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"I've walked all the decks, up to the cheap seats, and even in the back rows the sound reproduction is phenomenal. Voice intelligibility is exceptionally high, and when we play music tracks the sound is clean and full down into the mid-bass."
- Aaron Creasy
Chief Engineer, 12th Man Productions
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Behind a black mesh screen high atop the 11-story video scoreboard at Texas A&M's Kyle Field in College Station sit two tiers of eight parabolic dishes each. At first glance, this may look like a broadcast microwave array, but in reality, this "dishware" is a complement of Meyer Sound SB-1 parabolic long-throw sound beams, part of the largest and most powerful Meyer Sound system ever installed in a sports facility. When fired up on game day, the 54 loudspeakers in the system carry announcements and the music-punctuated soundtracks for the videos shown on "12th Man TV" (as the huge Mitsubishi video screen is known) to the far reaches of the stadium with astounding clarity. "It's really mind-blowing how well this new system works," testifies Aaron Creasy, chief engineer for 12th Man Productions, the Texas A&M athletics department television network which generates content for and operates 12th Man TV. "I've walked all the decks, up to the cheap seats, and even in the back rows the sound reproduction is phenomenal. Voice intelligibility is exceptionally high, and when we play music tracks the sound is clean and full down into the mid-bass." Kyle Field is not an easy place in which to deliver sound. Its permanent seating capacity of 82,600 is the largest of any football stadium – collegiate or pro – in Texas. (It also claims to be, when packed with ardent Aggie fans, the loudest anywhere.) Compounding the task is the size and scale of "The Zone," the latest and largest expansion section. Sprawling opposite the scoreboard, it places nearly a quarter of the stadium's seats at distances between 500 and 725 feet away from the point-source audio system. In addition, the system has to cover all but the deepest under-balcony seats of the three-tier seating sections along both sidelines, with all seats receiving robust levels to appropriately complement the towering, nearly 4,000-square-foot screen. Scaling audio to match the video was an integrated task from the start, as design of both systems was assigned to the Dallas consulting firm of Wrightson, Johnson, Haddon and Williams (WJHW). Based on their previous experience using the SB-1 at Ohio Stadium (Columbus, Ohio) and Raymond James Stadium (Tampa, Fla.), WJHW Managing Principal Chris Williams and Senior Associate Gary White were confident they would take care of the far-flung seats of "The Zone." What was different this time around was their choice of MILO high power curvilinear array loudspeakers for coverage of the side seating areas. "Since it's regarded as a high-end touring concert system, the MILO is not normally what you'd look for in a collegiate sports facility," acknowledges Williams. "But it wasn't the 'concert quality' we were looking at so much as the controlled directivity. The MILOs allowed us to cover the extensive sidelines areas and a good part of the end zone with a uniformity that would have been difficult to achieve with conventional solutions. As a result, the quality of the wavefront, all the way to the far end zone, is absolutely mind-boggling." The Kyle Field system comprises twin left and right arrays of 10 MILO cabinets each, augmented by a center array of eight MILO 60 high-power narrow coverage curvilinear array loudspeakers. Sidefill is provided by four SB-2 parabolic wide-range sound beams, with downfill for seats directly in front handled by four UPJ-1P compact VariO loudspeakers. A Galileo loudspeaker management system takes care of all system drive processing. Pro Media/UltraSound (PMUS) of Hercules, Calif., supplied and installed all the Meyer Sound systems. PMUS's Demetrius Palavos managed the project, with David Bowers contributing to the rigging and final tuning. Meyer Sound's Design Services department worked closely with WJHW to ensure that the system design would meet their performance specifications and requirements. "The installation went very smoothly, and it all matched up and worked well," says Palavos. "What Meyer Sound Design Services had laid out with WJHW in MAPP Online Pro (acoustical prediction software) was what we measured, and what we heard." The installation was Palavos' first exposure to the capabilities of the sound beams, and he admits he was somewhat taken aback by the experience. "David and I were sitting in the upper deck, listening to CD tracks, and we were saying to each other, 'Yeah, this sounds great, it's very intelligible, very smooth and pleasant to listen to.' Then you look up and realize you're listening to something that's 725 feet away, which is pretty amazing!" Williams confides a similar reaction to first hearing the system. "I don't know exactly how to describe it in audio terms," he relates, "but compared to what they had before, it's the difference between the stone age and the space age. I think everyone involved is remarkably happy with the coverage. In the past, distant seats at the north end were 10 to 12 dB down, even with delay fills. Now they are getting the same level and coverage from a point source." Creasy is similarly impressed with the power and coverage, but what he appreciates most is the clarity. "What really has blown me away is that it does much more than just making it loud, just rocking out. Yes, we could put 110 dB SPL in most of the seats, but we have it limited down to about 96 dB. It's really about clarity, and about having a sound that's pleasant to listen to for three hours at a stretch." Creasy confesses, however, that the extraordinary clarity of the system has caused some mild consternation at 12th Man Productions. "It's so accurate that we can hear differences we never heard before. For example, now we can tell if the audio is a compressed MP3 or an uncompressed WAV. We're paying a lot more attention to the quality of audio we produce these days, because the fans can really hear it."
January, 2007
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FEATURED PRODUCTS
MILO MILO 60 UPJ-1P SB-1 SB-2 Galileo 616 MAPP Online Pro
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