Laugh Boston is a 300-seat comedy theatre located in the Westin Waterfront Hotel, across from Boston’s Convention & Exhibition Center. Featuring a weekly show called Boston Accents, as well as national acts, the venue has recently installed a new sound system based around a Fulcrum Acoustic loudspeaker system and Symetrix Radius 12x8 EX DSP.
‘Laugh Boston not only offers comedy but also accommodates DJs and other multipurpose events,’ says Parsons Audio’s Managing VP, Roger Talkov, whose team designed and installed the sound system. ‘The venue needed to be able to serve music as well as speech – you don’t need subwoofers for comedians but you need them for DJs and bands, so we had to be able to reconfigure the sound of the room depending on what’s on. The room is very wide, 180° from centre stage, with some large structural columns that we had to account for.’
Parsons Audio provided sound for the full facility, including ceiling speakers in the green room, bar and lounge. The club’s Symetrix Radius 12X8 EX DSP unit is equipped with an extra output card so it can handle the whole system. ‘Zone control and speaker processing were crucial considerations, and the Radius was the right choice for that,’ Talkov explains.
The Radius 12X8 EX is controlled with Symetrix’ Arc-Web, which enables sophisticated control with smartphones, tablets, and computer browsers. ‘It creates a sort of intranet for control,’ Talkov explains.
Another reason Parsons Audio selected Symetrix DSPs is the Composer DSP programming software for Windows – with Composer, integrators can program a complete end-to-end DSP signal path using a single application. All classes of audio processing modules for signal shaping are provided.
‘The control options in Composer make it super appealing for us,’ Talkov says. ‘Composer makes the job much easier, even including modules for the filters in Fulcrum Acoustic loudspeakers. I love the loudspeaker-management modules; they give you everything you need to EQ and tune the system to the room, and you can quickly program even a complex system. It’s easy-to-use, super-powerful processing.’
The club’s old column-type speaker system had been mounted almost behind the stage and created power and feedback issues: ‘They wanted to replace it with a fully professional PA,’ Talkov says. ‘Fulcrum Acoustic and Symetrix are go-to products for us because we do a lot of high-end sound installations, and they deliver great quality, with accurate, transparent sound.’
All speakers in the show room are driven by Powersoft M50Q power amplifiers – another Parsons Audio favourite.
For the front mains in the show room, the Parsons Audio team flew an LCR point-source system over the front of the stage, providing high-quality sound without the issues the club had experienced with its old system. ‘The centre speaker is a Fulcrum Acoustic DX1226, which is a dual-12-inch, coaxial loudspeaker with a 120° x 60° dispersion pattern,’ explains Talkov. ‘That covers the centre section of the room. The left and right speakers are GX1265s – they have a very narrow pattern, 60° x 45°, so they were good choices to cover the wide left and right, filling in where the support columns obstructed the centre speaker, while keeping sound off the walls.’
The systems integrator also installed acoustic treatment panels, which helped reduce reflections back to the stage. The big columns created some shadowing in the extreme rear of the room, as well, so a pair of delayed Fulcrum Acoustic RX599 speakers were mounted along the sides to cover the back row of tables. The RX599 is a 5.25-inch coaxial speaker with a 90°x90° pattern, and two of them provided all the coverage needed.
For sub-lows, Talkov’s team chose the Fulcrum Acoustic TS215ac self-powered, dual 15-inch, direct-radiating subwoofer. ‘The TS215ac is portable, which made it a great choice for Laugh Boston,’ he says. ‘They wheel the subwoofer out for DJs and bands and put it away for stand-up acts, which don’t need it.’
Completing the loudspeaker complement are Fulcrum FX896 8-inch coaxial stage monitors. ‘The FX896 is an excellent choice for a comedy club that has relatively light stage-monitoring needs,’ Talkov says. ‘They were perfect for Laugh Boston.’
