- Audio Inc. of Roselle Park, NJ, recently added a new Yamaha Professional NEXO STM line array system to improve on previous years’ sound for the “Lincoln Center Out of Doors” and “Midsummer Night’s Swing Concert Series” that begin in June at Damrosch Park, an outdoor plaza that is part of Lincoln Center in New York City.
From left: Mike Sinclair and Stephen Tolve, co-owners of Audio Inc.“Last year, we decided to update our existing sound systems with the latest technology available in order keep pace with the industry,” said Mike Sinclair, co-owner, Audio Inc. “For the purpose of the summer season at Lincoln Center, we wanted to update our medium-sized line array system because the venue has specific requirements including a very well controlled coverage pattern, to produce the minimum of SPL outside the defined area of Damrosch Park and the 5,000-capacity audience.”
Sinclair said he and co-owner Stephen Tolve first saw the NEXO STM system at the 2012 InfoComm Show, where Yamaha held a rigging-focused demo. They later heard a large-format version of the rig at a Kenny Chesney show, and were very impressed; still, they hadn’t considered it for their needs.
“At last year’s InfoComm, and at the end of the NEXO presentation, Yamaha played an STM system comprised of one sub, one mid, and one high box,” Sinclair said. “We listened and realized what the term Scale Through Modularity (STM) really meant. It was a total surprise to us that the system was viable in such a small configuration. There is no other large-format line array system on the market where you can truly say that one cabinet can work as a small sound system, yet here we were listening to the functional equivalent of one line array element and one-half of a subwoofer cabinet. Not only did it sound good as a big system, but it sounded good as a small system as well.”
Sinclair and Tolve discussed the possibilities of the STM system, and eventually purchased one. Although the line array was intended mainly to upgrade the sound at Lincoln Center Summer Concert Series, it has been used on other gigs as well. To date, Audio Inc. has used the STM as a small ground-stacked system in an auditorium, a large flown system in an armory, and a flown singlewide array in a hotel ballroom for a corporate event. “In every instance, it has performed exactly as we had hoped it would,” Sinclair said.
The initial Audio Inc. STM system configuration for the Lincoln Center Concert Series consists of four-per-side STM-M46 main mid-hi frequency boxes; four-per-side STM-B112 bass boxes to hang alongside each M46; two-per-side STM-M28 Omni purpose full-range boxes; four-per-side STM-B118 subwoofers; four NXNUAR-DTs and a NXNUAR1 (NEXO Universal Amp Rack), along with powering, metering, output patching, AC distribution racks, and two NXDT104 Dante networking cards.
A Yamaha CL5 Digital Audio Console is being used at front of house for the Concert Series with a Rio1608-D and two Rio3224-D input/output boxes on stage “The signal path is Dante out of the console down through fiber, to the Dante inputs of the NEXO amps,” said Tolve. A Yamaha PM5D-RH is used for monitors.
