With the furthest seat just 43ft distant from its basketball court, 9,000-capacity Auburn University Arena in Alabama suffers from a build-up of crowd noise that, together with reverberation from the reflective interior, interferes with speech intelligibility and clarity of music.
The solution adopted by Daktronics was to install 24 Fulcrum Acoustic AH High Output Coaxial Horns as the main loudspeakers for their combination of high output and pattern control. The AH’s were deployed in vertically arrayed pairs to cover the lower seating area and the middle section.
In addition, 26 CCX 12-inch Coaxial Cardioid Loudspeakers were distributed around the upper seating areas to provide supplemental coverage for the upper seats. Fulcrum’s Passive Cardioid Technology reduces excess low frequency radiation from the rear of the CCX loudspeaker, an important feature for delay speakers. ‘Without Passive Cardioid, the sound coming off the back of the speaker will cover a greater area than what goes out the front, thereby degrading clarity and intelligibility,’ explains designer Dave Sturzenbecher. ‘Fulcrum’s cardioid products avoided leakage for the upper delays.’
Also providing high output and wide dispersion to cover the last rows in the rear of the main section are 50 Fulcrum Prophile P 8-icnh Coaxial Loudspeakers. These rows were shadowed from the main loudspeaker arrays by the upper level of seating so supplemental coverage was required.
The 12 US221-4 Direct Radiating Subwoofers used for low-frequency support are flown in two closely-coupled vertical arrays to provide wide dispersion to the crowd. Each box has a slight delay added for steering low frequency energy away from the ceiling. The system DSP is provided by a QSC Q-Sys system with Dynacord IPX amplifiers in the driving seat.
‘It’s an incredibly articulate and intelligible system overall,’ Sturzenbecher reports. ‘What’s really remarkable is how good it sounds without a crowd to dampen any reflections. It provides impressive fidelity that is much beyond what they had before.’
More: www.fulcrum-acoustic.com
