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- Many an audio rental
and staging company executive
would jump for joy if a
performer went out of his way
to applaud a live sound system
setup.
When
rocker David Lee Roth's
glowing comments got relayed
to Steve Payne last year, the
owner of Richmond,
Virginia-based audio company
Soundworks, he did the
auditory equivalent of a
double take. "When Roth came
out for the sound check before
his performance, he was all
grins, and he thanked me for
the sound job," Payne says.
"Then the house engineer said,
'yeah, David really loves
these old-style sound
systems.'"
Payne
says that was when it hit him.
"At that point I knew I needed
to get with the program and
get a new sound system," he
says. "The bar keeps getting
raised."
Actually,
the realization that a
new-generation speaker system
was needed didn't come like a
bolt out of the blue to either
Payne or Mike Southard, the
owner of Southard Audio, Mt.
Crawford, Virginia, who shares
a loose business partnership
with Payne.
Both
Payne and Southard have
collaborated for more than 20
years to jointly serve the
live sound market in the
region. They use much of the
same equipment as part of a
conscious effort to overlap
and were handling more complex
shows along with bigger acts.
Both companies were feeling
pressure to adopt loudspeaker
technology that would enable
them to fashion line array
speaker configurations. But
the more they studied the
issue, the less convinced they
were that line arrays made
sense for their type of
business.
"After
hearing some demos we both
concluded that moving to
flyable line array technology
would require us to buy too
many speakers and move away
from the ground-stack method
we use in 90 percent of our
shows," Southard says. "We
quickly realized that while
we'd get a marketing boost out
of saying we had the
capability to do line arrays,
they're really made for very
specific applications. The
problem is a lot of people are
trying to put a round peg line
array into a square hole. We
didn't want to go that
route."
Line
arrays, Payne says, would
require both companies to
fundamentally change the way
they do business, something
neither was prepared to
do.
"Line
arrays have really come into
vogue, especially with
big-name acts," he says. "But
line arrays work best when you
fly them, not when you ground
stack. The line array
performance can be drastically
compromised in a ground
stacking scenario, something
we do a lot because it's
easier, less expensive and
makes the most sense in the
temporary stage environment we
normally work in."
But
the challenge in finding a
successor to his existing
loudspeaker inventory proved
to be daunting for a number of
reasons. Payne says they
approached several line array
speaker suppliers about
devising a solution that would
allow speakers to be
ground-stacked. It quickly
became clear that wasn't in
the cards.
For
another, both loved the
loudspeakers they had, despite
the fact they were being
challenged by ever-larger
shows with more complex sound
needs.
Both
Soundworks and Southard Audio
had come to rely on Turbosound
TFL-760H Floodlight speakers.
They were still as robust as
they were when they acquired
the unparalleled workhorse of
the live sound speaker world
nine years earlier.
As
it turned out, though, Payne
and Southard didn't have to
stray too far from their
loudspeaker comfort zone to
find an answer to the problem.
That's because Turbosound, a
company with whom they've
forged a solid business
relationship, unveiled a brand
new loudspeaker system that
looked tailor made for their
needs: the Turbosound Aspect
Series.
In
January, Southard Audio and
Soundworks became the first
companies to take possession
of the new Aspect
loudspeakers.
The
joint purchase of 12
Turbosound TA-880H speakers
each marks the third time the
two companies have made an
identical purchase from
Turbosound, a practice that
enables the companies to
readily supplement their
speaker count when needed and
quickly step in to manage each
others' jobs when scheduling
conflicts arise. More than 20
years ago both bought TMS
Series speakers. Then, nine
years ago, they bought
Floodlight speakers. Both
companies still have a
complement of both speakers on
hand.
Employing
Turbosound's patented™
Polyhorn technology that
allows adjacent cabinets to
integrate seamlessly in an
array configuration, Aspect
Series loudspeakers
essentially allow Payne to
continue to ground stack but
achieve some of the same sound
qualities that exist in a
traditional flown line
array.
"The
problem with a traditional
ground stack is that when you
put multiple speakers together
patterns can converge and the
sound can change as you walk
through the overlapping
patterns," Payne says. "With
the Aspect's unique horn
design, you can put multiple
boxes side-by-side and you get
a sound that's extremely
smooth. These speakers come as
close to anything I've heard
in duplicating the sound you
get in a flown line
array."
Southard,
who in mid-February christened
his newly-purchased Aspects at
a Christian rock act he staged
in a 1,300-seat theatre, says
the speakers have power and
coverage to spare.
"I
was very impressed," he says.
"They summed well with each
other, from left to right, and
they were clear and loud all
the way to the back of the
venue and up into a balcony
area. The promoter noticed how
well they performed and
complemented me on using
them."
Payne
says the Aspect Series
speakers have a variety of
attractive features. Chief
among them is the
incorporation of cutting-edge
Turbosound
technology.
"They're
very similar to Floodlights in
that they continue the
Turbosound tradition of using
compression drivers only for
very high frequencies and a
cone driver for the
mid-range," he says. "But the
output of the Aspects is much
greater than the Floodlights,
and you get a much more
in-your-face sound. And they
have the characteristic smooth
mid-range, yet they're a lot
more focused and more
present-sounding than the
Floodlights."
The
Aspects' dispersion pattern
also makes for a speaker than
can be better tailored to the
live sound task, Payne says.
"The horizontal pattern of a
typical line array is fixed,
usually 90 degrees," he says.
"If you need to cover more
than 90 degrees, the only
thing you can do is hang
another column. Then you end
up spraying sound where you
don't want it. That's
overkill. With the Aspects,
you can vary the horizontal
pattern in 25-degree
increments, so they're
essentially scalable. You can
put up one box and it will
sound the same as if you used
two, four or twenty. They're
very flexible because they're
able to work in a small or
large venue."
As
they gear up for the start of
the long event season ahead,
both Payne and Southard are
confident they have a
loudspeaker that's going to
take their business to new
heights. The new Turbosound
Aspect Series speakers will
see virtually every kind of
show in a schedule that can
balloon to up to 40 shows a
month. Payne says he's excited
about seeing the Aspects in
action, and believes he's well
prepared for any kind of sound
curve that's thrown at
him.
"These
speakers will help us maintain
our image as a respected
touring sound company," he
says. "In this business you
can't let yourself be
perceived as being behind the
curve. The Aspects are a
quantum leap forward, and our
hats go off to Turbosound for
coming up with a speaker
system that's not just another
me-too line array system. The
line-array folks couldn't show
me a product that would
perform like a line array in a
stackable configuration.
Turbosound did, and we are
excited about being on the
cutting edge of this new
technology."
Southard
says the Aspects will give him
flexibility, ease of setup and
unrivaled sonic capabilities.
"They're not only cleverly
designed, but they're
lightweight," he says. "At 130
pounds, they're going to be
easy for us to set up. But the
big advantage is the sound
quality. The Aspects come very
close to rivaling line arrays
in situations for which line
arrays are the best solution,
and they far exceed line array
quality in the many situations
where line arrays aren't the
right answer."
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