Paramount Theatre Gets A Gemini Sound-KF730 Upgrade
The historic Paramount Theatre in downtown Abilene, Texas, a monument to an earlier time of movie palaces and vaudeville performance, now offers the most modern of amenities in the form of a new, dynamic sound reinforcement system designed and installed by Gemini Sound of Dallas that's highlighted by EAW KF730 line arrays as well as EAW JF50S compact loudspeakers and SM200iH stage monitors.
Built in 1930, the beautiful facility's distinctive Spanish-Moorish architecture received a new lease on life with a 1986 renovation that has led to it serving as a true community asset in providing live and motion picture entertainment of many varieties. The restoration and renovation took over six months and won the Paramount the prestigious Texas Award for Historic Preservation from the Texas Historical Commission.
Late last year, Gemini Sound began the process of developing a commensurate sound system for the 1,199-seat theatre, which has a split aisle (no center) configuration with a main floor and a lower, middle, and upper balcony. Jason Litt, backed by Chad Cain, took the lead system design role, working with theatre personnel that included Executive Director Betty Hukill, Artistic Director Barry Smoot and Technical Director Jennifer Lashley.
"We didn't want to utilize a trapezoidal box approach with this design," explains Gemini Sound President Tim Cain. "There were aesthetic and infrastructure issues to address, with a line array design much more capable of eliminating those concerns while also meeting coverage and concert-type performance goals. The KF730 Series furthers this with its very compact size-to-output ratio, and its sonic signature is excellent."
The line arrays are flown to the left and right of the stage, tucked well up and out of the way. Each is comprised of two SB730 flying subwoofers that fit seamlessly within the array structure, with five KF730 full-range modules below, tapered back into a classic "J" shape.
The arrays are able to provide seamless coverage from front to back and side to side, with careful placement and the inherent pattern control of the boxes helping to keep output off of side walls and balcony faces to prevent reflections and reverberation.
They're supported by compact JF50S loudspeakers on the stagethat supply mid/high fill to the first few seating rows, with four EAW SM200iH wedges available for any stage monitoring needs. The system also includes a 24-channel house mixing console residing in the technical booth at the rear of the main level, as well as premium amplification and digital signal processing.
"This is a well-executed system, fully taking into account the current and future needs of the client - and then some," Cain concludes. "We all agree that it's an optimum solution in meeting sonic requirements in a challenging retrofit situation."