PHILADELPHIA — Lincoln Financial Field, home of the Philadelphia Eagles, recently enhanced its sound system with custom loudspeakers from EAW. Coffeen Fricke and Associates, Inc. chose the EAW gear, which was sold by Audio Associates. The Large Projects Group of the A/V integration company AVI-SPL performed the installation. EAW’s Whitinsville, Mass.-based facility houses the EAW Strategic Engineering Group, which is itself charged with providing custom loudspeaker solutions for very precise installations, including Build-to-Order (BTO) projects.
In the case of Lincoln Financial Field, the stadium needed sound coverage of very specific sections of the venue with enclosures that would also deflect weather in a particular manner so that fans would benefit from the audio without getting wet.
To suit these needs, the Strategic Engineering Group team created the new EAW PE83-WP and PE123-WP models especially for the stadium. Forty-five PE83s and more than 700 PE123s were installed in the venue for sound reinforcement.
The PE83 and PE123 cabinets are both designed as a columnar line source of 3” woofer (8 or 12) in a custom cabinet adapted for horizontal mounting with a specified down-angle to the face. All wiring runs through the cabinets to adjoining ones with 140-Volt transformers in each cabinet. The drivers use neodymium magnets for reduced weight and are inherently weatherproof.
The Group took the PE Series concept from an existing EAW line-source speaker array, the type used commonly in houses of worship on columns to project sound without interfering with sight lines, and adapted it for horizontal mounting.
The custom solution worked out so well that a version of this design is under consideration to become a standard offering in the EAW product line.
“The custom loudspeakers developed and provided for the Eagles project have again exceeded our expectations in every aspect,” stated Pat McConnell, senior projects manager for AVI-SPL’s Large Projects Group. “The sleek cabinet design immediately pleased the client and blended seamlessly into the established architectural detail of the facility. The call to detail for mounting and performing hundreds of electrical connections was a significant plus for our contractor.”
“Once again, EAW was called on to be the manufacturer of the large scale retrofit system needed for the Philadelphia Eagles,” said Joe Blacker, president of Audio Associates, EAW’s rep for the region. “It was a pleasure working with AVI/SPL, and I was very pleased that EAW could undertake the gargantuan task of designing, building and implementing 740 custom loudspeakers in a matter of two months directly out of their Whitinsville factory.”
McConnell added that “with over 700 custom loudspeakers fabricated and shipped in stages to coordinate with installation timelines, EAW consistently maintained communication to ensure our flow of work was never interrupted. Our Large Projects Group has completed many professional sporting venues utilizing EAW and always benefits from their total commitment to the project.”
For more information, please visit www.eaw.com.
