Granada Theatre

Granada Theatre, Santa Barbara, California

The Santa Barbara Center for the Performing Arts recently completed the addition of a Digital Cinema rear-projection system and 30-ft. screen plus five loudspeakers at the historic 1,550-seat Granada Theatre, which anchors the city’s downtown cultural district.

AV integrator AMT Systems, a full-service audio-video engineering and installation contractor based in Santa Clarita, CA, supplied and installed the new cinema audio equipment.

“We added EAW QX596i three-way, bi-amped boxes for left, center and right, and two EAW SB2001 subwoofers,” says Mike Shelton, Senior Systems Engineer, AMT Systems. Because the new cinema system uses a Christie Digital Systems rear projector the left and right channel speakers were flown to either side of the Stewart screen while the center channel speaker and dual subwoofers were suspended immediately above the screen.

Two Powersoft K2 DSP+AESOP amplifiers power the passive coaxial high- and mid-frequency compression drivers in the three EAW QX596i cabinets. Three K3 DSP+AESOP amps drive the four 12-inch low frequency speakers in each of the three boxes. Two K10 DSP+AESOP amps power the twin SB2001 dual-21-inch subwoofers, which carry the low frequency effects (LFE) channel.

“When we delivered the amps I built a preset group that included all the EAW GrayBox setting for every possible combination of speaker loads and installed them into each of the amps,” says Paul Hugo of Marshank Sales Co., Powersoft’s regional representative, based in Tarzana, CA. “When Mike installed the amps he just went to the menu of presets and selected the appropriate one for each individual channel. And since every channel has every preset there is redundancy built in should there ever be a failure—which of course will never happen!”

2013 marked the five-year anniversary of the Granada Theatre’s reopening in 2008 following a $50 million restoration and expansion, including technical enhancements and acoustical improvements. Originally built in the 1920s, the Moorish-style theatre is home to a variety of performing arts companies, including Opera Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara Symphony, CAMA, State Street Ballet and Santa Barbara Choral Society.