L-Acoustics XT Series at Hale Centre Theatre, Utah

A quarter of a century ago, Salt Lake City's Hale Centre Theatre staged its first production in an old lingerie factory for a paid audience of barely two dozen people. Since then, things have certainly changed for the non-profit community theatre, which today stages productions in its 42,000-sq.-ft. West Valley City facility, and welcomed 3.5 million patrons through its doors.

Although the octagonal, 610-seat theatre is state-of-the-art in most respects -- including its unique circular moving stage and sophisticated Gala Spiralift system -- the sound reinforcement system was deemed in need of an update. Local integrator Poll Sound was brought in to design and install a new system, which is now comprised of L-Acoustics loudspeakers and amplified controllers.

Poll Sound's Deward Timothy specified that eight 12XT coaxial loudspeakers be flown in a ring above the perimeter of the stage, down-firing onto the lower portion of the raked audience seating. Farther out from the stage, a larger concentric ring supports a dozen smaller 8XT coaxials evenly spaced for upper seating coverage. All XT Series enclosures are powered and processed by a total of five LA4 amplified controllers.

According to Dan Morgan, Hale Centre Theatre's technical director, the sonic change between the old and new systems was hardly a subtle one. "There was an immediate, obvious improvement," he says. "Not only did our coverage improve drastically, but the overall quality of sound just got so much better. In theatre, clarity of voice is paramount to understanding the story, and the new loudspeakers really helped our mics sound so much cleaner and more intelligible. The warmth and depth of the music also greatly improved -- it became so much more vibrant, which was fantastic because we do a tremendous amount of musicals."

"With our low ceiling and the fact that we occasionally run as many as 32 microphones, this is not always an easy room to provide sound reinforcement for. But thanks to Poll Sound and L-Acoustics, the coaxials are very effectively keeping the sound off of the stage and walls, and directing it onto the audience where it needs to be," Morgan adds.