The 2,369-capacity Raleigh Memorial Auditorium is the principal performance space in the Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, that also includes the Meymandi Concert Hall, AJ Fletcher Opera Theatre and Kennedy Theatre. Local rental partner RMB Audio has been a frequent visitor, providing tech support for all of the spaces for a considerable period, and recently replaced the Raleigh Memorial Auditorium’s ancient PA system with Martin Audio’s latest Wavefront Precision technology.
RMB Audio owner Cooper Cannady recalls that it was during the Covid pandemic in late 2020 that the request first went out for an entirely new sound system, with the stipulation that it needed to be a line array. ‘We’ve been into this venue so many times in the past with MLA-C, W8LC, W8LM – depending on the show – so we’ve collected a lot of room data. It was a pretty easy to put things together based around Martin Audio’s latest technology.’
Free from budget constraints, Cooper was able to recommend a system best fit for purpose – the small-format WPC line array, 14 boxes per side, driven in two-box resolution. Structurally, a minor adjustment of the proscenium walls helped move the PA slightly offstage and upstage.
‘We also recommended flown SXHF 218 subs behind the hangs – three forward facing, one reverse – all powered from 11 iK42 amplifiers,’ he says. ‘However, in the event, they didn’t want to fly them, but preferred to have them on carts.’
R&R Cases in Chicago built carts to enable the subs to roll in and out, and be deployed to suit. ‘These will come up from the pit as they determine whether they want to use three boxes – which stay at stage height – or whether they want a fourth box,’ Cooper says. ‘It’s cabled and time-aligned in such a way to focus the bass up into the rear high part of the room.
These eight forward-facing subs are complemented by a further pair of CDD-Lve 12 that may be deployed depending on the seating arrangement.
Once the client had pre-cabled the venue, RMB Audio’s integration team put the amp rack together on site. ‘We were given a window of two weeks to install the PA, but it only took us two days…
‘This was the first installation upgrade in 30 years, and using [Martin Audio Display software] we’ve essentially provided dimensional space, giving a slice of what the room looks like – telling the sound to avoid the ceiling and the stage. By doing that we have eliminated the early major room responses,’ Cannady says.
‘We also talked about whether we should go back and tune this room – as whether they are running Dante, analogue or AES there’s a slight difference. But we decided not to because it actually performs really well, and whatever material we are putting into it – whether I’m in the front row, mid-house or hard right – I’m actually hearing the same material coming directly at me, rather than from some reflective point around me.’
The new PA goes straight into use on a seasonal production of A Christmas Carol, which the Raleigh Memorial Auditorium stages annually.
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