IT guy and Q-Sys is a no-brainer for him — they speak the same language. We run the Q-Sys network on the enterprise network on its own VLAN. It doesn’t miss a beat.”

WHY NOT HAVE BOOTH

The bio both features an Allen&Heath SQ6 digital mixing console, a MA Lighting Dot 2 console, a Crestron touchpanel to select the system settings, a Panasonic PTZ camera controller, and a rack with a Marantz cinema receiver, and Shure wireless receivers, but no projector.

The choice of using LED in the cinema was made early on. Considering the theatre space is more about corporate presentations and events, than it is about popcorn and movies, the LED display provides the ideal dynamic presentation backdrop without the shadowing you would naturally get from front projection. The hi-def screen uses a 3.9mm pixel pitch, which might seem a little coarse for cinema but as always, it’s down to viewing distance — in this case, the front row is a good 5m away, ensuring a smooth viewing experience. The screen is dialled right down in brightness to ensure no one’s retinas are burnt out.

UNUSUAL PROJECTION ROLE

Not to say, there aren’t any projectors in the theatre. Six Epson Lightscene projectors paint

FEATURE

the side walls. Notably, during the annual thanksgiving service and mass, the Lightscene projectors will light the walls with stained glass window motifs. It’s a delightful way of using this product, which has found a more regular digital signage home in retail showroom environments.

But apart from helping to transform the theatre into a house of worship, the Epson Lightscene projectors were selected for more prosaic reasons, according to admin/IT manager, Gary Parisi: “The original plan was to install moving head lights with custom gobos, to help brand the theatre for corporate events. But it can take weeks to organise custom gobos, while we can use the Epson Lightscene projectors to display corporate branding and theming in minutes.”

The lighting fixture form factor of the Lightscene projectors help the product to blend in seamlessly into the interior design.

Martin lighting is supplied to accommodate presentations as well as some basics for live production. It’s easy to supplement the lighting rig for larger productions thanks to two motorised lighting bars — no ladders or cherry pickers required.

Last but not least, an Australian-made Lectrum Aero lectern cuts a fine on-stage silhouette, making any presenter feel like a million bucks.  Umow Lai: (02) 9431 9431 or www.umowlai.com.au TAG (Martin Audio, A&H, QSC): (02) 9519 0909 or www.tag.com.au Show Technology (Martin, MA Lighting): (03) 9681 7511 or www.showtech.com.au Epson: www.epson.com.au Lectrum: (02) 9914 0900 or www.lectrum.com.au

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FEATURE

In The Right Ballpark A Melbourne baseball stadium uses AV to give people an allAmerican night out.

Text:/ Preshan John

L

et’s face it: the average Aussie probably hasn’t attended a baseball game on home shores. In fact, your knowledge of the game is likely derived from a term’s worth of phys-ed at school and American TV. That was certainly my story, so I was forging new experiential territory when I rolled up to game at Melbourne Ballpark to check out how this 30-year-old venue was making itself central to the popularisation of baseball in Australia.

Home to the Melbourne Aces baseball team, the ballpark sits on a spacious plot of land behind the industrial back roads of Altona. The stadium was opened in 1990 with the aged tin shed construction betraying its age. Games are played here more than 200 days of the year from local recreational games to state and professional teams.

The Melbourne Aces say it’s on a mission to revive baseball in Australia and backed it up by splurging on its home stadium. Bringing the venue’s AV into the 21st century was a key focus in the bigger picture.

Justin Huber, General Manager of the Melbourne Aces Baseball Club recognised this from early on. “We’re specifically looking at the tools with which we can create the type of experience and environment that’ll keep our fans coming back again and again. It was important

to our team and the owners of our team to put a state-of-the-art system in place.”

HIT & RUN

Fitting out a baseball stadium isn’t a typical job for an Australian integrator but the project requirements are familiar. Today’s game experience is more than watching a team of uniformed players hit and chase a ball — it’s an entertainment experience intended as a family night out. An 18m LED screen at the field’s far end reflects this priority. Hot dogs and popcorn are for sale along with Aces merch and pints of Coors.

“There is an increasing need for better production at these games,” says Paul Tucker. “The client needed something easy to use, something that would reproduce music well and increase the excitement, vibe and crowd engagement.”

Paul heads up Mozaix, a Melbourne AV integration business. His was the task of installing a PA system to adequately supply clear audio to all 2200 seats in the grandstands. Unlike most other sporting venues, the seating area at a baseball stadium is a confined to a quarter-circle behind and around the batting position looking out over the diamond shaped field.

Spec’ing a PA system with a successful history in US baseball stadiums made a lot of sense. “I

called up PAVT which very quickly recommended the AtlasIED music horns as the right box for the job,” recalls Paul. “It competes with an American college baseball or football stadium and we were able to show the Melbourne Aces case studies from The States which made them more comfortable with the product.”

Each AtlasIED music horn is comprised of a 12-inch woofer and a horn with varying flare angles depending on coverage needs. Four FS12T 99 boxes point down at the grandstands (90° x 90°) while three FS12T 94 boxes push audio out to the field with a tighter 90° x 40° dispersion.

These are run by a pair of Powersoft Quattrocanali 2404 amplifiers. Complementing the main system are 10 Yamaha VXS5 five-inch surface-mount speakers in the dug out and premium field seating areas, as well as the corporate boxes.

ON THE NETWORK

On top of the PA itself, Mozaix also installed loudspeakers throughout the foyer, bathrooms and corridor areas of the stadium. Managing all the I/O is a single Q-Sys Core sitting in the announcer’s booth. Mozaix used Q-Sys processing across most inputs and left Melbourne Ballpark staff with control over basic parameters using iPads.

“Q-Sys makes management of the audio easy,”

FEATURE

explains Paul. “They’ve been very happy. The ground manager knows how to use the system back to front and he’d say he’s the least technical person here.”

Announcers and broadcasters use a set of headphones, each of which connect to an RDL station with a mic input, headphone output and mute button. External antennas ensure the Sennheiser Evolution G4 radio mics enjoy reception across the majority of the grounds.

A pair of shotguns serve as crowd mics which Paul discreetly mounted inside security camera enclosures as a means of weather proofing.

Justin is pleased with the result. “The old system left dead spots everywhere — in some parts of the ballpark you couldn’t hear any sound and other parts you’d feel like your eardrums were about to explode. Now the sound is crisp, clean and consistent. Plus the system is versatile and nimble enough to do everything we want into the future.”  Mozaix: (03) 9558 0433 or www.mozaix.com.au PAVT (AtlasIED, Powersoft): (03) 9264 8000 or www. pavt.com.au TAG (QSC): (02) 9519 0900 or www.tag.com.au

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FEATURE

Dreaming in Light

T

he Adelaide Fringe festival has gone from strength to strength and is synonymous with cutting edge artists and amazing audience experiences. This year Epson and supporting partners including Novatech and Monkeystack, are lighting up and projecting Yabarra — Dreaming in Light, the festival’s signature installation and vision of cultural creative producer Karl ‘Winda’ Telfer.

The ‘dream story’ installation uses a wide range of Epson projectors all the way from the EV-100 LightScene to the flagship 25,000 lumen EBL25000UNL laser projector. Critically Epson and the installation’s team seamlessly integrated the full potential of these projectors with the creative vision behind Yabarra to realise a culturally immersive and sensory experience.

Yabarra — Dreaming in Light also leverages Epson’s L-Series and their laser light source projection technology to deal with challenging installation angles and set-and-forget locations for the duration of the festival.

All of the Epson projectors deliver a high level of versatility, performance and dependability for Yabarra in order to guide visitors on a journey from the physical world to that of the sprits and dreams.

PROJECTION IN ITS ELEMENT

Monkeystack Director and creative partner on the installation Justin Wight said, “We are very proud to have partnered with the Adelaide Fringe, Epson and the other project partners to create Yabarra. Working with Epson projectors has meant that we are able to push the boundaries of what is achievable in immersive storytelling.

Their precision, response and clarity of colour and fidelity of moving image has produced a world class experience in a challenging indoor space.”

Leko Novakovic from Novatech, a key partner in the design and installation of the Epson projectors, added, “We’ve always enjoyed what a creative collaboration can bring to a project and believe that using the cutting edge technology of Epson’s projectors significantly enhances the effectiveness of storytelling. Yabarra shows how conventional equipment such as Epson projectors can be used to create unconventional images. The results are quite magical.”

Yabarra also features the first use in Australia of Fujifilm’s FP-Z5000 ultra-short throw projector, equipped with the world’s first folded

two-axial rotatable lens. It gives this projector the capability of directing the lens up, down, front, rear, left and right to project images in various directions without having to move the main unit. This means it can project images not only on a wall or screen but also on the ceiling and floor, and easily switch between vertical and horizontal display. The use of the ultra-short throw lens makes it possible to project images on a 100-inch screen from the close-up distance of just 75cm.

Leko Novakovic: “The FP-Z5000 is such a unique product and Milenko [Novakovic, codirector] had some great ideas of how we could use these projectors in new and innovative ways, one of which was for the Yabarra — Dreaming installation, so we decided on an initial purchase of four units.”  Epson: epson.com.au Fujifilm: fujifilm.com.au Monkeystack: monkeystack.com.au Novatech: ncet.co

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FEATURE

A ‘Hologram’ Experience for Anglo American

A

nglo American is a multinational mining company headquartered in London. It is the world’s largest producer of platinum as well as a major producer of diamonds, copper, nickel, iron ore, and metallurgical and thermal coal.

For companies like Anglo American, tradeshows are valuable opportunities to engage with the broader mining community and present vision and values to the public. As such, the company wanted to ensure its booth at an upcoming Gold Coast trade show had a head turning centrepiece to grab the attention of passers by — specifically, a hologram.

Anglo American sounded out the idea with technology and design agency T&DA. Tyrone Estephan, Executive Producer at T&DA came back with a counter proposal. “For the space and what Anglo American needed to create, we didn’t think a hologram would be achievable, so we pitched them back an idea which involved LG’s 55-inch transparent OLED screens we had seen at a recent convention.”

NEARLY A HOLOGRAM

T&DA developed an idea for the ‘Holodesk’.

Taking inspiration from sci-fi influences such as Prometheus, Oblivion, and even Tony Stark’s lair in the Iron Man movies, the Holodesk is a futuristic T-shaped table on which three 55-inch LG Transparent OLED displays are mounted vertically. The result is an immersive viewing experience with a convincing hologram-like aesthetic where, thanks to the transparent displays, content appears to almost float in mid-air.

Raymond Leung, Creative Technologist at T&DA explains the setup. “We configured the displays so they overlap from certain angles, letting you see content over other pieces of content so there’s more depth. The 3D-printed design plays a lot on curves and glossy surfaces to maximise reflections and make the displays stand out.”

Inside the table is a workstation which drives the three displays. Audio is driven by a Lab. gruppen E Series amplifier fed into two Tannoy speakers neatly embedded into the side of the desk.

THE CONTENT

The purpose of the Holodesk was to creatively convey advancements Anglo American had achieved in mining safety policies and procedures.

All content used on the displays is bespoke and synchronised across all the screens. T&DA partnered with New Holland Creative which

T&DA: www.t-da.io LG: www.lg.com.au

cohesively pieced together fluid visual objects, animated text, videos and other information to play across the displays. The trio of screens work in tandem — if something happens on the central screen the outer screens react to it.

“We’re using a lot of bright neon lines to accentuate the floating lines as if it was a hologram,” explains Raymond. “We also used 3D object rotations to make it look like objects are rotating in empty space.”

THE LG DIFFERENCE

For Tyrone, the choice of LG displays was down to the ‘wow’ factor they exude. “Of all the

transparent OLED screens we have seen in the market the LG screens definitely had the best resolution, were the thinnest, and they instantly amazed users.”

Transparency level was a consideration too.

“With overlapping displays we really needed content to be visible through two displays, so panel transparency was important. LG’s are the most transparent on the market — around 40%,” says Raymond.

“One of the most exciting things about this project was seeing the client and people at the tradeshow respond to the Holodesk,” says Tyrone.

“It really was the standout piece of the show.” 

DOING MEETINGS BETTER

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All-in-one Conferencing Camera 360° Camera + Omnidirectional Mics + Full Duplex Speakerphones • Dynamically highlight participants as they talk • Automatically recognise and follow the active speaker with smooth panning • 360° field of view to capture an entire room & high quality audio for clear speech intelligibility • Improve the VC experience for remote workers and mobile employees • Works with Zoom, Goto meeting, Google Hangouts, Skype, Cisco, Webex, Bluejeans, broadsoft and more

Contact us for more information www.westan.com.au

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FEATURE

North Queensland’s New Performing Arts Epicentre Cairns CPAC a FNQ cultural epicentre.

Text:/ John O’Brien

A

fter a long and protracted genesis, the Cairns Performing Arts Centre (CPAC) opened to the public on 15th December 2018. Two decades in planning and two years in construction, it replaced the ageing Cairns Civic Centre with a state-of-the-art facility to support local, regional and touring performances. CPAC features a 941seat proscenium auditorium with full fly system (the only one in far north Queensland) and a reconfigurable 400-seat performance space, rehearsal and warm-up area. As part of the upgrade, these rooms received brand new audio gear, matching the quality of the new venue. Some of this equipment is also used at the adjoining amphitheatre in Munro Martin Parklands.

Theatre consultants Schuler Shook conducted a feasibility study and ended up completing full planning and design for the technical elements of this project. Its sound system specification outline required SPL levels, room coverage and some specific equipment but left the brief open enough to cater for quality non-conforming tender responses. For consistency and continuity, one tender covered both performance spaces.

Graeme Hicks at Entertainment Production Services (EPS) pitched a proposal based on a range of d&b loudspeakers with Midas front ends. Principal contractor FKG accepted the bid without a conventional speaker shootout, primarily because the 3D modelling and industry standard specified coverage and levels were easily met. Besides, they did not yet have a building to test any gear in!

VIRTUAL REALITY

d&b’s ArrayCalc simulation software modelled the spaces and derived the ideal combination of products from the projected dB/SPL overlays onto the virtual rooms. A mix of loudspeakers are deployed to ensure sound quality is consistent throughout all seating positions in each room.

So how does this convert from paper and screen to real life? According to CPAC Technical Manager, Jon Driver: “It translates very realistically. I was expecting serious industry standard gear and certainly got it.”

The main theatre system consists of left and right arrays of 6 x V8, 4 x V12, and 3 x V-SUB per side. 2 x V10P speakers are used for room

infill and 6 x E6 boxes cover the balcony. 15 x 4S speakers enable multiple fill configurations around the stage and pit lips. This flexibility is enhanced with 6 x T10s for portable fill and a V-GSUB for extra stage oomph. Onstage foldback is catered for with 8 x M4 monitor wedges.

Driving all these speakers is a combination of d&b 30D and 10D amplifiers.

With its automated flooring system, the smaller but more versatile Studio space has a rig of 2 x Y7P and 1 x Y-SUB flown per side, 4 x E6 and 16 x 8S handling fill duties and a pair of M4s for foldback.

D20, 30D, and 10D amps power these speakers.

Both rooms feature Midas PRO-X desks fixed in place out front. The venue has a third PRO-X, used for monitor mixing on stage in the Theatre or as an alternative FOH position in the Studio.

JD: “Using PRO-X is a really good option, because the nearby Tanks Arts Centre also uses

PRO-X, so local operators already understand the PRO series platform, allowing a consistency of training between venues. Plus, it’s also a really nice product.” Toowoomba’s Empire theatre also has PRO desks — another continuity plus for the locals.

THE INS & OUTS

Handfuls of DL231 IOs send 96kHz AES50 digital audio to the amps and d&b R1 remote software and native digitally enabled amplifiers take over from there. As the d&b supplier, NAS provided considerable technical assistance. NAS’s Doug Pringle and Dave Jacques were onsite helping to commission the systems, time aligning delays for fills, setting up snapshots of common configurations for different room layouts and storing simple base configurations.

These start with basic L/R and sub level control

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for client operators and R1 looks after the rest of the room. It has delivered a very flexible system with easy home positions to default to, but with full power available for more experienced hands.

6 x IO boxes (24 IO) can be put anywhere on the network or in the venues, allowing great flexibility in audio routing and formation. DANTE cards are in all desks and can send audio from theatre to studio (holding area for casts of hundreds), to external OB or wherever needed. Even redundant analogue links have been included for touring rigs, covering all configuration options.

JD: “Soundproofing is also excellent. The acousticians and architects have done amazing job with setup and isolation between venues.” With live performances being the most regular gig here, this has been crucial.

JD: “It’s great to have a d&b rig located between the rainforest and the reef. Since the

FEATURE

upgrade, we haven’t had to bring equipment in to supplement any of our shows.” Being a long way from capital city gear hire, this is a legitimate concern, as is reliability and backup. “The five year warranty is particularly good. We are a local community venue after all. Dealing with NAS is always a pleasure and they are very helpful.

Graeme at EPS was great bringing it all together.”

IT’S SHOWTIME

Reception from the Cairns public has been excellent. 4500 locals attended the opening day and were suitably impressed. For the city and local arts scene, it’s been a boon.

JD: “This place is going to be here for a long time. For the last 20 years, we’ve been hearing ‘When are you getting a new venue?’ We could have spent less but we did it justice and did it the right way.”

The venue staff also listen closely to feedback from touring acts - their crew are very happy with what they find and the system has been pretty much flawless. Listening to these experienced heads has “saved a lot of discussion at the loading dock.”

JD: “The hirer will drive the direction of what we buy and how we run systems. With this in mind, we know that d&b/PRO-X will facilitate that for a long time into the future. What we have got now is pretty impressive and definitely top stuff. We now have the most accurate dispersion control throughout the entire frequency range.”

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NEWS

Highlights from AV News Online HDBaseT SPEC 3.0 HDBaseT isn’t taking the AV over IP revolution lying down, with a new 3.0 spec that allows for the transmission of HDMI 2.0 over 100m via 1Gb ethernet. Spec 3.0 promises uncompressed content, while still converging multiple interfaces over a single cable and it’s backwards compatible.

Considering uncompressed HDMI 2.0 demands 18Gbps bandwidth, how can HDBaseT transmit HDMI 2.0 4K@60 4:4:4 and yet, claim it is uncompressed?

According to HDBaseT, it’s because its technology can do without the 20% overhead that HDMI 2.0 demands, and as such can transmit the fully uncompressed video without compromising signals or affecting latency. HDMI utilises Transition-Minimized Differential Signaling (TMDS) protocol, which implements an 8-bit data into a 10-bit signal coding. Over the HDBaseT link, only the 8-bit data is transmitted. That means that the 18Gbps rate of TMDS channels is easily transferred over HDBaseT’s 16Gbps bandwidth.

HDBaseT: www.hdbaset.com

TAKING AIMS SDVoE has been gathering momentum over the last few years with its noholds-barred 10Gb uncompressed solution, and there’s still a lot of love in the room for point-to-point HDBaseT, but people also love a good open standard. Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) ProAV Working Group used the ISE show to introduce Internet Protocol Media Experience (IPMX), a set of open standards and specifications (based on SMPTE ST2110) designed to enable carriage of compressed and uncompressed video, audio, and data over IP networks. IPMX scratches an itch for a single set of common standards-based protocols that ensure interoperability for AV over IP. IPMX incorporates further features tailored to Pro AV installations. These features include AMWA NMOS IS-04 and IS-05 for discovery, registration, and connection management; and specifications for copy protection and security. IPMX is the result of the AIMS Pro AV Working Group’s efforts to define an open-standards approach to addressing the Pro AV world’s move toward IP media. The working group’s approach for Pro AV follows AIMS’ broader efforts with the broadcast/media industry — namely, to promote multivendor interoperability that will foster long-term protection of customers’ investments in technology and products.

AIMS: www.aimsalliance.org

NEWS IN BRIEF: MadisonAV has been appointed distributor of AMX, SVSI, and install ranges of AKG, BSS, Crown and JBL Professional in Australia — the portfolio include the complete range of AMX video control solutions and Harman Professional install and integration audio product suite. Ken Kyle, CEO, MadisonAV: “We understand our customers’ need for world class products and solutions along with reliable after sales service support. With our hands-on experience and coverage in the Australia market, we are excited to bring Harman Professional Video, Install Audio and Integrated Solutions to our customers and elevate their experiences.”

MadisonAV: 1800 436 378 or at connect@ madisonav.com.au avt has closed its doors after 30-plus years on the regional AV landscape, primarily as the local face of AMX. No one could doubt avt’s commitment to AMX over the years, where it punched above its weight worldwide thanks to some outstanding backup and brand advocacy.

Things changed markedly when Harman purchased AMX and shook up the distribution mix. From avt: “We have enjoyed shaping this industry and have always been a passionate participant, wanting to add value and provide our region with leading technology.”

PAVT has parted company with ClearOne after a 28-year relationship, ending its distribution arrangement for the Australian and New Zealand territories. PAVT’s press release said: “We enjoyed market dominance, the ability to lead an industry in both technology and its application, and were privileged to work with world-leading institutions and facilities.

Increasingly we feel our territory’s needs and ClearOne’s direction are diverging, and that our energy and resources would better service our market if deployed elsewhere.”

PAVT: (03) 9264 8000 or pavt.com.au Michael Lasa departs Soundcorp. Mike and the Rutledges sold their shares to Diversified (US) last year and, after 29 years, Mike has decided to ‘ring the bell’ and exit the business.

“During my time with both Rutledge AV and Soundcorp I have worked on some amazing projects both locally and overseas and have had the pleasure of working with some of the best, most talented people in our industry.

Throughout this journey I’ve made some lifelong friendships, created some great memories and experiences, travelled the world many times over, all whilst having fun along the way.” The day to day operations in the Soundcorp office is being handled by Kylie James.

Soundcorp: www.soundcorp.com.au

What with Hills dissolving its AV business and Biamp buying up Community, it comes as no surprise that Community Loudspeakers has found a home in the Jands fold. Fellow Biamp stablemate, Apart Audio, also joins the distribution portfolio. Community has had some interesting wins over recent years and will be an interesting complement to the Jands line that already includes ElectroVoice. “We’re proud to be chosen to represent Biamp’s full line of products in Australia and New Zealand,” said Geoff Smith, GM at Jands Distribution.

“We are now able to offer customers in the region our full product portfolio from a single distributor — including Apart retail and hospitality loudspeakers, Community large venue loudspeakers, and Cambridge Sound Management solutions,” said Biamp boss, Rashid Skaf.

Jands: (02) 9582 0909 or www.jands.com.au MadisonAV adds Philips Professional Display Panels to its portfolio of world leading brands. Madison will be offering an array of Professional Display Solutions by Philips including Commercial Display Panels, Video Wall and interactive Touch Panels and High Brightness and Special Application Panels.

Meanwhile, Westan continues to distribute Philips Signage displays and exclusively distributes Hospitality TVs in Australia and New Zealand.

MadisonAV: 1800 436 378 or at connect@ madisonav.com.au Alloys and ViewSonic have formed a strategic business partnership. The new agreement reflects ViewSonic’s confidence in its ViewBoard interactive flat panel products — engaging a specialised distributor such as Alloys to assist in selling into the channel, especially the education sector, where Alloys has a proven track record. Alloys has offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide; each office has a showroom, sales and logistic operations as well as warehousing. Craig Scott, CTO of ViewSonic and president of ViewSonic EME/ANZ: “Whether at work or in the classroom, myViewBoard was conceived to work in tandem with world-class solutions; and make collaboration and sharing more dynamic and seamless across different platforms.”

Alloys: www.alloys.com.au

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FEATURE

It’s All ’G A huge d&b bowl PA leads a A$25m audio & EWIS upgrade at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Text:/ Christopher Holder

T

he Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC) has spent A$25m on a new audio system and there’s no direct return on investment.

The Melbourne Cricket Club, which managers the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), puts the fans first, and a large capital investment such as this is all about the fan experience — the key tenants, broadcasters and the advertisers are all given consideration, but ultimately the MCC is in the business of being crowd pleasers.

The audio and EWIS upgrade encompasses the bowl PA as well the vast areas within the stands — the concourses, bars and entry/exit points. In all, some 3500+ loudspeakers were installed.

RESULTS NOT NUMBERS

Running point on the audio upgrade was the MCC’s General Manager of IT & Innovation, Rey Sumaru. After an exhaustive submission and interview process, the MCC selected Auditoria as its audio consultant, while Rutledge AV, A Diversified Company won the job to install and integrate the technology. In

fact, Rutledge AV was the head contractor on the job, subcontracting all the electrical, building and mechanical HVAC work.

Right from the first meeting, Auditoria — headed by Scott Willsallen — became aware that this was no ordinary upgrade. The directive, from the MCC board down, was for the audio to help provide the fans with an exceptional game day experience. This was to be far more than simply reaching a desired SPL or acceptable STI figure, this upgrade was about connecting fans with the on-field excitement and drama.

“Those early discussions were about how engaging, how interesting and how exciting we could make the entire journey of the fans’ day,” recalls Auditoria’s Scott Willsallen.

“And using that as an overarching philosophy to every decision. This wasn’t empty PR-speak, it was a consistent theme in every meeting, and at every decision point through the project.”

SMART STADIUM STRATEGY

Fan engagement and fan experience has led the MCC’s Smart Stadium strategy for some seven years now. The push was precipitated by the urgent need to address the fans’ desire to stay connected. High-density wi-fi was quickly rolled out. LED was then the main focus — firstly the LED ribbons around the ground and then the huge (326sqm apiece) Daktronics

vision boards. Some 2000 IPTV displays were also part of the mix.

The audio upgrade leads Phase 2 of the technology push. MCC’s Rey Sumaru explains: “The fan feedback made it clear to us that the 10-year-old sound system didn’t meet expectations — it was too loud in certain places or you couldn’t hear it in other places.

“We had three options: a hybrid solution, where we could attempt to fix and improve the current systems; to only replace the loudspeakers in the seating bowl; or to upgrade the whole stadium’s audio.

“Our recommendation was for a totally new, custom-designed solution.”

THE CONTENDERS

Auditoria quickly got to work modelling various PAs in the bowl. Scott Willsallen picks up the story: “The message to us was clear: ‘we want this to be the best it can possibly be. Don't let anything interfere with the early design process. If we get to a point where we have a design for the absolute best but the best

FEATURE

is beyond the capacity of the structure of the roof or beyond the budget, then we’ll come back from that point if necessary. But the goal here is to design something that is as good as it can possibly be within the constraints of the building architecture.’”

The Auditoria design for the bowl PA was whittled from some 10 or 12 possibilities down to two, with consideration not only given to weight, cabling requirements, output and coverage, but to manufacturer and regional distributor support.

After a tender process, d&b audiotechnik won the day via its Australian distributor, NAS, based on a V- and Y-Series bowl PA design.

STRAIGHT OUT OF THE GATE

The headline is no doubt the massive d&b V- and Y-Series bowl PA and the equally massive undertaking it was to get the arrays into position. But what makes this MCG story more than a ‘big PA in a big stadium’ is the thought, care and investment that has gone into the entire fan experience; an experience

that starts the moment fans enter the giant sports coliseum’s orbit.

As Auditoria’s Scott Willsallen and senior consultant Luis Miranda spent time with the MCC project team, they developed a strong sense of how great audio could assist in helping fans get to their seats and navigate ticketing and security. An understanding of the fans’ journey led to Auditoria designing two entry systems and one exit system.

The first is a longer-throw system above the entry gates. From about 60m away, the PA begins to help direct fans to the right gate.

As you approach the gate a row of 12 or 16 (depending on the gate) d&b 5S loudspeakers provide less frequent and more specific messaging (‘have your ticket out’, ‘have your bags ready for inspection’ etc).

After the game is over an entirely separate set of loudspeakers takes care of exit messaging.

As Scott Willsallen puts it: “If you’re entering, then those systems are the ones that are pointing at your face. As you exit, a completely different set of loudspeakers point at your face.” As you exit there will be some 12 or 16 d&b 5S surfacemount loudspeakers pointing at your face, assisting with public transport info and more.

These are high-quality, high-performance, relatively high-cost public announcement loudspeakers and go some way to exemplifying

025

the customer-focussed approach to this upgrade.

“It’s about intelligibility and listener comfort,” notes Scott Willsallen. “Plus it provides more options down the track if the MCC decides to use those loudspeakers for entertainment content — the system is up to the task.”

The other hero of the messaging and wayfinding PA systems is Q-SYS. Few will be surprised to hear that Q-SYS was given the job of routing digital audio to and fro around the stadium but it also distinguished itself in many of its control roles. In this case, the matrix of matching the right recorded message to the right zone on the correct game day was deceptively complex but Rutledge AV provided the MCC with a deceptively easy Q-SYS-based control interface to ensure smooth sailing. The entry/ exit systems also allow messages to be recorded and played on the fly, if necessary, along with the ability for MCC spruikers to wander with a Shure wireless mic and take over the messaging.

“Rutledge did a great job building that control interface,” notes Scott Willsallen. “It’s super easy to use and all done in Q-SYS.” FEEDING THE BOWL

Once through the turnstiles you’re part of the game day experience and the focus of all the fan-facing technology is about engagement and entertainment. Leading the charge is the prodigious d&b bowl PA. The line source bowl PA comprises 72 hangs. Each hang comprises various combinations of V- and Y-Series elements, and V Subs. Each loudspeaker element is addressed by a d&b amplifier.

Designing a system for optimal coverage is one thing; designing it to reside in the roof

026

FEATURE

Great Southern Stand (15 arrays themselves comprising): 2 arrays of 6× d&b Y-Series array elements 8 arrays of 8× d&b V-Series array elements 13 arrays of 8× d&b Y-Series array elements 15 arrays of 3× d&b V-Series subs

Northern Stand (15 arrays themselves comprising): 2 arrays of 6× d&b Y-Series array elements 7 arrays of 8× d&b V-Series array elements 12 arrays of 10× d&b Y-Series array elements 13 arrays of 3× d&b V-Series subs The V arrays cover the lower levels of the bowl and the Y arrays cover the upper levels of the bowl. Generally, there is a Y array every two bays and a V array every fourth bay.

This makes the V and Y arrays coincide in a long line.

There is a sub array paired to (almost) every line array.

structure of an existing grandstand is another entirely.

The MCG comprises two main grandstands (north and south), each an entirely different structure.

It was Rutledge AV’s task to attach the PA to the roof. The design went through a number of iterations in order to keep weight down, as well a refinement of the approach to allow Rutledge AV and its specialist sub-contractors time to install the PA between the venue’s existing event schedule, and in a way that had minimal impact on the hallowed turf. Able Engineering took care of the specialist fabrication work, ITE Engineering was engaged for its hoist and fly gear experience, and Vertigo provided the specialist high-altitude rigging expertise.

The frames and arrays were fabricated and assembled off site. Each array was then transported onto the ground and raised to a higher stand level whereupon Vertigo took care of the final stage of winching it into place. At this stage Rutledge AV, headed by project director Matt Edgcumbe and project manager Daniel Woodward, could only look on with all fingers and toes crossed.

“The beauty of the preliminary meetings and refining the approach,” recalls Matt Edgcumbe, “was we went from embarking on a task of almost insurmountable difficulty, to something that may not have been ‘routine’, necessarily, but at least was highly manageable. The guys we were working with were excellent. They were all willing to make it work.”

“The aesthetics of the array are worth noting,” observes Rey Sumaru. “We didn’t want something that looked like a bolt-on. The arrays blend in with the stadium architecture.”

“In the case of the Northern Stand, the shape of each frame was different because of the arc of the roof,” observes Scott Willsallen. “We had the architectural drawings validated with a survey but you only have to be out by a degree

or two to really notice it when you’re throwing 45m to the first row of the seating. Thankfully, the installation matched the drawings and then, switching it on, the reality matched the plan, which was a very pleasing outcome.”

EVEN COVERAGE

Audio priority number one was even coverage — every seat in the house needed to be the best seat in the house. The d&b range is engineered to assist system designers in this regard. d&b V-Series takes care of the long throw of the arrays and Y-Series the shorter throw requirements for the upper bowl.

“Electronically, the gain difference between the two is minimal because the V Series is a more efficient loudspeaker,” explains Scott Willsallen.

“So we use the more efficient box for the longer throw. The same philosophy applies to the under balcony systems, where we run d&b E8s and the xS-Series 5S loudspeakers and subs. The whole system balances. Select the right product in terms of sensitivity and coverage, and the system as a whole isn’t choked by one poorly chosen product.”

This is an important factor when designing a huge PA ecosystem. If all the loudspeaker components of the stadium system are correctly selected, positioned and commissioned then no single enclosure or amplifier will red line before another. Turning up the MCG PA is a like pushing the stick on an A380 rather than co-ordinating a flying sculpture of 3500 drones.

UNDER BALCONY

With an official capacity of 100,024, the Melbourne Cricket Ground stands at number 10 on the global list of stadium heavyweights.

Both the Northern and Southern MCG stands have vast under balcony areas, shadowed from the main PA. Previously, the under balcony areas were under-serviced, while the new design would ensure the 10s of thousands of under-balcony fans would enjoy uncompromised sound.

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ROAR OF THE CROWD It’s always been a paradox: some of the most expensive seats in a stadium are often the most disconnected from the atmosphere of the game.

Sure, the catering might be amazing but often the atmosphere in corporate suites and function rooms is sterile.

A new feature of the MCG audio upgrade sees crowd atmosphere being fed back into the bars via the loudspeaker systems. Stadia may be one of Auditoria’s strong suits but so are large-scale opening and closing ceremonies, which require sophisticated ambience microphone setups for broadcast sound. So Scott Willsallen was keen to take the quality of the piped crowd noise up a few notches.

Scott Willsallen: “It would have been very easy to stick an SM58 mic on the catwalk and go with that. But we also thought this would be a good opportunity for us to provide the broadcaster with a more interesting crowd sound. We located 20 microphones around the stadium. These are mid-side, dual-element shotgun mics, which allow us to blend how much mid versus how much side we want on a mic-by-mic basis. This means you can fine tune your crowd mic sound depending on the size of the event, and create presets based around how the audience is dispersed and how full the bowl is. Those presets create a stereo mix that’s distributed to all of the media areas. What’s more, it appears as a fader on the touchscreens in all of the bars and function rooms so they can choose to have that audience feed or not.”

FEATURE

“You shouldn’t be disadvantaged if you’re two rows further forward as opposed to two rows behind,” said to Scott Willsallen. “A lot of effort went into delivering the same kind of energy — sound pressure level, bandwidth and excitement — in those under-balcony areas.”

Each of the 58 under-balcony bays packs a hefty PA punch: a cardioid sub, four d&b E8 eight-inch two-ways and four d&b 5S five-inch two-way loudspeakers. As you walk from the field of play and as soon as you can’t see a V Series array speaker you’re on axis of the primary coverage of the d&b xS-Series 5S coaxial loudspeakers. Move a little further up the bowl and you will covered by a pair of E8s and a cardioid sub. Another four or five rows back and the last row of E8s takes over, which continue to provide coverage up into the standing room areas.

TAMING THE ACOUSTICS

Stadia are almost by definition, acoustically hostile. They are huge concrete edifices with an endless array of reflective surfaces only ameliorated somewhat by the soft, squidgy human occupants come game day. Stick a roof on and things only get worse.

Any attempt to soften the acoustics of a stadium feels futile. Acoustic treatment might be routinely applied to other performance venues where you pump sound reinforcement, but a stadium is seen as a lost cause.

Not so the MCG, which installed an extraordinary amount of sound absorbing acoustic material — 3000sqm, in fact.

There are two main areas benefitting from the Megasorber acoustic treatment: in the under balcony seating which is now covered by so much more PA; and the vast atrium areas at the top of the Northern Stand, home to bars, concession stands and other cacophonous public areas.

“I don’t think we’ve ever previously been given the chance to specify acoustic panelling in a stadium,” notes Auditoria senior consultant, Luis Miranda. “The reason for that is the cost, as well as durability concerns in the weather, and the panels’ ability to absorb broadband noise.”

Luis had experience working with the Australian-made Megasorber product in industrial applications where it proved to be hard wearing.

The fact that Megasorber produces a 100mmthick panel was also a big drawcard: “It’s twice as thick as most other panels and means we get a fuller-frequency attenuation,” notes Luis Miranda.

The Rutledge AV team installed the acoustic panels by gluing it to the ceiling of the atria and around the under balcony areas. The results have been remarkable, taming the reverb time of the atria from 3.5s down to 2.5s. The Megasorber panels have also helped to restrict the extra energy going into the under-balcony areas from leaking back out, maintaining a higher intelligibility for those in the coverage of the main arrays.

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“The difference is quite amazing,” observes Rutledge AV’s Daniel Woodward. “If you walk between Level 1 of the Northern Stand and Level 1 of Southern Stand [without the acoustic treatment], you can instantly hear the difference.

The background noise is so much more controlled in the North. It’s made a huge difference.”

CONVERGED NETWORK

The MCG is committed to running all its AV and IT traffic on one converged network: everything from the IPTV, the corporate networks, the wi-fi, the LED ribbon boards and now the PA digital audio distribution run on the one converged IP network.

Q-SYS is renowned for playing nicely on the network which was a big selling point for the MCG. “With Q-SYS on our network we can integrate it into our building management system, which is now integrated to the EWIS,” said Rey Sumaru.

“From an operational perspective — ease of operation, ease of management and maintenance — it’s been a huge improvement. We’ve got visibility of the whole network.”

Rutledge AV has had the AV maintenance contract for the MCG for some time now and getting the audio and EWIS on the network has been a huge boon for its on-site team.

“We didn’t have monitoring of the old EWIS,” explains Daniel Woodward. “We relied on a monthly test to determine if a zone wasn’t working, and a yearly test of every speaker. Now it’s all completely monitored.”

“EWIS compliance was a key reason for using Q-SYS,” concurs Matt Edgcumbe. “We had to demonstrate to the building surveyor that we are using EWIS-compliant components throughout the whole stadium.”

Rutledge AV has designed the signal transport network to be dual redundant, with two Q-SYS Cores each running AES digital audio and an analogue audio backup to the amplifiers. The venue is broken up into VLANs — main bowl, bars, function rooms, production suite, EWIS etc — each with their own pair of Q-SYS Cores.

PRODUCTION CAPABILITY

The MCG’s game-day production capabilities have been beefed up considerably. At its heart is a new Digico SD9 mixing console (with dual redundant 4REA4 mix engines) stationed in the MCG’s System Control Room. The MCC’s AV & Broadcast Lead, Tim Phypers, and his team now have access to more audio sources and inputs around the ground that can feed back into the system. And with the new console’s companion

FEATURE

Waves Soundgrid plug-in platform, the team has all the processing power it needs.

The MCC has also invested in sufficient gear to cater to most live production challenges, such as live bands and events. The longer-term savings from owning, rather than hiring, the gear will quickly repay the initial investment.

The armoury now includes high-spec Shure Axient wireless equipment and the Shure Frequency Manager.

The results Tim Phypers and his team are now achieving are like night and day: “No matter where you’re sitting, you’re getting the highest possible audio,” Tim notes.

The difference isn’t limited to the attention of AV techs and audio boffins. Opera singer, Greta Bradman (The Don’s granddaughter), sang the national anthem on day one of the 2019 Boxing Day Test in front of some 80,000 fans. It was a stunning performance, but the positive response wasn’t limited to those listening in the stands.

“The feedback we received from Greta was really gratifying,” said Rey Sumaru. “She really noticed the change in the sound quality – there wasn’t any disconcerting echo on the field of play and she said she felt very comfortable with the system, which was reflected in her amazing performance.”

ICONIC STADIUM

The Melbourne Cricket Club is more than a stadium manager. The club is the custodian of Australia’s home of sport and takes its responsibility to improve and enhance the icon very seriously. But as a venue, at the end of the day a key element to the MCG’s success is hosting events and attracting audiences.

“One of the biggest challenge stadiums have these days is getting fans out of their living rooms and sports bars,” reflects Rey Sumaru. Melbourne can be wet and miserable in football season and oppressively hot in cricket season, so it’s our job to provide an experience that encourages fans to return — to provide an atmosphere they can’t get anywhere else. That’s a key reason for the investment.

“In addition, we want to be known as one of the most iconic stadiums in the world, not just because of our size, but because of what we do – the experiences that we deliver. We want to be at the forefront, so we can’t afford to rest on our laurels. This extensive upgrade to the stadium’s audio system it at the heart of that desire. We are leading the way and investing in new technology to ensure that all visitors to the MCG have an incredible experience, no matter where they sit!” 

KEY PERSONNEL Rey Sumaru, MCC General Manager IT & Innovation: “This is not a project where they deliver it and walk away. The association and the relationships go a long way past the project.

We’ve valued the passion and support of our key partners — it’s been very evident in this project.

Nothing has been too difficult.”

Scott Willsallen, Auditoria: “It’s a credit to Dan Woodward and the Rutledge AV team for the way they managed such a massive project within an operating environment, with no impact on daily operations. This project touched every area of the building and at no point was any part of the stadium without audio facilities. A remarkable effort.”

Melbourne Cricket Club General Manager IT & Innovation: Rey Sumaru Project Manager: Susi Schroeder AV & Broadcast Lead: Timothy Phypers Rutledge AV, A Diversified Company Project Manager: Dan Woodward Project Director: Matt Edgcumbe Project Coordinator: Susanna Salmi Project Assistant: Tegan Collier Site Supervisor: Tim Lesich Design Engineers: Paul Jamieson, Menaka Gunawardana CAD: Mehak Bansal, Jarryd Edgcumbe Field Engineers: Victor Laubscher, Jesse Widgery Network Engineer: Alex Bollom Auditoria Principal: Scott Willsallen Senior Consultant: Luis Miranda Case Meallin Project Manager: Emma Pearce ITE Project Manager: Frank Agosta Engineers: Martin Clenick, Frank Hall Supervisor: Andrew Agosta Vertigo: Project Manager: Daniel Hutchinson Supervisor: James Kiely Able Industries: Project Manager: Michael Martyn Engineer: Andrew Briggs

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FEATURE

Cutting Edge: Designing UTS Central The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) has a new city campus hub.

We take a look behind the glass with an insider who helped create the advanced AV systems.

Text:/ Derek Powell

T

he start of the 2020 Academic Year has seen the full inauguration of UTS Central, a sparkling 17-storey glass tower that is the final jewel in the University of Technology Sydney city campus masterplan.

The 10-year building program included the adjacent Science Building; the Engineering & IT building next door; and the iconic Frank Geary-designed Dr Chau Chak Wing building (fondly referred to as the ‘crumpled paper bag’).

Over the years, we have reported on each of these projects, not so much for their striking architecture but because of the benchmark audiovisual installations that have brought to life their innovative teaching and learning spaces. This project gives the opportunity to dive a little more deeply into this capstone project as your reporter was lucky enough to be involved from the beginning as a consultant to the project team*.

Looking back to 2016, coming into the project as AV Consultant was a daunting prospect. With site works already underway, the clock was ticking and there was a great deal for AVDEC to do in documenting exactly how the technology in the flagship teaching spaces would operate.

Fortunately, we had the priceless advantage of working directly with the UTS audiovisual department through Senior AV project manager Rob Hardy. For much of its history, the university has been a leader in applying audiovisual technology to education. Under the leadership of the legendary Reg Collins (who, prior to his retirement, clocked up an incredible 32 years as AV manager) UTS had built a strong and forward-thinking audiovisual team.

They brought a clear understanding of the University’s teaching and learning strategies, along with a well-developed suite of standard

templates which could be used as building blocks in the design.

However, on the other hand, the scope of the project was quite phenomenal. Within the 17 stories were contained not just classrooms, meeting rooms, and study spaces of every size but a dazzlingly complex Superlab with a quite radical layout and three multi-zone collaborative classrooms on a scale never before attempted.

WORKING BEE: THE HIVE SUPERLAB

Although it is probably the most complicated kind of teaching space yet devised, the concept of a Superlab is now fairly well understood. The idea is to allow multiple classes to operate in the same space – without disturbing each other.

UTS already had an operational Superlab but this new-design lab – christened ‘The Hive’ – was radically different as we

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discovered at our first project meeting. First, it was to be constructed to the challenging ‘P2’ laboratory standard which meant every piece of infrastructure had to be sealed within the lab’s outer ‘bubble’ to prevent release of any chemicals or other material outside the lab. Secondly, the floorplan was extremely complex, reflecting a desire to keep science labs evolving and more interesting for today’s students.

SEE HEAR

The existing superlab design placed a monitor at the end of each aisle between the linear benches and also relayed visuals from the demonstrator’s bench to all-in-one PCs in front of each student. That made it easy for the students to view the teaching materials but the bulky PC screens hid the students from view, making it hard for the tutors to see how they were progressing on their experiments.

The new design changed all that.

Students are now to operate at hexagonal pods, all within sight of the demonstrator’s station. To keep those sightlines clear it was decided to ditch the previous PCs and equip students with compact and low-profile Microsoft Surface Pro tablets. Students could now move freely between the tables and resource benches taking the Surface Pros with them. But they still needed to be able to view visuals from the demonstrator – and given a low ceiling, there was no space for a large central screen.

The solution was twofold. Surrounding each group of tables, four or five NEC 65inch monitors were set into angled overhead *Disclosure: While working with Sydney AV Consulting firm AVDEC, the author was the Lead Audiovisual Consultant during the Design and Documentation phases of the UTS Central project.

TEAM DETAILS Architects: FJMT AV Consultants: AVDEC Pty Ltd Derek Powell and Peter Blackmore UTS AV Project Manager: Rob Hardy UTS AV Designer: Raife Merchant

UTS AV Commissioning Technician: Karin Senf AV Integrator: Concept AV

034

bulkheads, strategically located to provide a clear view to every table in the irregularly-shaped space, while, simultaneously, the same visuals were relayed wirelessly to each tablet.

Every student also needs to be able to hear the voice of the demonstrator who leads their particular class group. The existing superlab uses a multi-channel wireless system based on pre-tuned Williams Sound receivers and headphones for each student. This provided excellent sound but isolated the students from what was happening around them. The academic staff had this request: could we retain the individual receivers without using headsets?

After much head-scratching UTS project manager Rob Hardy proposed an innovative solution. As an avid motor bike rider, he had already experienced bone-conduction headsets which have special transducers worn in contact with the skull, rather than over the ears. These ‘bone-phones’, connected to each 2.4GHz Williams receiver, proved an ideal solution. The demonstrator’s voice is clearly audible in each student’s head but they can still hear conversations around them as the headsets no longer cover their ears.

KEEPING CONTROL

The seven zones within the Hive are colour coded with the benches and the floors finished in easily recognisable hues, making it easy for students to find their allocated zone. To make starting each class simple, we equipped each hexagonal table with a central bollard light controlled by the Crestron system. The light changes colour when zones are active and indicates when students

FEATURE

should put on their headsets.

Each zone has a demonstrator’s station, allowing the academic to lead a class. Each station has control of its own group of up to 36 students, but can also, using the Crestron X-panel control system, take control of any number of other zones – allowing for a single class of 250; or for two, three or up to seven different groups to operate at once.

The control screen is colour coded and laid out as a map of the space allowing easy selection of zones.

Each demonstrator station is identical, based around a Crestron DMPS-3-4K-200C presentation switcher. The sources include a Wolf Vision camera that can be angled to give a closeup view of experiments; a microscope; a PC; and a laptop input. An AirMedia wireless presenter gives the ability for a demonstrator to roam freely with a wi-fi tablet or laptop and work from anywhere in the room. One output from the switcher feeds an encoder that pushes the content out on the wireless network to the Surface Pros, while the DM output connects to a central Crestron DM switcher (configured as an 8x32 matrix) which feeds all 32 of the overhead monitors and allows any demonstrator station to transmit to any or all of the zones.

To simplify the number of cables that needed to travel outside the protected ‘P2’ lab environment, the demonstrator’s microphones were all Shure MXW wireless systems. That allowed the individual receiver outputs to be distributed to the BSS central DSP as Dante streams across a single network connection. After processing and routing in the BSS unit, Dante streams are returned to each demonstrator station where the audio is converted

At left is one of the red zone hexagonal student tables with the red zone demonstrator station behind. At the right, above the Orange zone resource bench, is one of the 32 x 65-inch Monitors that relay images from the demonstrators to their student group.

Photo: Andy Roberts

back to analogue and input into the Williams Sound transmitters for relay to the headsets.

BENCHMARK COLLABORATION

Under the leadership of Vice Chancellor Professor Attila Brungs and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education and Students) Professor Shirley Alexander, UTS has abandoned lecture theatres and didactic teaching (the so-called ‘sage on the stage’) and embraced collaborative learning techniques in all its new classrooms. These active learning methods produce great student outcomes but due to their complexity and the need to operate in several different modes, these spaces have been limited to smaller class sizes – typically under 100.

For the UTS Central project, Professor Alexander set the design team a monumental challenge – to create not just a large, 200-seat collaborative classroom but also a truly enormous 350-seat space. This had never been attempted in Australia and the challenges were many.

The key to collaborative teaching and learning is, of course, that the students must be able to work in groups (generally of up to eight) but recognising this is usually for just part of a session.

Typically, an academic will start each class by addressing the whole group to set the context for the work that is to follow and to assign the tasks

036

Caption: Inside the largest collaborative classroom in the country. Ten projection screens and six 80-inch monitors ensure every one of the 350 students has a clear view of the material under discussion.

Photo: Andy Roberts

to be completed in group work. In this mode, all students must be able to hear the class leader and see the learning materials being presented. The class then splits into smaller cohorts, consisting of a number of eight-person groups, with each cohort led by a tutor. In this mode, each cohort must have access to large-screen displays to enable the tutor to direct their work. Periodically, the whole class will re-form to hear from the academic again and individual groups will also be called upon to report back their progress to the whole class. In this third mode, the technology in the room must allow individuals from each group to be seen and heard by all and have the opportunity to present their own work on-screen.

This was quite a challenge, but fortunately for us, the architectural team devised an excellent floorplan. Their split-level design was wide, but not too deep, allowing dual-projection main screens that met the AETM viewing specifications across most of the room and to all seats when supported by relay screens. In addition, based around tables of eight, the room could be split naturally into two, four or eight cohorts with enough space for side and rear screens to support all cohorts with dual projection.

The final display complement is 16 screens in all. That allows dual-source projection when the academic is in charge but also allows each of the eight cohorts access to two screens in Group mode.

Four Panasonic PT-RZ-970 projectors provide a focus to the front of the room (projecting to Screen Technics 200-inch ElectriCinema screens)

FEATURE

with a further six Panasonic PT-RZ-770 projectors used in group mode with 130-inch screens along the side walls. Six NEC 80-inch monitors act as relay screens to fill in where sightlines to the front screens are not ideal.

LECTERN & ROOM SPLIT

The academic can operate from either of two positions, configured as standard UTS lecterns.

These are designed to be in operation for teaching to the entire space and for selecting and enabling the various collaborative and report-back modes.

Each position has a PC, laptop input, document camera and AirMedia – all switched by a dualoutput Crestron Presentation Switcher.

When the room splits into cohorts, these main lecterns are supported by smaller group stations located at each cohort for tutors to use. Via the tutor stations, any group is able to report-back by either plugging into the station directly or by utilising the AirMedia wireless presenter and wireless microphone available for each cohort.

From the main lectern, the academic can direct one of the four PTZ cameras to zero-in on a presenter located anywhere in the room, allowing them to be heard and seen on one screen while simultaneously displaying material from their laptop on another.

Distribution and switching is all Crestron DM, requiring just one 32x32 DM matrix switcher to handle all teaching station and camera inputs and all the display outputs. It also switches a host of auxiliary inputs and outputs to various floor boxes. The floor boxes can be used with portable lecterns and as operator positions to allow a wide range of events to be staged – making these large spaces truly multi-purpose.

Audio is again handled by a BSS DSP with

350 SEAT COLLABORATIVE CLASSROOM (TYPICAL OF 2 SPACES) Central Rack Matrix Switcher: Crestron DM-MD32x32, (28 DM; 4× SDI in; 32 DM Out) DSP: BSS BLU 806 (Dante) with 3× BOB 2 Control: Crestron CP 3 Lecterns (2 Sets) Presentation Switcher: Crestron DMPS-3-4k300C (Lecterns) Touch Control: Crestron X-Panel on HP Elite E230t Document Camera: Elmo PX10 Wireless Presenter: Crestron AirMedia Radio Mic: Sennheiser Speechline HH/Lapel TX and DMW-3 RX Fixed Mic: Shure MX 418 Dante Interface: Sennheiser SL DI 4 XLR Tutor Stations and (8 sets) Presentation Switcher: Crestron DMPS-3-4k100C Touch Control: Crestron MPC3-201-B Wireless Presenter: Crestron AirMedia Radio Mic: Sennheiser Speechline HH/ DMW-3 RX Fixed Mic: Shure MX 418 Dante Interface: Extron AXI44 AT Display Systems Projectors: Panasonic PT RZ970 (4 off) / PT RZ770 (6 off) Monitors: NEC-E805 (6 off) Sound System Power Amplifiers: Lab Gruppen E series Program Speakers: 4× JBL CBT70J-1/CBT ASB112 Overhead Speakers: 32× JBL Control 24CT

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D

E 65"

F

65"

65"

65"

C

B

G

A four full-range JBL CB70J-1 speakers (with bass extension modules) providing top-notch program audio and a multi-zone, distributed array of Tannoy ceiling speakers for voice reinforcement.

SHOWCASE SPACES

There’s much more to UTS Central than we have room to tell, including a flexible presentation area with an LED wall display; 64- and 48-seat collaborative classrooms; fully-configurable media labs with video walls and multi-dimensional surround sound and more.

Just as important is the Blake Library which takes up three floors of the building. A particular highlight is the UTS Reading Room, with its soaring atrium reminiscent of other great scholarly libraries of the world. The library also administers the more than two dozen AV-equipped group study spaces which are available for students to book 24/7. Those study rooms, both here and in other buildings, are key to encouraging students to stay on campus between classes, and those in UTS Central are well used.

After a four-year construction and fitout, only one question remained: how will all the technology be accepted? Rob Hardy remembers being in the building for the official opening. “Straight after the welcoming ceremony out on the Alumni Green they opened the doors,” he recalled. “It’s was like a flood of water. Students went into every nook and crevice. They went straight into those [AVequipped group study] rooms and those spaces have been booked solid ever since.” We couldn’t ask for a better start.  You can find our earlier UTS story in AV Asia Pacific No. 52 or online at www.avapac.net/lab-test

THE HIVE SUPERLAB Central Rack Matrix Switcher: Crestron DM-MD32x32, (8 DM in; 32 DM Out) DSP: BSS BLU 806 (Dante) Control: Crestron CP 3

DEMONSTRATOR STATIONS (7 SETS) Presentation Switcher: Crestron DMPS-3-4k-200C Touch Control: Crestron X-Panel on Academic’s PC Camera: WolfVision EYE-14 Wireless Presenter: Crestron AirMedia Radio Mic: Shure MXW1 Bodypack/ WL-185, Shure MXW2/Beta 58 Hand Held Transmitter: Williams Sound DLT-300/DWD-102 Dock Dante Interface: Extron AXI44 AT Encoder: Matrox Maevex 6150

STUDENT TABLES (42 SETS OF 6) Receiver: Williams Sound DLR-360 Digiwave RX Headset: Aftershokz Sportz Titanium PC: Microsoft Surface Pro Overhead Monitors (32): NEC- V654Q

In the 250 seat Hive Superlab (see floor plan and image above), each of the seven zones is delineated by colour. Up to seven classes can run at once, with each student zone receiving audio via a dedicated wireless channel that utilises unique bone conduction headsets.

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FEATURE

The Coliseum is the Cutting Edge Immersive audio has just made the jump from the page to the stage. The brand new Sydney Coliseum Theatre has installed the first L-Acoustics L-ISA system in the southern hemisphere.

Text:/ Derek Powell

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FEATURE

T

he opening of the Sydney Coliseum Theatre in December last year is a landmark event for lots of reasons. The new venue at Rooty Hill in Sydney’s West has a suite of capabilities unmatched by any other in the country and will soon be in demand not just for concerts, theatre and dance but also for all kinds of conventions and events. It has brought together technologies we have all been vaguely aware of and suddenly made them real and accessible to all kinds of users. For AV professionals this is a case study in leading with new technology and we all need to learn from it and about it.

The biggest ticket item and the one of most interest to us here is undoubtedly the sound system, the first permanent installation of the L-Acoustics L-ISA (pronounced ‘el-lisa’ by the way). There are other systems in this new venue that also deserve our attention but we’ll get to them a little later.

L-ISA produces an audio experience that goes beyond stereo providing a sensation of real immersion in the musical experience. L-Acoustics refers to it as “hyper-real” which sounds like meaningless marketing-speak – until you hear it for yourself. The best way to describe the sound is to say that it produces the same experience as being in the ‘sweet spot’ of a top flight 5.1 sound system, without having to sit bang in the centre of the speakers. It doesn’t matter if you are seated way over on the left aisle or far to the right – or at front of the stalls or that back of the balcony you will still hear a rock-solid audio soundstage laid out in front of you, with each instrument or performer seeming to come from the exact spot that they are located on stage.

I know this all sounds unlikely, but at the technical preview of the Coliseum Theatre (hosted

by L-Acoustics distributor Jands) I had the unique opportunity of actually getting up during the demo and walking right around the audience area. And they’re right - from side to side, front to back the sense of an audio image laid out on the stage is fabulously realistic. During the demo, Scott Harrison (Jands’ application engineer for the L-Acoustic range) switched back and forth between stereo and immersive to show the difference between L-ISA processing and what could be achieved by the same speakers in stereo mode.

“In the Sydney Coliseum 90 percent of the audience is in that sweet spot,” he pointed out.

“And if we compare that to a stereo system in this venue, less than 20 percent of the audience is in the sweet spot. So we’ve expanded the experience from the three or four seats right up the centre, to almost the entire audience that can receive the full experience of the mix and the full panorama across the stage.”

Perhaps the most surprising thing is that this effect comes with a lot less hardware than you might expect. There are five hangs of L-Acoustics Kara line arrays across the top of the proscenium, along with two clusters of sub-woofers. That’s certainly more hangs that a typical left-right

system but each of the five Kara line arrays are smaller than a usual stereo array so the difference is not as much as you might imagine.

Likewise, the front-end of the system is not overly complex to install or operate. According to Scott, three things are needed – a proper analysis of the space and the resulting sound design; a proprietary processor to convert each input (or stem) from the mixer into an audio object; and a controller to place the ‘objects’ in 3D space.

DESIGN TIME

On the design side, L-Acoustics’ Soundvision software is capable of modelling complex spaces with tens of thousands of surfaces and comes with integrated tools to predict and optimise the behaviour of each line array.

“The heart of the transformation is the L-ISA processor,” according to Harrison, “you can take up to 96 input channels and make them objects by applying metadata to describe their spatial information. For each object we have a pan, a width, a distance and an elevation.”

The placement of each audio object takes the place of a simple left-right pan that you would apply in a stereo mix. The spatial control happens either on a separate laptop - or can be integrated into modern consoles or DAWs. The Coliseum’s Digico SD12 can handle everything from the board itself, though at the demo, a laptop was in use to illustrate the process more clearly.

This separation of sources is what really creates the magic - and gives a clarity to the mix that a stereo mix in an ordinary venue can’t achieve.

Sounds can’t be panned hard left or right in a venue where only twenty percent of the audience can hear the proper stereo spread. In a situation where ninety percent of the audience will hear proper separation there is much more scope.

FRICTIONLESS ENTRY The Coliseum isn’t actually a stand-alone theatre.

As part of the massive West HQ complex in Rooty Hill, entry is through the main Club entrance and via the extensive new food court. That means that theatre patrons have to sign in, as they would to any registered club.

To avoid potential delays in getting some two thousand theatre patrons quickly and legally signed in before a performance, West HQ have partnered with NEC and Cisco to implement a novel kiosk-based sign-in procedure.

Patrons place their ID (typically a driver’s licence) on the scanning pad at the kiosk. The scanner first verifies your address against the NSW Club rules to check if you live within 5km of the venue and thus would need to be a member. Then, using a built-in camera, the system scans the patrons face and cross checks with various databases (including a link with the NSW Roads and Maritime Service, the digital driver’s licence issuing authority) to verify that the person at the kiosk matches the photo ID presented. Testing of the 20 kiosks installed at West HQ by NEC prior to the official opening has seen verification and voucher-issuing times as low as nine seconds per person.

Throughout the venue, NEC LED display systems, powered by CiscoVision IPTV, speed patrons on their way by displaying menus, wayfinding, and interactive customer promotions.

Even the now ubiquitous security systems have been made faster and simpler with an intelligent metal detector at the start of the “Crystal Bridge” which gives access to the theatre building. Using ferromagnetic detection the Metrasens pillar checks for metal on each person as they pass by. But is smart enough to distinguish between harmless items like keys, phones or even artificial hips - and only issues an alert if it detects items such as guns and knives.

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LOUDSPEAKER SYSTEM: L-Acoustics Hyperreal Loudspeaker System 50 x L-Acoustics KARA modular WST line source hung in 5 rows across the proscenium 6 x L-Acoustics KS28 subwoofers - centre flown 4 x L-Acoustics X8 under balcony fill 5 x L-Acoustics X8 forestage fill FOH MIXING CONSOLE Digi-Co SD12 digital mixing console (72 Input Channels) MICROPHONE COMPLEMENT 2 x Shure Beta 52a 10 x Shure SM57 12 x Shure Beta 58A 2 x Shure SM81 2 x Shure Beta 91a drum mounts) 2 x Shure MX418C (lectern) 2 x Shure KSM 27 4 x Sennheiser e604 1 x Neumann KM184 (stereo set) 12 x Radial J48 Active DI

1 x Shure Super 55 2 x Shure Beta 57a 3 x Shure Beta 87A 4 x Shure Beta 98 (w/

2 x Shure KSM 137 1 x AKG D112

LIGHTING CONTROL Grand MA3 – Light LIGHTING BARS LONG & WINDING ROAD

There is no question that West HQ management now realise what a promotional asset L-ISA represents, but putting it in place at the beginning proved a challenge for the Coliseum’s Technical Operations manager Bicci Henderson.

Originally, a conventional sound system was specified, something that didn’t sit well with Bicci when he joined the project some 16 months before it opened.

“The importance of any new venue is to be state of the art when you open,” he stated. “I wanted to open the theatre with the best available and the original design just wasn’t what was happening in the world today.”

It was a trip to Adelaide that convinced Bicci to push for the L-Acoustics Hyperreal system in the Coliseum. The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra (in association with CineConcerts and Warner Bros) was to perform the John Williams film score live for a screening of ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’ at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre.

The orchestra had performed to Harry Potter films before but for this concert, working with production company Novatech, they chose to deploy L-ISA Hyperreal Sound. The performance was a triumph, thrilling the audience, who stayed right through to the end of the credits and

impressing the conductor and players.

“When I experienced it,” Bicci recalled, “I thought -‘that’s what I want to do!’ The difficulty was coming back and changing everyone’s perception of what an audio system is - and what it could be. I had to convince my bosses here at the Sydney Coliseum that this was worth the fight”.

History will record that Bicci’s persuasive powers won the day. “Everything had been designed and agreed on but I got to turn it around,” he added. “I am glad I pushed [because] the end result is a system that’s going to be in here and talked about for years and years, maybe decades. It’s the first one, and it’s great to be part of.”

Scott Harrison is another who is bullish for the prospects of L-ISA and the Coliseum. “I definitely think it will be a drawcard for both audiences and performers,” he commented. “A lot of the audience members may not exactly know what is going on but they’ll certainly realise that something is different - and that’s been the experience of a lot of other L-ISA shows around the world. L-ISA gives both the performers and the sound engineer a lot more scope to be creative with the mix and the ability for everybody in that audience to hear that creativity.”

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FEATURE

WHAT ABOUT AV?

This is all very well for a concert venue but will immersive ever become relevant in more typical AV situations like Conference and Convention work?

The answer is that it already has. Psychoacoustics plays a big role in audience involvement with the spoken word. Just the ability to localiSe a presenter or a panel of speakers on stage makes listening less fatiguing and more involving - a point not lost on convention organisers.

Already one influential US convention (the annual conference for Salesforce, the world’s largest client relationship management software company) has used L-ISA. In San Francisco, it was used to create unique ambience for 150,000 attendees in the Expo hall but the broader possibilities were immediately obvious.

Laurent Vaissié, CEO of L-Acoustics USA and Canada, sees corporate event production as a key application for multichannel sound and waxed lyrical in a recent press release. “L-ISA makes a lot of sense - from a plenary speaker localiSation and intelligibility standpoint [through to] creating an immersive environment or enhancing a dramatic product release with 3D sound effects,” he said.

Immersive sound systems will probably always need specialist design expertise to suit each venue but touring systems are already available in Australia and it won’t be long before our major convention centres look closely at the opportunities presented by L-ISA and its competitors. Trickle-down to smaller, more affordable systems may take a little longer but they will inevitably come, as the cost of DSP and quality amplification continues to fall.

Gerry Gavros, who as Jands’ brand manager for L-Acoustics effectively acted as midwife for the Coliseum installation, sees the Coliseum as a stepping stone for immersive sound in Australia.

“It’s going to demonstrate where mixing is going in the future,” he believes. “You’ll see a lot of sound engineers embrace this technology because they’ve become artistic mixers rather than trying to get all the material down to a left and right array. They’ll have more room to move and be more artistic with their sound. Like [the first] line arrays, it will take time to embrace and for everyone to get on board, but it will be great!” 

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FEATURE

Showroom Showcase AV is at the heart of the new Mercedes-Benz retail corporate identity. But there were challenges in taking the concept to reality in a one of a kind luxury lifestyle precinct in Brisbane.

Text:/ Derek Powell Photos:/ Jason Smith Photography

A

gleaming new landmark now graces the Brisbane riverfront at Breakfast Creek.

Created as a luxury lifestyle precinct, the anchor tenant will be LSH Auto’s state-of-the-art Mercedes-Benz new car showroom and service centre, the first in Australia to incorporate the brand’s new retail corporate identity. Behind the arresting five-storey glass façade is a retail experience like no other – “a prototype for how the world’s leading luxury car brand believes modern premium automotive retail should be experienced”.

Every aspect of the showroom, the design, layout, lighting, furnishings, and the unique audiovisual experience is closely defined in the Mercedes-Benz MAR2020 design rules. This new “market architecture” replaces the previous worldwide Auto Haus theme and is highlighted by what are known as “stage media walls”.

These are dramatic 32:9 format video displays, surrounded by floor to ceiling black glass, which form stunning, ever-changing backdrops to the vehicles on display. Faced with such an extensive audiovisual fit-out – and the need to comply closely with the specifications in MAR2020, builder John Holland called upon consultants InDesign Technologies to design and ultimately manage the complex AV installation.

DESIGN RULES OK?

Whilst the MAR2020 provisions were very detailed – much of the description was about outcomes, as this formula was to be applied to different situations and architecture all around the world.

Peter Coman, Director of InDesign Technologies takes up the story: “There were 18 volumes of documentation for the whole building. It spoke

about the technology and the AV requirements but there were very few specifics.” Indeed, there were no schematics and the only products actually specified by brand were the signage players (which had to be Scala) and special audio components for the AMG showroom – more on that later.

InDesign’s first task then became interpreting the various references throughout the documents to produce a full design specification for approval by Mercedes-Benz, Germany. A major consideration was the technology to be used in the Stage media walls which frame each new car display area. Clearly, direct view LED was a contender with its advantages of variable brightness; but an LCD videowall had a strong claim as well, with a lower capital cost and lesser heat load given the tight confines of the glass structure that housed the display. Ultimately,

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FEATURE

There are 18 projectors in the space with a huge amount of curved projection – and that’s the thing that’s very immersive, and impressive STAGE MEDIA WALLS Signage Players:

HDMI Switches: Monitors: Wireless Presenter: Speakers: Amplifiers: Videowall Mounts:

Scala software on Lenovo Thinkstation PC Lightware MMX4x2-HDMI NEC UN551VS Mersive Solstice POD Yamaha VXS3S & VXS1ML Yamaha MA2030A Chief ConnexSys 55 LVS1U-W

AMG SHOWROOM MEDIA WALL Speakers:

Amplifiers:

Bose MA-12EX & MB-210 subwoofers Bose Powermatch PM4250

BACKGROUND MUSIC SYSTEM Powered Speakers:

DSP: Distribution:

Peter created designs for both display solutions which were submitted to Germany for approval before a final decision was taken.

IDEAS AT THE WALL

Meanwhile, Peter was looking carefully at ways to manage the cost of the entire system, which encompassed four floors; multiple videowalls; interactive screens and an audio system. The workflow, as defined in the MAR2020 design rules, envisioned customer interactions where staff using portable tablets could cast specific content to any of the video display walls while chatting with clients. This might relate to model variants, accessories, colour choices and so on. Seamless integration of customer-specific illustrations onto any display was seen by Mercedes-Benz as key to an enriched, 21st century retail experience.

The question for InDesign was how best to enable ad hoc switching from any mobile device to any videowall. Ideally, sales staff should be able to do this from wherever they were, without having to access a touchpanel controller to switch sources.

Early in the development phase a conventional solution was assumed with content sources located in a central rack that were switched then distributed throughout the showroom floors over IP. However, Peter realised that a rethink on this strategy could potentially shave half a million dollars from the burgeoning budget. His distributed strategy placed a Lightware 4x2 mini switcher right at each videowall input. Inputs to the switcher were the Scala players (which provided model-specific branding images in each sales zone) and a Mersive Solstice Pod to which any of the mobile tablets could connect at will.

Soundtube IPD-CM62-BGM-WH Q-SYS Core 500i Dante (each speaker is addressable as a separate zone)

TEAM DETAILS InDesign Technologies: Peter Coman Gavin Stein Corporate Initiatives: Simon Whipps

Tony Luff Tyne Ainsley Serkan Ozcan

John Holland (Builder):

Developer: Andrew Cutter Development & Operations

Director Documentation National Enterprise Director Project Manager Installation Lead Control System Programmer John Magoffin, Services Manager, Building group LHS Property Australia General Manager Property

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This obviated the need for a centralised rack and video switching system; and a raft of AVoIP or HDBT extenders.

POLL DANCING

Cleverly, the switching could now be automated as Peter explained: “The Crestron central controller polls the switcher at each video wall input every two seconds to check if a mobile device has connected to the local Mersive receiver. With no mobile connection, the videowall will display the brand identity content from the player. Once a salesperson connects to the receiver, the polling detects the new connection and commands the switcher to send the tablet output to the display wall.”

Crucially, the salesperson does not need to access any of the Crestron control screens throughout the building; they simply connect or disconnect using their iPad screen. “The whole idea is we didn’t want touchpanels everywhere,” Peter noted. “We wanted to make it as seamless and as frictionless as possible.”

CABIN SOUND

The next question was where to place the speakers that would provide the necessary ambient sound to accompany the video on the screens. There wasn’t a lot of choice. The demanding MAR2020 spec called for floor-to-ceiling black glass with just an 80mm recessed silver kickboard at the bottom and a similar piece at the top. Speakers were

FEATURE

not allowed to be visible. Making things more difficult was the fact that many areas didn’t have a ceiling. Fortunately, the Yamaha commercial sound range has a couple of products that could be recessed into the narrow space above the glass.

The combination of its baby VXS1ML, with its minuscule 1.5-inch full-range driver and the VX3S 3.5-inch subwoofer, were just the right size to be tucked away.

Interestingly, the showroom devoted to the AMG class vehicles had quite a different look (and specification) from the ultra-smooth feel of the luxury C- and S-class product display areas. Here, the theme is raw and edgy so the videowalls were to be surrounded by a steel mesh and the audio had a lot more punch. The audio for this area was one of the few places where actual products were specified by Mercedes-Benz. Putting some bite into the AMG range video soundtracks were Bose MA12E speakers together with Bose MB-210 subs.

HITTING THE GO BUTTON

With the design work now basically complete, the construction was progressing apace. Word came back from Germany that either LED or LCD would meet the MAR2020 criteria. Ultimately, the client decided on LCD displays and from that point, the integrator, Corporate Initiatives (CI), moved into top gear. With a six-week installation deadline, things were going to be tight.

Fortunately, InDesign had contacted the major suppliers, such as Crestron, NEC, Lightware and

Yamaha and notified them of the project. “They were just waiting for the button to be pushed,” Peter noted. “So within a couple of days, CI had teams of people in there to start installing and getting it all commissioned.”

The most challenging aspect of the build, perhaps not surprisingly, proved to be the stage media walls. The huge black glass sheets framing the videowalls had a clear section that exactly matched the screen size. But the positioning of the monitors behind the glass had to be perfect on all sides. Fitting the huge sheets of glass into position in front of the mounted screens required six strong men using special glazier’s suction pads. However, making everything match proved challenging and the glass needed to be removed and re-fitted several times while tiny, incremental adjustments were made to the alignment of the videowall mounts. “We’re talking millimetres but when you’re not millimetre perfect it shows – you can see any gap,” Peter recalled.

Despite the initial difficulties, Peter rates the project as deeply satisfying. “The whole building just blows you away and the AV compliments that. I’ve always believed that AV shouldn’t be overpowering, it should be complementing what you’re trying to achieve, and I think this project does that really well. The fact that it is actually behind glass means the focus is not on the technology but, as it should be, on the cars.” 

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050

REVIEW

Meyer Sound Ultra-X40

Active Compact Loudspeaker

Meyer’s new Ultra series combines everything they’ve learnt from the UPA and LEO series into one small box. Does it do its predecessors justice? Read on...

Text:/ Mark Woods

M

eyer Sound Laboratories’ popular UPA speakers are retiring after a long and distinguished career as leaders of the professional mid-sized point-source class. The full-range passive UPA-1 was released in 1980 and was the first live speaker to use a trapezoidal cabinet – a shape that allowed for curved arrays.

Output quality was maintained by a dedicated electronic controller containing active crossovers, frequency and phase correction circuits, and feedback circuits to provide driver protection. In the mid-1990s Meyer Sound embraced powered loudspeakers by putting the processing and an amplifier inside the speaker cabinet. The active UPA-1P has been delivering Meyer’s trademark high-fidelity-at-high-volume sound to appreciative audiences ever since then. Mention them around sound types and you’ll likely hear an anecdote along the lines of “I heard this big sound and it was all coming from these little speakers”. Meyer UPAs for sure...

The UPA’s replacement would have to be good, and it’s awesome. The new Meyer Sound Ultra-X40 is still a compact, vented two-way speaker but it’s a completely new design with several fundamental differences. Over the past few years of developing their LEO family of large-scale line array systems,

Meyer made significant advancements in driver configuration, horn technology, low distortion and phase correction, and wanted to incorporate these in a point-source box. The timing was good to replace the ageing UPAs, and the result is a speaker that is smaller, lighter, tighter, louder and cheaper than its predecessor. Lots to like there.

UP CLOSE

The biggest difference is the driver configuration changing from the traditional horn-above-woofer two-way layout to a clever concentric-like design.

The 12-inch woofer has been replaced by two eight-inch neodymium magnet drivers mounted on a concave waveguide and slanted inwards.

Mounted between them is the central rotatable waveguide for the three-inch high-frequency compression driver. Applying some array trickery to the eight-inch drivers and coupling them with the back of the horn waveguide delivers a coaxial point source experience with exceptional directional control. Dispersion for the Ultra-X40 is a wide but focused 110 x 50 degrees (the Ultra-X42 variation is 70 x 50 degrees) and that pattern is maintained down to a low 400Hz. The two eight-inch drivers have a collective cone area similar to a single 12-inch driver but

MORE INFO PRICE $9,999 RRP CONTACT Audio Brands Australia: +61 2 9659 7711 www.audiobrands.com.au PROS Point source fidelity Controlled dispersion High power-to-weight ratio Handy size CONS No volume control Limited I/O SUMMARY Meyer’s new Ultra-X40 is the result of decades of on-going research and improvement in the pursuit of technical excellence, offering a tightlycontrolled dispersion and high quality sound in a box that is surprisingly smaller than it sounds.

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REVIEW

they’re narrower and the horn is in between them so the Ultra-X40 is not only smaller but is also about 9kg lighter than its direct predecessor, the UPA-1P. That’s a significant difference and broadens its potential applications – although there is no facility for using it as a floor monitor.

It can fit into a smaller case, and it’s small enough and light enough for one person of reasonable strength to put it onto a stand.

Meyer noticed users were making their own mounting brackets for the UPAs, but they shouldn’t need to with the comprehensive range of custom-made accessories for the Ultra-X40.

The speakers are fitted with 11 x M8 threaded points, and options include a hanging yoke, u-brackets, cluster plates for locking speakers together, plus the pole mount. For horizontal mounting the horn can easily be rotated via four screws under the grille; it doesn’t need to be removed from the cabinet.

The cabinet is made from multi-ply birch and the overall look is professional but understated.

The textured finish looks like the finish on other speakers, as does the perforated grille, but the angled speakers and big horn behind the grille look purposeful and modern. There are no side or top handles, resulting in a clean look. The chunky handles on the back are good for general handling and protecting the connecting leads, but they’re not much help if you’re lifting it onto a stand.

CONNECTIONS

The rear of the cabinet is mainly heatsink with a powerCON20 in and out. Connections are professionally minimal – an XLR in and out is all you get, with LEDs indicating power, signal and limiting. This is fine for large-scale productions and installations but for smaller shows a volume knob can be handy; I had one show where the speakers were linked together and I wanted to run them at different levels due to their placement. The only time I missed a power switch was powering down at the end of a long night when it seemed a lot to go around to the back of the speaker to unplug the power lead.

The connection panel is modular and may evolve over time. At the moment an optional five-

pin XLR version is available that will connect audio plus the RMS remote monitoring system for remote muting or providing a readout of the loudspeaker parameters via Meyer’s ‘Compass’ software. Meyer are one of the manufacturers behind the emerging Milan network protocol that seeks to combine the AVB standard with defined device requirements so the machines can talk to each other. The results of that could lead to a networked version.

Inside the cabinet, Meyer’s ‘Intelligent AC’ automatically selects the operating voltage and conditions the power by controlling voltage peaks and interference, while their proprietary audio chain does its thing with the phase and frequency response – resulting in the flat response, coherence and impulse response that gives these speakers their special sound.

Meyer make all their drivers in-house to ensure complete quality control and maximum integration between components. Power to the drivers comes from a new power-efficient, aircooled, three-channel Class D amplifier capable of 1950kW peak. Cabinet size may be down but volume is up – the stated linear peak SPL of over 130dB [measured free-field at 1m using Meyer’s M Noise] from a speaker weighing less than 24kg is class-leading.

IN USE

The Ultra-X40s proved to be a delight to use and a crowd-pleaser. The first time I used them was at my usual testing ground, the Theatre Royal Castlemaine. We’re already fans of the brand; the house PA is a double Meyer MSL-3 system (plus four 18-inch subs per side) and works well in the 400 capacity room. In some ways the similarly shaped Ultra-X40s are a modern, considerably shrunken version of the 40 year-old MSL-3s. The specs are almost the same in terms of frequency response and volume (and also in terms of coverage if compared with the narrow-throw Ultra-X42 variation). As an indication of progress made over the last decades, the Ultra-X40 weighs 24kg while the MSL-3 weighs 110kg each... plus amps.

I often set up extra speakers for a front in-fill at the Theatre; sometimes to fill the hole, sometimes

ULTRA OPTIMISED Mark Woods talks with Pablo Espinosa, Meyer Sound’s Vice President & Chief Loudspeaker Designer, about the Ultra-X40.

Mark Woods: How do the Ultra-X40s maintain their dispersion pattern below the horn’s crossover frequency? Is there some kind of array behaviour with the eight-inch speakers? Or is it the wave guide they’re mounted on?

Pablo Espinosa: All of the above, and more.

When using a single driver, the polar pattern of the driver is dominated by the size of the driver and the frequency being reproduced – this is just physics. One of the huge advantages of using two drivers in this configuration is that the combined polar pattern of the two drivers can be controlled and optimised to well below their crossover frequency. In addition, the polar pattern can also be optimised to interact with the horn’s polar pattern to create an incredible smooth transition at crossover, on-axis and off-axis.

MW: How did the R&D from the LEO range contribute to the Ultra-X40?

PE: We started with this driver configuration and horn technology 10 years ago, and took it to the next level with the LEO family. As the family grew, every new member brought innovations. All these innovations contributed to the Ultra-X40.

To create a product like the X40, it’s not just a matter of ensuring that each individual part (drivers, enclosure, horn, amplifier, etc.) has ‘best-in-class’ performance. They all have to be optimised so that each part interacts perfectly with all of the others to create a result that goes above and beyond putting a bunch of OEM components together. That understanding and optimisation process is the most important contribution from the LEO family.

for testing purposes. The X40s are an ideal size for my in-fill, but my first impression was how easily they could fill the whole room and compete with the main system. The big PA had more woof and rumble, but the X40’s mid-range was clear and coherent at the back of the room. They worked well together and the big system sounded a bit hollow without the X40s. The band that night

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REVIEW

The point source delivery and controlled pattern cut a slice of clear sound through the potentially boomy, washy room

was Finder Lover Seeker, an act that needed the three female vocals to be heard clearly above the full band sound. Their mixer, Sarah Madigan, had fun and at the end said she thought most of the vocals were coming from the X40s.

The next week the Theatre Royal hosted Paul Kelly performing with Alice Keath as part of his recent ‘Love Is Strong As Death’ tour. I was doing sound for the Victorian leg of the tour, and had a similar experience to Sarah at the front of house.

Using the X40s as in-fill changed the sound in the room; they didn’t seem to interfere destructively with the main system, but added real midrange clarity. They don’t mind going loud (their level needed to be watched to avoid interfering with the stage monitors), but the quality invites you to turn them up and it’s like opening the throttle on a powerful car – they lift up and go. Best in-fills I’ve used by a good margin.

A big reverberant old church in Maldon, as part of the Maldon Folk Festival, was too easy for the Ultra-X40s. I used them instead of a stack of black boxes and won’t be going back; the point source delivery and controlled pattern cut a slice of clear sound through the potentially boomy, washy room. The condenser mics were beautifully detailed on the fine instruments and stayed stable when turned up to working level. An audiophile’s treat, they have the ability to draw your ear back through the speaker to the source. Every touch of EQ, effects or panning is clear. This transparency is a Meyer Sound trademark and, along with their ability to faithfully reproduce all styles of music, is the reason for their reputation as exceptional speakers for theatrical applications.

The annual Mountaingrass Festival was tougher. A new location for the main concerts had around 300 people sitting in an odd-shaped, halfdead, fluttery conference room. It’s a Bluegrass festival and opening up the condenser mic centre stage is always a good test – and one that this room largely failed. Unfortunate dimensions and fittings meant it was not going to give any real

volume before it wanted to feed back. We had a good modular black box system that usually does the job (previously in a big marquee) and a pair of Ultra-X40s. We set them both up and, as well as a noticeable difference in audio quality, the X40s were much smoother off-axis and more resistant to feedback. I tried pointing the two systems in different directions but that didn’t last long; it was sort of louder and covered a bit wider, but the modular black box system was interfering and detracting from the quality of the X40s – so I turned the modular speakers off and ran the X40s all weekend. The room needed a couple of ugly EQ cuts, but after that the X40s provided a fuller sound than you’d expect from a pair of speakers on stands in a big, bad space. The bass doesn’t sit loud in the mix for this music but it has to be there, and those upright basses go low; I was pleasantly surprised at the depth and clarity with no sense of strain. Bluegrass bands have a low average volume but extreme dynamics, and the mics are wide open. When they hit hard the meters jump and that’s another good test for a system; many get harsh in this situation, but the Ultra X40s revelled in the peaks. The audience at these acoustic events are very aware of sound quality, and I was getting the right reaction from them – along with some surprise that it was all coming from the little speakers. It’s that UPA thing all over again.

Back in the real world, the final test was loud bands with the Ultra-X40s and separate subs. I was already impressed by what a pair of X40s could do on their own, but bands always need more. A Christmas party at Lot19, an artist colony and centre of Castlemaine’s alternate culture, was the test I wanted: an outdoors gig with two bands and DJs. The headline act was Vibrasonics, a 10-piece funky dance band using 24 channels to FOH and six foldback sends. I’ve used and reviewed a lot of mid-sized powered speakers, waiting to find one to replace my comparatively lo-fi but tough and loud double

four-way black box PA. The X40s combined with subs are the first to do it, the subs need to be good to keep up with them (Meyer recommend their LFC-750 subs). With a big bottom end under them they handled the whole band easily and also proved exceptionally good for music playback, similar to studio monitors in their detail and the way they draw the ear to subtleties in the original recordings. The DJs were happy and at the end of the night, packing up on stage with the tunes still cranking, it was noticeable how quiet and nice the X40s sounded from behind. Great vibe and the speakers were part of it; I pulled the pin at 2:30am under some protest.

CONCLUSION

The Ultra-X40 is a genuine general-purpose speaker that will get used in theatres, themeparks and stadiums on its own or as part of bigger systems. You could put it anywhere thanks to its combination of low width and the rotatable horn; it’s ideal for under balconies or filling holes.

The size and weight makes it more suitable for portable use than the heavier UPAs, and although it’s expensive the sound quality justifies the price.

Along with the sound quality, the Ultra-X40’s practicality and expected long-term reliability may prove attractive for small operators as well as hire/installation companies.

The Ultra-X40 is the product of continual improvement in the pursuit of technical excellence, and will prove to be a worthy successor to the venerable UPA series. Meyer Sound have long been proponents of self-powered speakers, citing simplicity, increased fidelity and controlled integration between amp and drivers. They knew they had a hit on their hands when they took record numbers of pre-orders from trade shows on release. The Ultra-X40’s point source design offers superior sound quality, its tight dispersion gives predictable results, and its lighter and smaller enclosures increases practicality and placement options. State of the art. 

REVIEW

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054

COMMENT

Termination A Plug for Simplicity Text:/ Graeme Hague

Y

ou’ll be impressed to know that as I write this, I’m on a cruise ship sailing the high seas… okay, I’m not. Because my wife and I were yet more victims to the dreaded Beer Virus and, instead, I’m in a caravan park in the idyllic southwest of the countryside. Behind us is a family of at least 14 children, all of them as tattooed as their mother, and none of them trained to do anything except burst noisily into tears and demand things with language that would make Jimmy Barnes blush. To the right is another child who can only communicate by screaming at the top of his voice — incessantly — which apparently doesn’t work because his parents don't respond.

We are in campervan heaven, compared to being marooned on a quarantined cruise ship full of booze and food (and covid19? — Ed.].

Fortunately I have the AV skills to make most of this go away. We have one of those TVs in the van that would be pathetic in the house, but in a campervan it scrapes by as acceptable. So here’s the clever AV bit: because the TV reception is crap, I can hot-spot my laptop to my smartphone and then cast the Netflix to the TV. Following this, since the TV’s sound is rubbish, I can use Bluetooth to send the Netflix audio to our megaBluetooth speaker thingy which is the equivalent of a Turbosound Line array, but no bigger than a packet of fags… umm, if we were to indulge in such a filthy habit. We’ll have primo sound, video and programming at the touch of a… well, perhaps 10 buttons — but it works!

Or we could go down to the beach and with a glass of red watch the sunset, but that wouldn’t be in 5.1 surround sound or high-resolution video.

I think. Is nature in high resolution? I’ll have to Google that.

EXOTIC FAULT FINDING

The thing is, most AV technicians are happiest when we fix something. When we solve a problem.

It’s kind of boring, or at least less of a challenge, when everything goes right. An unfortunate side effect of that is we tend to look for the most difficult or interesting fault.

Something goes haywire and: “It’ll be the discombobulating processor that’s out of phase with the thingamummy signal splitter”.

Meanwhile, some smart arse might suggest replacing the cable before redesigning the whole rig or perhaps shifting the entire venue 300 metres to the east… but that’s ridiculous because the same cable worked perfectly well the day before.

How can it be the cable?

The alternative is for people who supposedly know exactly what they’re doing to replace complete racks of equipment, reset systems to factory default, and even employ — heaven forbid —analytic apps on the phones to decipher precisely what is going wrong.

Don’t bother checking any cables. They all worked brilliantly at the last gig.

PLUG POLTERGEIST

Which leads me to introduce an entity who many are not familiar with, if you’re not in tune with the Other Side, but something that surely exists.

It’s known as the Plug Poltergeist. The Plug Poltergeist — or ‘Plugger’ to those unafraid to look under the bed on dark and stormy nights — waits until the small hours of the morning when everyone is still sitting around, drinking beers and defaming everybody who graced their stage the previous show, and it breaks stuff. It floats around between packing cases, drifts under tarpaulined mixing desks, and creeps between effects racks… and mucks around with bits and pieces for evil, supernatural fun. Nothing special — not processors, or rigging points, or by, say, putting 30 litres of Unleaded in your diesel campervan (okay, let’s not go there… anyone can make that mistake), the Plug Poltergeist likes to mess with the little things. The cables that have always worked, the plugs that have always connected, the things that have always been absolutely fine. In fact, we’re talking cables that are like old friends

— old faithful. The very last thing you’d expect to be the culprit of a technical issue.

CABLE CLUE

Of course, some of you don’t believe in ghosts or the living dead, to which my immediate response is again — how do you explain Keith Richards?

Mark my words, the Plug Poltergeist exists and it doesn’t discriminate between audio, video or even lighting (oddly, since everyone else does).

In particular, Plugger doesn’t care much for equipment. I mean, seriously, anyone can trash the settings on a processor. You’ve only got to open the damned menu on the itty-bitty bloody LCD screen on that weird-arse processor in the amp rack and try to see what time it is — and you can bring an entire festival to an abrupt, silent, somewhat embarrassing halt.

So my firm, holiday-based advice which has nothing to do with the pints of lager I had at lunch, or the bargain-priced whisky I discovered at the local bottle shop, the next time something goes suspiciously wrong — when there’s no obvious reason — check the cable first. It’s a bit humdrum, and lacks drama and technical expertise, but probably solves the issue.

Sorry, I have to go, the Captain’s Barbecue calls.  Graeme Hague penned this piece prior to the world being put into a lockdown. He’s pleased to have avoided the 6 month ‘holiday’ on the SS Pandemic Princess.

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