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Whether it’s an iconic venue like Wembley Stadium, training academy grounds, or a grassroots pitch, Musco’s sports lighting systems continue to be the solution of choice around the world. Our superior project management expertise, light control technology, system reliability and warranty, and special e ects capabilities create unforgettable experiences for players and fans alike.

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Editorial Director

Sam Hughes s.hughes@mondiale.co.uk

Commercial Director

Jamie Dixon j.dixon@mondiale.co.uk

Design & Production

Dan Seaton d.seaton@mondiale.co.uk

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Finance Director

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Damian Walsh MONDO

TEAM TALK 006 Adamson Systems Engineering

LIGHTING

062 Six Day Race Berlin | Berlin, Germany

EPOS & HOSPITALITY 066 Motorpoint Arena | Nottingham, England

BROADCAST 070 2023 Rugby Europe Championship | Europe

RIGGING & STRUCTURES 072 Dubai World Cup | Dubai, UAE

EXTRA TIME 076 InCrowd | Cast 078 Meyer Sound | Panther

080 ADI | Venue Tech Roadshow

Powered Speakers are the Future and Rack Amplifiers are Here to Stay

Images: Adamson Systems Engineering

The appealing and value-add art of designing sound systems for large venues involves finding the right combinations of loudspeakers and mounting them in the right locations to deliver the best possible audio to an audience. Those speakers need amplifiers. Therefore, a time-consuming and less glamourous aspect of system design is defining where to house the racks of equipment needed to deliver the air-pushing power to each cabinet, and the complexity of wiring those systems.

Since Class-D amplification technology made amplifiers lighter, smaller, safer and more reliable than the previous generation technology, the idea of mounting amplifiers on or in speaker cabinets became more and more feasible. Now many major performance

PA companies like Adamson offer onboardpowered products.

“We had our eye on powered speakers long before the technology was viable for medium and large format venues. It’s not about squishing a two-channel rack mount amp into a speaker. It’s the combination of networking protocols, signal processing, and modular design techniques that make powered loudspeakers deliver quality and efficiency you can’t get with rack-mount setups,” said Adamson Project Manager, Marketing & Applications, Dwayne Slack.

The future of powered loudspeakers brings advantages that won’t be practical with separate rack-mount solutions. When amplification is designed specifically for, and in the closest possible proximity to the speaker, variables like cable length, crossovers, and redundancy are reduced or eliminated. The most substantial opportunities however, come from the ease of implementing higher amplifier channel counts to address an increasing number of purpose-built drivers per cabinet. “Although it’s admirable to create rack mount amplifiers with 8 or more channels to address a single cabinet, it’s not something you can scale. As improved loudspeaker performance and instant reconfigurability become common requirements, it’s powered boxes that are going to deliver the goods,” added Brock Adamson, CEO.

Those increasing requirements will not remove the practical use of rack-mount amplifiers anytime soon.

“Everything from refurbishing previous installations that have the rack-mount space and conduit for separate components, to applications where simple two-way speakers are an affordable choice will keep rack amplifiers in the installation audio world,” said Slack.

For some system designers, powered speakers raise concerns driven by early, yet legitimate negative experiences.

“Some of the first mass produce powered speakers were portable PA speakers that made their way into installations mainly due to their low price. However, many of these products were not based on reliable class-D amplifier designs and didn’t offer any meaningful audio benefit,” continued Slack.

“From the perspective of designing modern high-performance loudspeakers, those early experiences are irrelevant. The technology and how we test our powered product is in a completely different universe.”

Christopher Weatherford spends hundreds of days a year on the road helping designers and integrators specify and implement large venue sounds system. As Head of Applications AMER for Adamson he sees the benefits that are driving line arrays and other loudspeaker applications to onboard power.

“Powered speakers bring cool benefits. With CS Series we share the same power cables and data connections with the video and lighting departments using Neutrik powerCON® TRUE1 and etherCON,” said Weatherford.

“With a tour, it’s less space in the truck for heavy amplifier racks. In an installation, it’s just the placement of a powered speaker that takes up space, nothing more.”