The original PA system relied upon a main centralized loudspeaker cluster comprised of larger format horns and compression drivers – by far the most common and accepted large-venue sound reinforcement approach two decades ago - to provide coverage to the grandstands. But this system’s time had long passed, and increasingly, supplemental rental systems were required in order to meet major-event expectations.

Seeking an upgrade, Olympic Oval Director of Operations Kameron Kiland began discussions with Terry McConaghy, general manager of integrated system sales for Allstar Show Industries, a leading installed and portable system provider with offices in Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. Allstar was no stranger to the challenges of the Oval, having been a primary provider of the supplemental rental systems, and further, the company has a rich heritage of supplying top-shelf design-build solutions to large venues.

“From an operational expense standpoint, Kameron realized it didn’t make much sense to continue to finance supplemental systems on a regular basis,” McConaghy explains. “He also had a vision for what a sound system could do in terms of dramatically enhancing flexibility throughout the venue. It was quite interesting to talk though his ideas, a process that generated a lot of investigative thinking.”

In addition to dramatically improved coverage to the grandstand, Kiland sought venue-wide sound reinforcement, extending even to ancillary office areas. Further, he wanted a new system capable of simultaneously support multiple events, along with the ability to plug in localized control and source devices.

For example, a hockey coach might be outfitted with a wireless microphone to direct a team’s practice session via a portion of the system serving the hockey rink, while PA announcements could be provided simultaneously to another portion of the system serving the grandstand for an audience assembled to view a long-track speed skating competition, perhaps also while another coach is equipped with a wireless mic to direct a practice session via the portion of the system serving the speed skating short track.

“The primary impediments to this approach include the close proximity of these respective areas, the fact that physical barriers can’t be erected to separate them, and that the overall scale of the venue dictates rather long-throw requirements from loudspeakers - all topped off by a fairly ambient acoustic environment,” McConaghy says. “We arrived at a design approach centered upon widely distributed loudspeakers offering exceptional directivity and control of output, where sound to each coverage area – or zone of the system - would need to be clear, present and intelligible, but then drop off very quickly immediately outside of the direct field. It was clearly an intensive design that would also require premium loudspeakers meeting the strict criteria.”

Subsequent discussions of the project with SF Marketing, EAW's distributor to the Canadian marketplace, as well as Joe Fustolo, head of the EAW Application Support Group (ASG) helped firm up this direction. McConaghy (who has recently joined the team at SF Marketing, by the way) notes that EAW attracted his interest, in part, because it’s deep line of installation loudspeakers meet the unique high output and directivity requirements of this project. This was further enhanced by the support of ASG, a team of highly experienced audio professionals that provides data to enhance the design process and also performs design reviews to help ensure projects are fully optimized.

Arthur Skudra, a veteran electro-acoustic design consultant based in Windsor, was also invited by SF Marketing to join the system team, focusing on the exacting process of loudspeaker selection, location and positioning throughout the entire venue. He started his design process by visualizing a widely distributed system and then whittled it down to smaller discrete “sub-systems” that would optimally serve their respective regions.

”I briefly considered a line array approach, where a high-Q characteristic might overcome critical distance issues, but that would be very expensive. And in a place this big, even line arrays would still have a hard time overcoming critical distance,” Skudra explains. “It came down to one viable way to do it to meet the client’s needs, and that was distributed, with a whole lot of loudspeakers to prevail over the critical distance issue. So many loudspeakers, in fact, that a colleague asked me if I was crazy when I first designed it.”

Comprehensive EASE modeling assisted in sorting things out. (One of the EASE plots for the project is shown directly below.) The ASG team stepped up to conduct the painstaking process of translating the original architectural plans of the facility into electronic form, which then served as the basis of the EASE effort by Marc St-Jacques of SF Marketing. In the modeling process, Skudra focused in particular on what happens in coverage areas located between loudspeakers. He notes that this factor is one of the most common in compromising the effectiveness of distributed designs; in particular, when time alignment is not optimized between adjacent loudspeakers, resulting in an “echo” effect and other intelligibility compromises.

“My goal on this project was keeping delay at 30 milliseconds or less between any two adjacent loudspeakers,” he notes. “This isn’t simply a matter of setting delay times in digital processing, but painstaking placement and aiming of the loudspeakers. Fortunately, the geometry of the coverage spaces, combined with the infrastructure for mounting the loudspeakers, worked out so that we could attain the goal.”

Two ceiling catwalks (an “inner” and “outer” catwalk) running above the oval surface proved quite opportune as mounting positions for most of the system’s 66 EAW AX Series (longer throw) and MK Series (shorter throw) full-range loudspeakers. They’re positioned to cover at least a dozen different areas that are broken down into zones.

First focusing on coverage to the grandstands, Skudra chose to attach loudspeakers to the outer catwalk that is closer (and lower) to the seating, presenting critical distance of up to 12 meters (a little over 39 feet) – very acceptable in this application. These loudspeakers fire almost straight down in providing coverage from the front row to the back, while energy does not reflect off the back wall.

The EAW MK2364 two-way loudspeakers chosen to provide this coverage are located approximately 12 meters apart, with their 60-degree-by 40-degree large-format horns rotated so that the cabinets can be mounted in a lower profile horizontal cabinet position when needed.

“We ended up with 18 MK2364 here, and geometry-wise, they worked out perfectly. Actually it was a bit startling as to just how good it is in terms of seamless, full-range coverage,” Skudra says. “These loudspeakers also cover the running track when the grandstands are rolled back, and we established them on their own zone so they can be easily turned off when not needed, cutting down the reverberant field.”

The inner catwalk, higher above the floor at about 18 meters (59 feet), proved an optimum position to mount a variety of loudspeakers to handle various event regions. To provide coverage on the lengthy straight-aways of the speed skating long-track, EAW AX344 (45-degree by 45-degree dispersion) three-way loudspeakers, again spaced at about 12 meters, provide coverage up to an “edge of critical distance” of approximately 25 meters (82 feet). They transition to AX396 loudspeakers for each the two “end zones” of this track, selected because their wider horizontal dispersion (90 degrees) helps better spread the coverage over these wider, curved spaces all the way into the corners of the grandstand.

“Throughout the track, the coverage happens just right, so that when you step a foot or so off the ice, it almost completely drops off,” Skudra adds. “On the curves, we felt like we were making a compromise by using fewer loudspeakers with wider dispersion, but coverage remains comprehensive and tight. It’s quite impressive, and saved us having to install even more loudspeakers to attain the same thing.”

Using both sides of the same inner catwalk, four AX396 loudspeakers (two per side) are dedicated to the skating short-track, and the same approach was duplicated with the hockey rink. These are mounted at a steep down-angle to avoid generating reflections off of ample amounts of nearby ductwork. To cover portable grandstands rolled into place at both of these locations, as well as concession stands and other peripheral areas, the choice was again several MK2364 two-way systems, mounted to rated ceiling beams and firing straight down.

“Basically, there’s no excuse for patrons or athletes to not be able to clearly hear announcements anywhere in the venue,” he says. “Being aware of the critical distance for every loudspeaker in the system, and keeping in mind what is happening with adjacent sounds that might also reach listeners, was the key. Discrete echoes resulting from placing a loudspeaker too far away from its intended listeners would have compromised the quality we were all seeking.”

The six-week system installation process was headed up by Keith Watson of Allstar, with the venue’s constant use every day of the week dictating workdays starting at 10 pm and lasting until 5 am, when it was time to get out of the way of athletic programs kicking off before sunrise. The crew had to work on top of - and around - the numerous ice surfaces, utilizing 85-foot lifts to reach ceiling level.

First, all loudspeakers were put into place, a painstaking process of exact rigging, support, positioning and wiring. Later, every loudspeaker was re-visited for optimal aiming.

The sheer scale of the system, as well as the number of point sources it employs and the requirement for multiple zoning capability, dictated a sophisticated digital backbone to manage and tie it all together, which was established with the help of SF Marketing.

The sound crew worked around the old system during the installation process, which remained operational until it could be removed after the new system had been activated. Skudra returned to the venue immediately following installation to perform two nights of system tuning and optimization, and he was one of the first audio professionals in the world to utilize new EAW Smaart v.6 measurement and analysis software on a live project. EAW’s Fustolo also provided his input in the commissioning effort, and ultimately, the final performance results proved startlingly effective, perhaps even surpassing the team’s expectations.
Skudra deployed v.6 on his MacBook Pro computer, noting, “this proved to be a really awesome combination. For one thing, I was easily able to set time delays in such a way that the system is very transparent in terms of imaging, which can be a problem in such a huge venue and with such a huge system.”

Skudra contemplated a 120 Hz crossover point for all loudspeakers in deference to concerns about low-frequency rumble. After some evaluation, however, he decided to establish crossover for both the two-way and three-way loudspeaker models at 90 Hz, providing a very full low-end signature while not resulting in any energy build-up.

A Lectrosonics PM400 digital wireless mic was utilized to take measurements, which saved having to run hundreds of feet of mic cable all over the venue. The loudspeakers serving the long-track oval served as the reference (“zero”) point, and then Skudra systematically worked through the entire system, loudspeaker by loudspeaker, and then zone by zone, with a final round of overall time delay optimization closing out the process.

“Smaart v.6 proved great in being able to verify that everything was operating optimally and in sync,” he says. “The multi-tasking is invaluable, where you can now run Smaart while at the same time control the DSP from the same desktop. Also, the enhanced snapshot aspect of v.6 is really useful, particularly with a project of this complexity. We take measurements at up to five different locations for each loudspeaker, save these as ‘snapshots’, and then start making decisions on EQ and so forth. The ability to have so many traces (snapshots) accessible on the screen, and then being able to average them as you please, shows me that EAW has really done their homework on this upgrade.”