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Musicality Comes Naturally with Cascade Theatre's Meyer Sound JM-1P
The recent installation of six Meyer Sound JM-1P arrayable loudspeakers made a dramatic improvement to the listening experience at the Cascade Theatre in Redding, Calif., a 997-seat performance space previously fraught with acoustical challenges.
Like other refurbished movie palaces, Cascade Theatre's live acoustics could only be minimally damped without modifying the historic aesthetics; and the theatre prohibited the use of flown arrays.
"One look at our gorgeous ceiling murals and you'll understand why we decided against hang points," says Jeff Darling, the venue's general manager. "Our donors paid a lot of money to restore that artwork. We didn't want to blemish or conceal it in any way."
Ground stacking was the only option, but the theatre's architecture presented yet another hurdle. Limited proscenium width-with every inch of stage needed for dance events-dictated loudspeaker locations far to the outside, making uniform coverage difficult without also splashing sound off hard walls a few feet away.
George Relles of Eugene, Ore.-based Relles Sound, was confident that the horizontal control of the Meyer Sound JM-1P arrayable loudspeakers would solve this conundrum. At a Joan Osborne concert, he proved his point using tight-packed horizontal arrays of three JM-1P loudspeakers per side. "The JM-1P lets me create just the right pattern for uniform room coverage, while a steep dropoff at the specified limit keeps sound off the walls and off the stage," says Relles.
The JM-1P point source system utilizes Meyer Sound's patented REM? technology to create a precise 20-degree horizontal by 60-degree vertical pattern. Relles's three-loudspeaker array projected seamless 60- by 60-degree coverage throughout the main floor and balcony.
"As soon as I heard it," says Darling, "I knew it would achieve the power and the coverage we wanted for our wide variety of concerts and events. It's great for sight lines as well. It's powerful, but hardly a giant box."
The permanently installed system comprises three JM-1P loudspeakers a side, each atop a 700-HP subwoofer, plus two UPJ-1P VariO? loudspeakers as balcony fill. Drive and processing is provided by a Galileo loudspeaker management system with a Galileo 408 processor. The system was tuned using a SIM 3 audio analyzer.
The Cascade Theatre's new JM-1P system was recently used for a benefit concert by country legend Merle Haggard, a stand-up comedian, an Elvis tribute show, a church service, and a high-definition video presentation of the San Francisco Opera's Samson and Delilah.
"The new JM-1Ps have been superb for every event," says Darling. "For the comedian, the vocal clarity was far greater than we'd ever heard before in this room. And for the opera, the transparency of the system made it seem completely natural. I've never heard a system that sounds more musical and more transparent than this one."
For Relles, who keeps a stock of JM-1P loudspeakers in his rental inventory, the success was hardly surprising. "The JM-1P is a whole new generation of Meyer technology. It's articulate, refined, and with an astonishing level of detail," he observes. "It instantly became one of my favorite loudspeakers."
18th February 2010
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