Danley loudspeakers spark the revolution

23 May 2006

USA - Making big improvements to a live venue's sound doesn't have to be complicated. When new ownership took over an existing 600-person club in New York named Revolution Hall, they expected it would take a lot of work to turn around its infamous negative sonic characteristics. Instead, all they had to do was install a new live sound system from Danley Sound Labs.

"My goal with Revolution Hall was to create an all-purpose venue where you could perform all genres of music with the highest quality sound," says John A. Chiara, owner. "Installing loudspeakers from Danley Sound Labs has been instrumental in achieving that. A drummer that played in this venue regularly over the years told me that it has gone from being the worst-sounding club he ever played to the best-sounding. Then he asked me what acoustic adjustments I'd made. I said, 'None yet, I just changed the sound system'."

An expansive, rectangular-shaped room featuring a thrust stage looking out at balconies on three sides, Revolution Hall is home to rock, blues, jazz, and acoustic music, comedy, and spoken word performances. Chiara planned for this wide-ranging mix by specifying four Danley SH-50 full-range loudspeakers for FOH (two per side), two more SH-50s for cross-stage monitors, three broad-dispersion Danley SH-100 loudspeakers flown for each balcony section, and four Danley TH-115 subwoofers for under the stage. "I'd been running a recording studio the last ten years, and I wanted to replicate a studio mixing environment in a club as best as I could," Chiara explains. "I actually used the Danley loudspeakers to create two listening environments and then blend them together resulting in a full stereo setup downstairs, and a three-zone mono system upstairs covering the three sections of the balcony."

Right from the club's opening night, the Danley Sound Labs speakers made quite an impact on Chiara, his crew and audiences. "The band was thrilled with the onstage sound," Chiara reports. "But it was the subs that really had us going. The TH -115s deliver 2,000W with 141 dB SPL peak at 100Hz! The low-end rumble that had previously been onstage was drastically reduced. With the Danley subs, the system response was almost a whole octave lower. The room and the adjacent hallways throbbed with a really pleasant, easy to listen to, low-end. The kick also had good fundamentals and punch, even with the kick channel EQ bypassed."

The fidelity of the Danley SH-100, a two-way Synergy Horn loudspeaker, is ideal for broader dispersion at lower SPL. And the Danley SH-50, which excels in environments requiring low-frequency pattern control and the best possible magnitude/phase response, proved to be a special combination for Revolution Hall. "The combination of the SH-100s and the SH-50s made the sound very even throughout the room," says Chiara. "Due to the pattern control of the SH-50, we can direct the sound anywhere we want it, so it's aimed at the audiences and not at reflective surfaces. Vocals and instrumentals were all extremely clear. The drum solo was a huge hit and a number of drummers in the audience commented on how great the kit sounded. Even with the main house EQ bypassed and just high/low pass filters for crossovers implemented, RTA during the show revealed almost classic weighted response curve. The big picture is that even unaltered and straight out of the box, this is the best sounding system I've ever heard."

By outfitting with Danley Sound Labs loudspeakers, Revolution Hall has experienced its own revolution. "Everyone that comes in here and knows anything about sound is curious about why the space sounds so much better now," Chiara says. "My goal to create a high quality, stereo-sounding venue was met. The fact that my Danley system performs exactly as promised, with clear sound and even coverage, is extremely gratifying."

(Chris Henry)