What’s the biggest problem doing live sound for a monster truck rally or a motorcycle supercross event? Well, lemme ask you this: What’s the best day of the week for a monster truck or supercross show? If you didn’t say “SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY!” in your loudest and deepest TV an-nouncer voice — well, you just haven’t been watching enough late-night TV. When the commercial for your event delivers teeth-rattling SPL, your rig better be able to bring it. And when Yamaha recently gave us a call to check out the Supercross finals at Sam Boyd stadium, we got a chance to see if NEXO could do just that.
The Gear
The rig was comprised of two arrays of NEXO GEO-T boxes hung on either side of the main scoreboard, for a total of 24 boxes in the air. There were eight NEXO GEO-D boxes ground-stacked, four per side, and six NEXO CD18 Subbass (subwoofer) units per side, for a total of 12.
The arrays were almost completely vertical, designed to throw the sound straight down the length of the field to the seats on the far side, while avoiding the track. The top boxes had an 2/10 degree angle between them, which increased to 3/10 degree for the next two boxes, and 8/10 degree for the rest. The ground stacks were designed to fill in the sides before the array went wide enough. The subwoofers were splayed left, center, right on each side as well, to give an even dispersion of bass and avoid summing on the track. The rig was powered by Yamaha amps and processed through the NEXO NX242 Digital TD controller. The boxes were using the new NXStream Load DSP card.
On first impressions, the GEO-Ts look like you’ve been blown into the future and are now in the “Terminator” days. The GEO-Ts really look space age, with their silver fronts, the front angles of the box and the hardware — if it sounded half as cool as it looked, it was going to rock.
The boxes have two eight-inch speakers, but use curved vents over the bottom and top of the speakers to break the acoustical center, effec-tively turning the eight-inch speaker into two four-inch sources. According to the reps, this helps the sound waves couple and leads to a more coherent sound front.
NEXO also touts its “5 degree Hyperboloid Reflective Wavesource,” which is the long vertical slot in the middle of the speakers. This re-flector is designed to collumate the sound so the energy is very even from top to bottom, and the sound couples better at the edges.
The GEO-Ds are more conventional looking, but still use a hyperbolic wavesource design, with a five-degree waveguide. Their vertical dis-persion is dependent upon the array design, and horizontal coverage is configurable at 80 or 120 degrees.
The CD18 Super Cardioid subs are just as wild looking as the array, with oval-ish ports in the front and back for its two dual-ported, 18-inch woofers. Frequency response is rated at 32 Hz–80 Hz, at -3 dB, with 105 dB at 1 W/1 M and a 145 dB peak. For this gig, they were stacked in groups of twos.
But enough stats, let’s get to the action.
The Gig
Due to a scheduling freak of nature, FOH had to tag team this event. Roddy Pahl and his A-1 Javier Gonzales were there to watch the load-in, while Jacob Coakley went to the stadium for a demo after the in, but before the actual show. Fearless Editor Bill Evans sacrificed life and limb to run around the track dodging motorcycles and listening to speakers for the actual event. [Actually the fearless editor hung out in the press area while his wife — in heels and carrying a Prada handbag — dodged bikes while shooting pics. That’s what she gets for being a photog. — Ed.]
Roddy Pahl: Upon arriving at the gig site for load in, the weather conditions were less than fun to be trying to listen to any kind of rig. The winds were a steady 40-plus mph, with gusts at who-knows-how-high and dust blowing everywhere while the tractors and track crew were preparing the track for the weekend’s event.
We proceeded to the stage and met up with Yamaha product manager Lloyd Kinkade and his crew; they were just finishing up with the patching and getting ready to fire it up. I was standing in front of the subwoofers when they fired them up and the sound just went right through me, seriously. I had to move away or I might have had to hit the bathroom quickly. Javier and I walked around listening, catching things with each gust. The coverage on the one side we had flown was great and seemed seamless. Considering the conditions, I could only imagine how great it would sound under normal conditions.
Jacob: On the day I was there, the wind had died down and Kinkade and crew had been able to SIMM the stadium. He showed me the curve. At about 300 feet away, on the far end of the stadium, the trace was still pretty flat. There was a little tap down at 400 Hz, and little energy rise at 500 Hz to help with announcements, since the system was going to be used for interviews with the riders. Kinkade had carved the bump around 125 Hz down a bit, but kept some of the rise in energy there, since they wanted to give the audience more of an in-your-face audio impact. The system definitely packed a punch, and I wouldn’t want to stand in front of the subwoofers too long, either. The mids and highs were bright and clear, but verged on being a little brittle — that could have more to do with the fact that Kinkade was really pushing the system to its limits for me rather than a deficiency in the system. The original design for the system called for 20 boxes on each side, rather than the 12 they ended up with, and if they had that extra headroom, I think that would have cleared it up. I walked the stadium as Kinkade put the system through its paces for a church group looking to buy some speakers for an install, and the sound was layered, distinct and bright everywhere I walked.
Bill: All I can add is that, during the event, the speakers looked more like some futuristic part of the set than like speakers, and this small rig put out enough horsepower and clarity to make the announcements and race commentary audible and understandable over the roar of the bikes and the noisy crowd — even at the back of the stadium.
