Adamson at Vancouver's Chan Centre

	Photo: Laura Lee Shalevich

Since its opening in 1997, the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts located in Vancouver, British Columbia, features three unique venues: The Chan Shun Concert Hall, which seats 1,200; the black box Telus Theatre holds 275; and the Royal Bank Cinema has a capacity of 160.

Its stages lend themselves for various uses; from touring performers, to the UBC School of Music and the UBC Theatre Program students to rehearse and perform in, as well as providing an opportunity for many local arts organizations to stage an event through the Chan Centre's co-presentation program. The Chan presents a diverse offering of performances from classical recitals and jazz concerts, to avant-garde theatre and opera productions, and folk and world music.

Jay O'Keeffe, Chan Centre's head sound technician organized an extensive and thorough shootout to upgrade the building's existing floor monitoring system. Seventeen models, representing eight different manufacturers, were included.

The concert hall's original monitors were too big and heavy for most applications, so a lighter rig with a smaller footprint was brought in some time ago. That system has now has been allocated to another venue partially due to the system's inefficiencies with fidelity, tonality, and dispersion patterns, but ultimately because it did not match most riders of touring artists.

Both self-powered and conventional monitors were included, as were various driver and horn sizes. For the non-powered wedges, in order to ensure that the testing process was as un-biased as possible, Lab.gruppen PLM 10000 amps were used in all instances, and comparisons were conducted as unprocessed, as well as with recommended factory presets. Each monitor was level-balanced to ensure that the listening tests were only concerned with frequency and depth of field and not the audible perception of power differentials.

¬¬There is no proscenium on the stage; the surfaces behind the performance area are designed to acoustically amplify and disperse sound into the audience area. With a 105dBa specification for the floor monitors, precisely controlled dispersion was very important. Also excellent performance at multiple heights including standing, seated and floor level was another key factor.

The testing process included utilizing the Smaart acoustic analysis program to perform on axis and off axis, FFT measurements of the frequency response, phase, and magnitude response, as well as the sound pressure level and sensitivity of each monitor. This was done in order to verify that the monitors responded in situ in a manner similar to the published specifications of the manufacturer

Besides performing measurements, listening tests were also performed, using the test stimulus. O'Keeffe describes how fortunate he was to have a Grammy Award-winning, multi-instrumentalist Randy Raine-Ruesch play a large array of complex instruments. "He came in with a collection of about 30 of the hardest instruments in the world to mic," O'Keeffe says; the Japanese Sho and Ichigenkin, nose flutes from Borneo, all dramatically different instruments and all capable of incredibly complex harmonics and overtones. Because our room has dramatically variable acoustics (reverb decay times ranging from 2.6 to 4.9 seconds), and because the expectations for clarity of tone by the artists who grace our stage is so high, it was important to have products that not only provided a clear and concise frequency response, but were flexible, so we could adjust numerous parameters in very subtle ways."

Raine-Ruesch's opinions and observations of the tone quality, depth of field and overall performance was extremely valuable in the selection process, O'Keeffe adds: "It was interesting that one product that had some of the best results as per the AES standards was amongst the least musical and had the poorest depth of field, this was apparent within a few seconds of hearing a musician playing live."

After the initial testing, three preferred products were short-listed and re-evaluated in numerous scenarios. The testing was conducted by utilizing the product for a one month period during numerous performances in the concert hall. It allowed for the greatest number of staff to use the product and assess its ease of operation and overall performance. We also solicited the comments and criticisms of the artists who utilized the products during concert presentations.

Ultimately, it was a combination of ten Adamson M15 wedges with Lab.gruppen PLM 10000Qs that won out for both sonic quality and ease of use, explains O'Keeffe. "That was one of the great things about choosing these products, they're so flexible and we were able to train guys up in no time at all." The Adamson monitors were purchased with flight cases for easy mobility and the PLMs were mounted in a portable rolling rack.

O'Keeffe also says, "Because the M15 boxes are so well focused, we are using a lot less overall SPL for stage monitoring then we have in the past." Ewan MacDonald, Adamson applications engineer explains the benefits of using M15s for the Chan application: "While extreme sound pressures weren't required (something the Adamson M Series is known for), the accurate reproduction of complex musical sources was paramount. Adamson's advanced Kevlar cone architecture delivers superior linearity and frequency response which results in accurate reproduction at all listening levels, something that is very important for artists. The Adamson M15s conical waveguide was specifically designed to minimize distortion while providing smooth response at varying performance heights, all the while keeping off axis energy to a minimum. Many floor monitors perform well when an artist stands at a microphone, but not when the artist sits down. The waveguide in the M Series does not have this problem."

"The Adamson M15 out performs monitors of a similar size and price point, not to mention, greatly out performs some of the most requested models at a significantly higher price point." concludes O'Keeffe.