For Atlanta’s Cobb Energy Centre, which hosts Broadway shows, ballet, opera, concerts, poetry, stand-up comedy, and other special events, it was time to modernize its 17-year-old P.A. The venue team enlisted the expertise of international consultants Theatre Projects to design a solution around the Meyer Sound PANTHER system.
One of the goals was to improve vocal intelligibility in the farthest reaches of the hall. “They were getting feedback from guests that at the very top of the grand tier they were struggling to understand stand-up comedians and heavily dialogue-driven performances,” explains Theatre Projects Associate Greg Hanson, who conducted a comprehensive analysis of the existing system in Meyer Sound’s MAPP 3D system design and prediction tool in collaboration with Meyer Sound’s Director of System Optimization, Bob McCarthy.
The evaluation process started with recalibrating the existing Meyer MICA loudspeaker system by disassembling and reassembling it in a more optimized setup. This allowed the team to test whether adjustments could extend the system’s lifespan or confirm the need for an upgrade. The analysis validated the decision to move forward with a new system. The decision to go with PANTHER was driven by PANTHER’s clarity and coverage, as well as the ease of transitioning to a new powered system with existing infrastructure.
The new system centers around left and right arrays of 14 PANTHER loudspeakers and a center array of six LEOPARD compact linear line array loudspeakers, supported by a cardioid array of three 2100-LFC elements. This setup replaces the original system of 24 MICA line array loudspeakers and a center cluster of CQ-1 wide coverage main loudspeakers and CQ-2 narrow coverage main loudspeakers.
Hanson and Theatre Projects designed the new system to work with components of the original system, including four 700-HP and 600-HP deck subwoofers, four M1D ultra-compact curvilinear array loudspeaker front fills, 14 M1D balcony and under-balcony delays, and an upper grand tier delay system comprising four UPA‑1P compact wide-coverage loudspeakers and two UPM2P ultracompact narrow-coverage loudspeakers, processed by two Galileo 616 network platforms.
Integrator Sound Associates led the installation. Because the old rigging was welded in place onto the I-beams, the team had to re-engineer rigging points. Yet the installation was completed in just four days, thanks to coordination between the Cobb Centre team, Theatre Projects, Sound Associates, Atlanta Rigging Services, and Meyer Sound.
“This is the first time I’ve ever done an install where it came out of the box better than the paperwork and the computer said it would,” says Cobb Centre’s Director of Production, Brian Fiegelman. “The new arrays eliminated the need for probably half of the delays in the room. And, we’re also able to have better sight lines.
“The clarity and intelligibility of the center cluster alone is consistent all around the room,” Fiegelman adds, “the 2100-LFC array supports most programming without requiring floor subs.”
“Every problem that we had, PANTHER solved,” says Cobb Energy Centre’s A1 mixer, Mike Froedge. “As far as coverage, low-end consistency, vocal presence, intelligibility, and the stereo image, it addressed all our issues. Since we’ve done the upgrade, we’ve had Sting, we’ve had Dave Koz, we’ve had Jadakiss with an orchestra, we’ve had the Atlanta Opera, numerous comedy shows. We’ve gone the entire spectrum from hip hop to classical, and the fidelity is just unreal on all of it.”
