When they restarted the competition
in early 2019, EAW and the brand’s Canadian
distributor, SFM, were among the suppliers
invited to take part by first proposing a
system design that would meet the venue’s
extensive criteria. From there, three man-
ufacturers were invited to come into the
building with a demo system and showcase
its capabilities in a real-world setting. It was
a sizeable investment, after all, and Groupe
CH wanted to interface directly with the
suppliers to ensure they’d have full support
throughout the lifespan of the system.
A consulting team was assembled at
the outset of the process that included:
Arthur Skudra, the owner and principal
consultant with Ontario-based Sightsound
Consulting; Las Vegas-based audio industry
veteran and Truth in Audio founder Bernie
Broderick, who spent 12 years with EAW
from 2006-2018; previous A1 Michel Leveil-
le, considering his unparalleled knowledge
of the building and its audio requirements;
and Solotech sales rep Mario Lessard.
Owing to the Montreal-based AV and en-
tertainment technology giant’s longtime
partnership with the Bell Centre, Solotech
had been selected as the integrator for the
winning system from the outset.
Sylvain Lemay, Solotech’s lead for the
physical installation, also joined the fold for
the final-three shootout. He and Leveille
were close from their touring days and
Leveille specifically asked that he head up
the install.
Arguably the biggest stipulation for
the new solution was that it occupy the
same 16 cavities in the overhead arena-wide
walking grid as the previous one since
reengineering that grid would be cost-
prohibitive. It needed to work in various
smaller configurations, including a left-right
performance system for a half-bowl setup as
the Bell Centre is one of the busier NHL are-
nas in terms of the amount of non-hockey
events it hosts. It also needed to be state-
of-the-art in terms of its sonic performance,
feature set, operation, and maintenance in
order to deliver the desired 20-plus-year
lifespan like the previous system.
Of course, those were in addition to a
notable improvement in coverage and clarity
from the first row of rink-side seats to the very
top of the upper bowl. That meant pushing
enough air to overpower a crowd that can
approach 110dB with relative ease – especially
when the Bruins or Leafs roll into town.
Ultimately, the Adaptive Series solution
from EAW and SFM won the day by check-
EAW ANNA ARRAY
ing all of those boxes and then some. Key to
that are features like Adaptive Performance,
which manages coverage and directivity
parameters electronically via EAW’s Res-
olution 2 control software, thus forgoing
vertical splay angles to achieve the desired
coverage, and Adaptive Healing, which can
self-detect any component failure within
the enclosure – say a driver or port – and
compensate for it automatically.
The remote control of directivity meant
that the EAW solution – comprised of the
mid-sized Anna three-way, fullrange array
enclosures and Otto Adaptive subwoofers –
could easily and effectively occupy the ex-
isting 16 grid cavities while negating the
need for curved arrays. That meant fewer
total boxes to cover the entire arena.
Each Anna array encircling the ice sur-
face from above includes six modules for a
total of 96. Some arrays are paired alongside
hangs of two or three Otto subs for a total
of 36. A unique and attractive feature of the
Adaptive subwoofers is that each individual
module can be configured in omni, cardi-
oid, and hyper-cardioid modes (or anything
in between) by internally and automatically
balancing its output with cancellation.
The adaptable directivity combined
with the sheer number of cabinets was a
big advantage in meeting the objective of
reconfigurability. “The fact that we’ve got so
many boxes and that they’re self-powered
makes the system very flexible in terms of
different configurations for different types
of events,” offers Leveille. “We can build in
presets and recall them as needed without
actually moving anything, so it’s not just
easier; it also helps reduce costs and set-up
time for events.”
Redundancy was a key consideration
for every component of the system as well.
In addition to the Adaptive Healing capabil-
ities of the Anna and Otto boxes, the QSC
Q-Sys network (essentially acting as the
system’s distribution matrix, since the DSP
is handled within the cabinets themselves)
is fully redundant thanks to a pair of identi-
cally-configured Core 510i integrated pro-
cessors. Since each cabinet is also equipped
PROFESSIONAL SOUND 27