In Tallinn’s Old Town, the Kanuti Gildi SAAL theatre is the first privately-run venue in Estonia devoted to contemporary performing arts. But with a sound system that had been in service for more than 15 years, a more capable and versatile system was needed.
‘As the 150-seat venue hosts lots of international acts, bringing different guest engineers, the system also had to be rider friendly,’ says Priit Kivimägi from local distributor, Heliart OÜ. ‘And since the amp rack is located in another room they needed the remote option to monitor or quickly reconfigure the system should it be necessary.
‘We already had an idea of what the system should be capable of and set up several of our stock demo systems,’ he continues. ‘We conducted listening tests and received input from all interested parties.’
The result was an EAW loudspeaker system driven by Powersoft amplification, which will serve everything for speech reinforcement to high SPL live band shows. ‘Despite the small footprint, the main [EAW QX364] mid/high system consists of ten high-power drivers – and all are driven by a single Powersoft X4,’ Kivimägi says. ‘We have an enormous amount of power available in just 1RU.’
In fact, the four-channel X4 is capable of delivering up to 5.2kW at 2Ω per channel: ‘With its onboard DSP and a supplementary EAW UX8800 processor we have endless possibilities. We are able to expand the system, feed distributed systems and so on. And with the X series intelligent power supply we don’t have to worry about rebuilding the electrical system. With an option of single-, bi- or three-phase power inlet you simply adapt.’
As well as space considerations, the Powersoft/EAW pairing also worked with the venue’s budget. ‘We have supported several international acts using this combination. Having helped guest engineers tailor the specific sound they look for I know how pleased they have been with the system and how effortless the procedure was.
‘We are talking about an amplifier which is capable of delivering 20kW of pure undistorted power in 1RU, with flat phase response. This factor, along with the diverse power inlet options, meant that we were able to use the existing racking and electrical system without the need of any additional costs.’
Limited as to where they could install the main LR speakers the team also needed a loudspeaker system with good horizontal and vertical pattern control in order to keep the reflections from the walls and ceiling to a minimum. Further versatility is derived at the low frequency end from EAW’s cardioid Redline subwoofer – controllable via a push of a button.
‘The system is a huge upgrade from our old reinforcement set-up in overall sound quality, intelligibility and coverage,’ says house engineer Revo Koplus. ‘The house EQ requires minimal or no adjustment to meet the preference of the most demanding guest engineers.’
‘It has certainly made life a lot easier,’ Kivimägi confirms. ‘With X series we have an adaptive product. We can easily integrate the amplifier with an existing system or match it perfectly with a new design. We can power subs, line arrays, monitors or any other combination with just one product.’
