The Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, California recently installed a new sound system using Danley Sound Labs loudspeakers and subwoofers in the Margaret Lesher Theater, which greatly improved intelligibility, impact, and gain-before-feedback. Local AV integration firm Premier Media Integration designed and installed the system.
Of the Lesher Center for the Arts’ four theaters, the Margaret Lesher Theater is intermediate in seating capacity at 300. It’s commonly used for corporate events, musicals, and dramatic performances, with seating arrayed in a wide arc around the stage (making any simple two-box hang insufficient).
“The old sound reinforcement system used quality components,” explained Graham Cooper, president of Premier Media Integration. “However, the system wasn’t designed for optimal coverage of the seating area, and there were lots of gaps and hot spots that made it difficult to mix a performance that would please everyone in the audience.” Cooper designed the system in collaboration with Rocky Giannetta of Layer 8, of Roseville, California, and oversaw its installation with Premier co-owner and head tech Gordon Fava.
Cooper continued, “The Lesher Center wanted a purpose-built sound system for the room that would provide even coverage from front to back. The wide shape of the room and proximity of the nearest seats to the stage made that a challenge; it called for more than a stereo system and more, even, than a left-center-right system. In situations where precision coverage and high fidelity are required, we’ve had a lot of success with Danley Sound Labs’ point-source loudspeakers. The Danley boxes are highly focused and allow us to hit seating areas very precisely. By the same token, they keep energy off the walls and ceiling, which also contributes to high intelligibility.”
Cooper and Giannetta designed a system that uses three Danley SH69 loudspeakers for left-center-right and two Danley SM60F loudspeakers for in-between: center-left and center-right. Because of the way Danley’s patented technologies work in the context of the design, the five loudspeakers knit nicely together without obvious seams or gaps. A pair of Danley TH112 subwoofers flown behind the center speaker fill out the low end. New Xilica processing in conjunction with PowerSoft amplifiers drive the system, with user control provided by an existing Yamaha digital console. Because the Margaret Lesher Theater is booked almost every day, the Premier Media Integration team had to work quickly and cleverly to pull the old system out and put the new system in with minimal disruption.
