American Airlines Arena Hosts Pro Sound and Concert Systems USA for DJ Show
04/06/05 11:51am pst

MIAMI, FL—Sound designer Terry McNeil of Pro Sound - Miami drew on every inch of his extensive experience with NEXO sound systems to come up with the goods for DJs Sasha and Digweed, playing the 20,000-capacity American Airlines Arena.

Sourcing gear from Concert Systems USA, (Gulfport and Tampa), McNeil used loudspeaker cabinets from three different NEXO ranges to achieve his objective of 360-degree dispersion from an end-stage configuration. "At the peak of the night, I metered the system at 117dB A-weighted. The clarity was amazing."

McNeil, who specializes in large-scale systems for dance music events, chose a relatively unusual combination of NEXO tangent array boxes. The main stereo cluster was formed by 24 GEO T full-range cabinets: two arrays of 10 T4805 with two T2815 downfill boxes. For side fill arrays, 24 GEO S compact cabinets were used in two arrays of 12, and 12 of NEXO's Alpha enclosures were used for the backfill and VIP area. For subs, McNeil specified four CD18s each side, with six Alpha S2s ground-stacked in the middle. The system was powered by 29 CAMCO Vortex 6 amps, and that was just the main P.A.. For the DJ rig monitors, three further CAMCO amps powered more NEXO cabinets, an Alpha E and PS15 combination.

According to McNeil, "the GEO T gave us a lot of horsepower in the mains. We combined CD18s under the left and right arrays, with S2s down front, and the combination was awesome. The GEO S was great for outfills at stage-left and stage-right. I walked the upper bowl and the dispersion never dropped off. The biggest surprise to me was the CD18 subwoofers. WOW! I had always been a huge fan of the S2 subwoofer. We stacked the CD18s four high under each GEO T array and delayed the 8 S2s that were down center. The result was 'bone-crushing' bass. Several employees of American Airlines Arena said that they've never heard bass that intense from any event that has taken place at the arena."

Randy Frierson, owner and MD of Concert Systems USA, pulled NEXO inventory from both his Gulfport warehouse in Mississippi and from his new regional office in Tampa. "The show was confirmed quite late in the day," explains Frierson, "so we had to prep, transport and organize personnel from our two locations in less than 24 hours. We handled the entire production, sub-renting some S2 subs and PS cabinets from 6th Sensory Sound, and our crew list included myself as one of the systems engineers, alongside Harry Brill Jr, Dave Drake and Joe Rodda. In addition to the arena system, we provided a good-size Alpha system for the main concourse."

Lead systems engineer for the Ultrafest event was Harry Brill Jr, who kept taking Smaart Live measurements to confirm what he was hearing. "The SPL of the T rig was consistent throughout the lower bowl, it was just amazing. I also thought the GEO S rig was a great complement to the T rig for the side hangs. NEXO never fails to impress me."

Terry McNeil has been a beta tester for NEXO products since the late 90s, and recently has been trialing the company's new GEOSoft software. "After I figured out how to do the 3-D modelling, I came up with some crazy ideas on how I could design systems that incorporated GEO T and GEO S. The GEOSoft Beta let me plug in all the dimensions of the arena bowl and floor and I was able to see where the dispersion was as well as Max SPL. I was a little concerned about how well 12 GEO T boxes per side would throw, but they covered the arena bowl and floor exactly the way the GEOSoft program said they would."

He concludes that "NEXO is definitely headed in the right direction with GEO technology. Right now, there are several tours that have featured GEO T and with the help of Thunder Audio and Concert Systems in the USA, and SSE Hire in the UK, youll start to see more and more bands and tours using NEXO GEO technology."

For more information, visit http://www.nexo-sa.com/.