Qwest Field, home of professional football's Seattle Seahawks franchise, recently implemented EAW DSA (Digitally Steerable Array) Series loudspeakers to meet high-end sound reinforcement needs in seven newly renovated club spaces.

Since opening in 2002, the 72,000-capacity stadium has been recognized as one of the premier stadiums in the league, featuring a venue-wide EAW loudspeaker line-up. (In fact, it's more than 98 percent EAW.) Under the direction of veteran Audio Engineer Fred Micera, that percentage just got a bit higher with the implementation of the DSA Series to provide all seven fan-critical club spaces with highly intelligible, high-output game-day radio broadcast programming in addition to a live feed of pre-game activities, team entrance to the field and national anthem.

Discussions about the requirements of the project with Seattle Pro Audio, headed by Michael Gardner, followed by a hands-on demonstration, convinced Micera that the DSA Series presented the optimum solution. As a result, he specified that the three larger club spaces be served by two sets of single full-range DSA250 and enhanced low-frequency DSA230 loudspeakers configured one over the other in a tight vertical line, topped by a single compact EAW SB120x single-12-inch-loaded subwoofer. Meanwhile, the four smaller spaces are handled by single DSA250s, again topped by a single SB120x sub.

All of the DSA loudspeakers are positioned well above the heads of the audience, with their unique driver selection, spacing and placement teaming up with precision-matched DSP to place coverage exactly where it's wanted without hitting any hard surfaces.

"The first attraction is the ability to both tightly focus coverage and also direct it under balconies is the first attraction," Micera explains. "In addition, the ease of mounting of these systems is another big plus, and the actual mechanics of it are so simple and well-defined in the user's manual that it really simplifies and lessens the cost of installation."

As a result, local contracting firm PowerCom, under Micera's direction, was able to quickly install the loudspeakers and companion cabling in very short order. Each DSA loudspeaker is simply plugged into adjacent AC outlets, while the subwoofers are driven via the few spare power amplifier channels that were available.

Micera notes that the intelligibility of DSA is "astounding, so very, very clean," even though the loudspeakers have yet to be equalized. "The DSA Pilot software is outstanding as well, handy and intuitive," he adds. "The integration of (EAW) Smaart within the software is great, with the ability to overlay response filters within the Smaart platform a huge bonus.

"DSA is the total package," Micera concludes. "To attain anything close to the same result in performance would have been a lot more complicated and expensive, and it's very questionable whether the quality of performance would even be close."