Canada’s most prestigious music awards event, the Juno Awards recently aired live on CTV from Calgary’s Scotiabank Saddledome, with performances by Alessia Cara, Bryan Adams, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Dean Brody, Jann Arden, Shawn Mendes, The Tenors and The Weeknd. Solotech’s live sound reinforcement system kept the music clear throughout.
Solotech’s L-Acoustics system proved to be a particularly ideal solution for the venue, a beautiful sounding hall with a hyperbolic paraboloid-shaped roof (the world’s longest) offering fantastic interior sightlines but presenting a number of challenges in terms of weight limitations.
‘The K2 provides lots of power for its weight, so it was the perfect choice for this show, and perhaps the only real choice,’ says Solotech Project Manager Patrice Lavoie. ‘Because of its light weight we were able to design a system optimised for the venue and show’s particular setup without having to focus on structural limitations.’
The system more than sufficiently accommodated the show’s wide range of musical performances – from rock, pop and electronic to country, folk and classical. The main PA consisted of four K1 enclosures over 14 K2 per side, with low frequencies extended by eight K1-SB subs flown to the outside of each K1/K2 hang plus six total SB28 ground-stacked below. Out-fills were comprised of 16 K2 per side, while two more arrays of six K2 were flown out in the house for delay.
To cover the challenging V-shaped audience space in front of the stage, four ARCS Focus enclosures made up a centre cluster – two firing downward toward the base of the V with a single cabinet addressing each side section. On stage, monitor duties were fulfilled by ten 12XT coaxial speakers powered by three LA4X amplified controllers. Aside from the stage wedges, the entire system was powered using 56 LA8 amplified controllers.
Considering the range of music genres represented at the show, Lavoie says that many system designers would raise an eyebrow at the fact that only six floor-stacked SB28 subs were deployed. That, he notes, is testament to both the SB28’s power and K2’s full-range speaker design.
‘The amount of sound and low-frequency response that we achieved using only six subs on the floor was amazing,’ he says. ‘And K2, of course, gave us excellent coverage, with a tight pattern that was able to deliver sound exactly where it was needed, in a venue with considerable weight-loading restrictions. The show had a lot of great sound from a system smaller and lighter than you would have expected. It wouldn’t have been the same without K2.’
