Mandurah Baptist College installs Blackbird line array

Rick Browne of Venue Technical Services in Western Australia chatting about the Blackbird line array recently installed in the Mandurah Baptist College.

The Manudrah Baptist College has completed construction of its 1200 seat auditorium. Rick Browne of Western Australian audio consulting, design and installation company Venue Technical Services was selected to install a complete audio system for the venue.

Rick discussed that the requirements for the system outlined the necessity for superior intelligibility for all audience members and flexible headroom.

"The building is laid out in a 1/4 segment shape with raked seating and the system had to be capable of delivering the same quality and level of sound to each seat. The venue regularly serves multiple purposes as the entire school community meets in the room on a weekly basis as well as school plays, concerts and awards nights. Like many school halls, the broader community utilises its facilities including the local Baptist church which uses the venue each Sunday."

An Acoustic Technologies Blackbird TLA308 line array system perfectly suited the requirements of flexible headroom and even signal distribution. Its compact size also leant itself to the constraints of the installation. "The room does not have traditional hanging hardware over the stage so we had to create a custom bracket mounting system to work with the large bulkheads that span the width of the room yet maintain an even dispersion pattern."

"The Blackbird system handles the required 90 ° horizontal dispersion perfectly, and combined with the DSP2X4 system processor, produces a tight vertical pattern, reducing unwanted reflections off the ceiling and bulkheads."

The school tested a number of other brands of line array in the venue prior to choosing the Blackbird TLA308 and are extremely satisfied with their choice.

Rick Browne: "I've been using AT Professional loudspeaker systems for around four years now and am really pleased with the results I can deliver my clients. I have always loved Australian made products and it is a pleasure to have the ability to use products that are made locally, but are comparable to international products."

Acoustic Technologies supplied:

12 x BLACKBIRD TLA308 Line Array Cabinets (6 per side FOH)
4 x BLACKBIRD TLA308B Sub Bass (2 per side)
4 x HD7 Power Amplifiers
2 x DSP2X4 Digital System Processors
4 x TH750XA 12" Active Speaker Systems (foldback)

Images courtesy of Niche Construction - Western Australia