Ausgrid Stadium calls on JBL loudspeaker for high-impact audio

Ausgrid Stadium, home of Australia’s Newcastle Knights, has undergone a comprehensive upgrade with the redevelopment of its Western Grandstand, with The PA People specifying Harman’s JBL loudspeaker for sound reinforcement duties.

The stadium has received a brand-new audio system, designed and implemented by The PA People, utilising JBL Application Engineered (AE) loudspeakers with weatherised treatment for external use (WRX) as well as JBL Control 29AV-1 and Control 25AV loudspeakers. All speakers are driven by Crown CTS amplifiers fitted with the latest Crown DSP card – Crown IQ PIPUSP4/CN. Overlay processing and control is provided by BSS London BLU systems.

Loudspeakers for the stands comprise six clusters of spaced elements mounted close to the leading edge of the roof, while a number of fill speakers cover areas shadowed from the main clusters. Each of these six clusters use a JBL AM5212 and AM4315 loudspeaker to cover the grandstand upper seating and one JBL AM4315 loudspeaker to cover the grandstand lower seating.

Both loudspeaker models feature rotatable horns, allowing them to be installed horizontally. Careful selection of the horn coverage pattern and orientation allows the grandstand upper seating to be serviced by a single enclosure, while maintaining SPL variation of within the target +/- 3dB. Servicing the grandstand upper seating with a single enclosure is designed to eliminating interference effects, such as comb filtering, which occurs when arraying loudspeakers to cover a common zone.

The JBL AM4315 is operated as a passive three-way and is driven from a dedicated channel of Crown CTS2000 amplification, which also provides over six dB of headroom. The multi-band Progressive Transition mid-high frequency waveguide offers increased sensitivity in the midrange vocal region between 500 Hz and 2.8 kHz.

A total of 72 JBL Control 25AV speakers and 24 JBL Control 29AV-1 speakers are deployed for coverage to the grandstand infill areas.

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