Above, the Meyer JM-1P clusters in place
at the Maisonneuve Theatre. At right,
Andrew Hope of GerrAudio making adjustments at the Yamaha PM5D console used
for house mixes at the Maisonneuve.
he continues. “There were no issues with
weight, no issues with power, just the
box doing its job. It was great.”
Each JM-1P contains a 15-inch
woofer joined by a 4-inch compression
driver with a proprietary manifold cou-
pled to a constant-Q horn that provides
a 20-degree horizontal by 60-degree
vertical coverage. Components are
driven a proprietary 2-channel, class
AB/H power amplifier with comple-
mentary MOSFET output stages yields
an output of 1,275 watts.
The loudspeakers were joined by
two Meyer 700 HP dual- 18 subwoofers
per side on the deck, all tied together
with Galileo 616 digital processing.
House mix engineers helmed a Midas
XL200 console and had several outboard
effects devices available to deploy as
needed, including TC Electronic M3000
reverbs, Yamaha SPX9909 multi-effects
processors and BSS DPR-402/404 compressors and BSS-504 gates.
A Soundcraft SM24 console anchored
the monitor position, joined by Klark-Teknik digital equalization for the JBL
JRX115 (single- 15) and JRX215 (dual-
15) 2-way loudspeakers on stage.
Adrenaline Rush
Another interesting application of the
JM-1P loudspeakers came with the
system for the 1,458-seat Maisonneuve Theatre, which can be likened
to a modern-day rendition of a classical Italian theatre, with a main floor of
seating followed by two expansive bal-conies. Andrew Hope took a hands-on
role with this design.
“This room features an ideal geom-
etry to demonstrate what the JM-1P
can do, because we were able to cover
it, top to bottom, with two little clusters
of four boxes,” Hope explains. “To do
that with a line array, it would likely be
four to five times the size and weight,
and pull much more electricity.”
“The benefits of line arrays - or more
accurately line sources - are obvious when
you have to throw a long distance without
having to go vertical. Just like your typical
outdoor event,” he adds. “But when you
get into a soft-seat theater like the Mai-
sonneuve, with a relatively short throw
distance and quite a need for vertical
coverage, line arrays don’t do that as well.
Plus, there’s no natural sense of imaging
as you move around the room.
Writer/photographer Jeff MacKay is
a former Managing Editor for Live
Sound International, and can be
reached at jmackay@bell.net.
