Tulsa, OK – August 2011… Since 1975, Tulsa's Mabee Center has been the site of the annual Miss Oklahoma Pageant. Located on the beautiful campus of Oral Roberts University, Mabee Center is also the home of the Golden Eagles men's' and women's' basketball teams and serves as the area's primary venue for concerts, business conferences, seminars, and other special events. This year's Miss Oklahoma Pageant and its sibling event, Miss Oklahoma's Outstanding Teen were, as in years past, talent-filled spectacles that contributed more than $2M in scholarship funds to the contestants. To ensure robust music reproduction and the finest speech intelligibility possible, the Mabee Center staff pulled out all the stops with its deployment of a robust sound reinforcement system drawn from the catalog of D.A.S. Audio.
Casey Phariss serves as Oral Roberts University's Audio Services Manager and Chief Audio Engineer. In this capacity, he oversees the day-to-day operations as related to audio setups for the Mabee Center's concerts, conferences, athletic events, and other special events. Phariss and his crew, which consists of Justen Reddick, Trent Ekblad, Josh Banks, and Jonathan Williams, flew an impressive sound system that included D.A.S. Audio's Aero 38A, Aero CA-28A, and LX-218A loudspeaker enclosures. He discussed the project's challenges and the setup.
“This year's Miss Oklahoma and Miss Oklahoma's Outstanding Teen pageants ran concurrently from June 7 – 11 in the Mabee Center's Johnston Theatre,” explained Phariss. “Every inch of floor space was taken up for the staging area. By the time everything was in place, the front seating row was barely three feet from the stage. For this reason, we flew almost the entire sound system, including the subwoofers. While there was no live music, there were many pre-recorded music tracks, so it was critical that music reproduction be first rate—and likewise for the spoken word.”
To address these issues, Phariss and his team flew twenty D.A.S. Audio Aero 38A 3-way, medium format, powered line array elements—ten units per the left and right extreme sides. These were supported with a center cluster consisting of eight Aero CA-28A 2-way compact, powered loudspeaker enclosures. For low frequency support, the crew flew a total of eight D.A.S. LX-218A powered subwoofers—four enclosures per side, positioned to the inside of the Aero 38A clusters.
Augmenting the flown loudspeakers, Phariss and his crew positioned an additional four Aero CA-28A cabinets across the front of the stage area to serve in a front fill capacity. For on-stage monitoring, eight D.A.S. SML-12A powered multipurpose monitors were deployed. Completing the setup, two Biamp Nexia audio processors handled loudspeaker management tasks.
The Mabee Center's assortment of D.A.S. Audio loudspeakers is routinely moved and re-deployed in a variety of configurations—depending upon the nature of any given event. Phariss discussed those attributes of the D.A.S. equipment that make it so versatile for a facility of this nature. “The first and foremost consideration,” he said, “is sound quality, and in this regard, the D.A.S. Aero System is hard to beat. The Aero Series enclosures have solid vertical throw and broad horizontal dispersion, and this enables us to provide consistent, even coverage throughout the room. Add to this the fact that the entire system is self-powered and you eliminate the need for a rack of heavy amplifiers—not to mention the fact that those amps have to reside somewhere. The self-powered design of the equipment means the amps are perfectly matched for the loudspeakers and system cabling is streamlined considerably.”
With the Miss Oklahoma Pageant now behind him, Phariss reflected on the event and the success they encountered with the loudspeaker deployment. “Everyone involved with the Miss Oklahoma Pageant was really pleased with the performance of our audio system,” he reported. “We routinely encounter audio engineers and others who may have heard of, but are not familiar, with the D.A.S. name. By the time they've completed their project at our facility, every audio engineer that comes through here raves about the sound quality and performance of the system. The gear sounds great, the rigging hardware is easy to work with, and the company's support is first rate. We couldn't be happier.”
For additional information on Mabee Center, visit http://mabeecenter.com.
About D.A.S. Audio
Celebrating 40 years of innovation, Valencia, Spain-based D.A.S. Audio is one of the world's leading manufacturers of loudspeaker systems, power amplification, signal processing, and related components. D.A.S. Audio products are found on tour with the world's greatest performing artists and installed in many of the most prestigious facilities. For additional information about D.A.S. Audio, visit the company online at www.dasaudio.com.
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Photo Info: A performance during the Miss Oklahoma Pageant.