Philadelphia’s D24K Sound recently used a PA system comprising just a stereo pair of Danley J3-94 Jericho Horns along with four BC-415 and six Danley DBH-218 subwoofers to address a crowd of 5,000 gathered to watch rapper Kehlani at Drexel University.
Among a select group of event production companies standing apart from their competition, D24K favour Danley Sound Labs’ approach to sound reinforcement over more prevalent line arrays. ‘I first heard about Danley from a sound engineer friend who told me that Danley was building single boxes that were powerful enough to cover an entire stadium,’ says D24K Sound owner Ross Dettmering. ‘That struck a chord with me.
‘I looked into their technology and got the back story on inventor and acoustician Tom Danley and all of the patented technologies he’s using to design Danley loudspeakers and subwoofers. It sounded like a more principled way to design big sound reinforcement systems, and all of our competition is deeply invested in the line array technology that the Danley boxes outperform. Going with Danley seemed like a great way to differentiate D24K from all the other guys.’
Dettmering admits that the idea of setting up and tearing down a handful of boxes – versus the 10-15 boxes per side that go with a standard line array system – was also appealing.
The D24K Danley inventory includes the two J3-94 Jericho Horns that were used at Drexel and are reserved for its largest events, along with two SH-96HO, four SH-46, and four SM-80 full-range loudspeakers, all of which use Synergy Horn technology to deliver phase-coherent, undistorted point-source audio with exceptional pattern control. For low-end, D24K has four Danley BC-415, six DBH-218, and 12 TH-118 subwoofers, which variously use Danley’s patented Boundary Coupled (directive) and Tapped Horn technologies.
With all of these Danley loudspeakers and subwoofers, D24K can accommodate events of any size and any configuration, with as many as three events running concurrently. At four channels each, D24K’s ten Danley DNA 10k4 Pro and 20k4 Pro amplifiers give the company plenty of power and flexibility, along with onboard DSP with custom presets for each loudspeaker model.
‘It’s true, people often get scared when I tell them we’re going to put up one or two boxes per side to cover their entire crowd,’ Dettmering says. ‘A lot of them balk. But to date, every single person who has heard the system fired up has changed their mind. I kind of welcome that scepticism because it makes for a more interesting story – the kind of story they’ll remember and tell their friends about. Plus, I always get to see the look of amazement on their faces when we power up. Once a Danley system is fired up, it speaks for itself.’
