Kelowna Community Theatre installs Y-Series and democracy for listeners.
The Kelowna Community Theatre (KCT) is an 853 seat theater in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. It is home to the Kelowna Community Concert Society, and the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra.
Local professional audio company, Gearforce, was asked to recommend a new line array system for the theater that would, from a sound perspective, do the room justice. “Many of our touring acts have been through the room with rider requested d&b systems,” states Robert Nevalainen of Gearforce. “So we are very familiar with what the room had to offer, what we would have to augment, etc. The Y-Series, with ArrayProcessing and the cardioid V-GSUBs, were the only choice for a new system.”
“In my initial discussions with John Adams, the theatre’s lead audio technician, I explained to him the d&b philosophy of ‘democracy for listeners’, a system designed so that every ticket holder, indiscriminately, gets as equal an audio experience as possible,” says Nevalainen. “A major concern was ensuring room acoustic issues were addressed and overcome.
“There isn’t a system available that provides a more even front to back and lateral coverage,” adds Nevalainen. ”We try and use ArrayProcessing whenever possible as it gives the greatest advantage in all situations. A well deployed d&b system sounds very good, but it enters greatness when ArrayProcessing is available!”
“The auditorium was built in 1962, without a whole lot of concern for room acoustics,” explains John Adams. “Sound treatment has been applied to the walls in the back half of the room, which helps to lessen some reflections. The ceiling is about twenty five feet high at the front row of seats and at the back, where the mix position is located, it is only eleven feet high, which makes for a challenging sound system design. Dakota Poncilius from Gearforce did an awesome job of tuning in the system for ultimate coverage. One of the characteristics of the d&b system that stands out to me is how great it sounds at all SPL levels.”
As the theater’s lighting director, Rusty Gahr exclaimed, “The coverage is ten times better than that of our old system... the bass response is much more even and defined."
Also contributing to the ‘democracy for listeners’ philosophy is the well behaved directivity fundamental to the Y-Series cabinet design. Both Y8 and Y12 loudspeakers, which only differ in horizontal dispersion of 80 and 120 degrees respectively, deliver horizontal directivity control down to 500 Hz.
