TAMPA, FL — The St Pete Times Forum, home to the NHL's 2004 Stanley Cup Champion Tampa Bay Lightning, recently installed an L-ACOUSTICS system composed of 66 dV-DOSC enclosures, a dozen dV-SUB low-frequency extension boxes, eight SB218 sub-bass cabinets and four ARCS boxes, all powered by LA48a amplifiers. Originally known as the Ice Palace, the arena first opened its doors in 1996 as the new downtown Channel District home for both the Lightning and five-time AFL Arena Bowl-winning Tampa Bay Storm. Aside from hosting home games for these two teams, the multipurpose facility also brings in a wide array of other events, including concerts by artists like Paul McCartney, U2 and the Rolling Stones, NBA exhibition games, USF Basketball and NCAA Tournament games, tennis, professional wrestling, boxing, figure skating, rodeos and circuses.
Despite an impressive architectural design and calendar of events, the facility's P.A. system was felt to be sorely lacking in intelligibility, frequency range and 'punch.' Consequently, Jason Dixon, SPTF director of broadcasting and programming, and Michael Cooley, arena A-1 engineer, began the search for a new rig by inviting various vendors to come in and demo systems for the room.
This search soon led them to contact the US office of L-ACOUSTICS. Fittingly enough, L-ACOUSTICS' Dan Palmer, US sales manager, is an avid hockey fan and player, and out of a 'labor of love' for the sport had previously generated an NHL arena design template utilizing the manufacturer's dV-DOSC enclosure.
Based on what Palmer had observed in many hockey arena designs, creating another typical exploded cluster type system using spherical sources was not an option. Palmer saw the opportunity to provide a system capable of SPL, coverage pattern accuracy, low frequency control and a sight-line friendly profile that would work in tandem with IMAG on the Jumbotron above center ice. This would not be a typical sporting venue P.A. but, rather, a true multiuse sound system.
Palmer imported CAD drawings of the Forum into L-ACOUSTICS' acoustical prediction software, SOUNDVISION, and began to fine-tune his original idea to best suit the space. According to Palmer, "It was only by modeling the system for St. Pete Times Forum in detail that we could look at various design options and ensure that coverage, acoustic accuracy, low frequency control and SPL levels would be acceptable for this installation."
Given that the design focus for the new system is primarily based on the Tampa Bay Lightning's NHL hockey configuration, dasher boards and glass had to be factored into the equation. The goal, then, was to provide an even blanket of coverage from the first row of seating adjacent to the glass all the way up to the last row in the upper concourse. The system trim height is fixed; the same trim height had to be used for Storm football with no trim or site angle adjustments necessary. Since ice related events specifically request that no direct audio hits the ice surface due to undesirable reflections, it was necessary that the system design take this into account. Another design challenge in any arena is delivering coverage to the corner seating areas (i.e. where the side boards meet the end boards).
Palmer initially looked at distributing the company's dV-DOSC arrays into six arrays to cover the lower concourse and club levels and six smaller distributed arrays to cover the upper concourse. However, the system using a dozen arrays was more costly and demanding in terms of installation efforts and time alignment. Furthermore, it did not model as well, due to losses in line source coupling at the top of the main lower arrays and bottom of the upper concourse arrays. Specifically, SPL was inconsistent as they lost the -3dB (2x distance) attenuation. With that in mind, Palmer and the L-ACOUSTICS engineering team ultimately chose to 'keep it simple' by specifying a system deploying six longer dV-DOSC arrays, each composed of 11 cabinets positioned below two dV-SUB low frequency enclosures, that would address the entire seating area.
For additional low-frequency reinforcement, twin arrays of four SB218 sub-bass cabinets each would be flown in the geometric center of the three dV-DOSC arrays on each end of the venue. These LF hangs are positioned equidistant from their surrounding MF/HF enclosures and, consequently, the time alignment and distance between subs and each dV-DOSC array is identical. Clearances are within the specification of 70 feet above the ice surface and do not interfere with visual sightlines to the Jumbotron scoreboard above the center ice area.
Additionally, four of L-ACOUSTICS' ARCS downfill speakers would be positioned on the underside of the scoreboard, added for the benefit of players and performers in need of audio reference on the ice or floor below. When audio reinforcement is not required in this zone, the ARCS downfills could be turned off.
To power all of the loudspeaker elements, L-ACOUSTICS specified its own LA 48a power amplifiers be installed in the Forum's preexisting racks up on the catwalk. No gain shading or power scaling was used in this system.
Also key to this project was the specification of two wireless Dolby Lake LP4D12 digital signal processors, which would provide control of EQ, level of all elements and, zone control of the system.
When the time came to perform the system installation, L-ACOUSTICS turned to the Tampa-based headquarters of Audio Visual Innovations (AVI) — the integration firm that had previously helped demo dV-DOSC for the Forum.
According to Charlie Lawson, AVI's director of audio, "When looking at a large venue system, predictability is essential. Before we even demoed dV-DOSC for the Forum, I talked with Jason Dixon and Mike Cooley about the advantage of being able to predict P.A. coverage in order to keep the audio out of the broadcast mics on the glass, as well as to achieve the gain-before-feedback required to get ice mics into a P.A. in a large ice arena. I pointed out the difference in the pattern control between L-ACOUSTICS and other manufacturers and made sure they paid close attention to it as the demo systems came through the arena."
For more information, visit www.l-acoustics.com.
Pictured above: SPTF's new loudspeaker setup allows the arena's Jumbotron display to be raised or lowered with no effect on the audio.
