Beginning with EAW Co-Founder Kenton Forsythe’s original work at New York’s legendary Studio 54 and the Palladium, EAW loudspeakers have been at the forefront of dance club technology, providing a steady stream of innovations that consistently raised the standard for club sound.

By the late 1990s, the company focused on something that had never been done before: create a full line of loudspeakers that would be ideally suited to the specific sonic goals and needs of the club market. None of the leading professional loudspeaker manufacturers was addressing this market with specially designed product; rather, standard PA products were “adapted” for club use, and with wildly varying results.

At that same time, top nightclub sound designer John Lyons approached EAW with his ideas for loudspeakers capable of matching the captive audience on the dance floor, with output that is surrounding and encompassing, but without the “long throw” characteristics of PA loudspeakers.

“I wanted to have it work like a waterfall,” Lyons told Los Angeles City Beat magazine. “I always want to build systems that sound loud but that aren’t fatiguing. You want to be able to have a conversation on the dance floor.”

A unique and ultimately highly successful collaboration ensued, also involving top DJs and club sound professionals from around the world, with EAW’s formidable engineering resources deployed to make the defined set of club loudspeaker goals into a reality.

	Avalon, Boston

EAW engineers spent several months evolving the new loudspeaker series, with a significant portion of this work done within the club environment of Avalon Boston nightclub, and in 1999, Avalon Series loudspeakers made their official debut at the club that serves as their namesake.

The Avalon Series proved an immediate hit, installed at dozens of high-profile clubs within a year of launching. Numerous groundbreaking EAW technologies form the core of the series, including advanced horn and phase-plug technologies found in our flagship KF700 Series line of concert loudspeakers. Another technique employed to great effect is Tuned Dipolar Array (TDA), which provides the most focus control of low-frequency energy devised to this point.

The Avalon Series also takes a fresh look at the balance of subsystems within a loudspeaker system. Techno-industrial dance music (TIDM) presents a relentless, pounding beat, so to address this issue, the Avalon line comprises bottom-heavy systems with double the number of woofers per system to deliver the beat as a physical concussion.

In the adjacent chart, the educated eye immediately sees that where EIA 426 (audio industry standard, denoted in yellow) rolls off below 200 Hz, TIDM (blue) slopes up to the pronounced peak at 50 Hz. This reflects the relentless, pounding beat that characterizes all techno/industrial dance music.

The flagship DC1 employs the mid/high components of the traditional three-way system but uses four (not two) 15-inch woofers. Simultaneously, EAW engineers have created a subwoofer system optimized to deliver 50 Hz and up, enhancing response in the critical 50 – 200 Hz region. The DC1 also features EAW's unique asymmetrical, down-firing mid- and high-frequency horns. Employed in other EAW high-end systems, this technology provides coverage almost directly below the loudspeaker, even when it is mounted flush against a wall.

Further, several distinctive design elements have been engineered into Avalon Series cabinets in order to make them ideally suited for dance club applications. The upper rear corners of most of the smaller enclosures have been cut away, allowing the installer to position the system as high as possible while still angling primary output directly down to the dance floor. And, all full-range systems are horizontally oriented, providing a compact profile which allows them to be flown unobtrusively from very low ceilings.

	Avalon Series loudspeakers are tailored to meet the specific coverage needs of modern dance clubs

Most dance clubs also seek to enhance response in the top two octaves to maximize the psychedelic, filter-driven high-frequency (HF) effects that characterize the genre almost as much the beat. The Avalon product range includes two supertweeter HF arrays – one comprising three drivers intended for mounting near full range systems and another comprising four drivers intended for suspension directly above the dance floor.

When super HF arrays are suspended directly above the dance floor with full range systems mounted along the sides, dancers will notice especially enhanced effects in an area more-or-less centered between the two. Under optimum conditions, a distinct swirling effect is observed.

Some of EAW’s most powerful technologies are brought to bear in the Avalon Series, a fact that can now be testified to by thousands of club owners and DJs - as well as millions of dance club patrons - around the world.