Westville Music Bowl is formerly the CT Tennis Center on the Yale University campus in New Haven. In normal times, it can seat up to 10,000 but with CDC guidelines, it currently hosts 4,000 attendees. Since Westville Music Bowl is completely outdoors, the venue has been able to entertain a larger capacity than other neighbouring music venues. However, after May 19, CDC and state guideline will be updated to reflect full seating compacity with specific guidelines for attendees.
The bowl is the first arena worldwide to take advantage of the recently announced d&b audiotechnik re-manufactured certified pre-owned (CPO) program with a J-Series loudspeaker system. The first show to use the CPO J-Series was for Government Mule with most of the season events pre-sold out.
d&b CPO J-Series was born from an initiative to extend the life of a rider-friendly loudspeaker system while conserving natural resources and reducing waste. Remanufacturing is the process of returning a used product to at least its original manufactured performance and quality standards, and the work is performed in Asheville, NC at the d&b main US office as well as the factory in Backnang, Germany.
DNR Laboratories of Watertown, CT installed the CPO-J. “Due to timing of the CPO J-Series becoming available, it was exactly what our client required,” stated Donnie Gamsjager, President, DNR. Warranty was critical; the CPO J-Series comes with a factory warranty as a used re-purposed system. It was also a huge cost savings over competitors used systems, and even competitors new systems which was vital to the owners’ comfort to use the re-purposed system. The Westville Music Bowl has a strong green initiative and uses solar power during the day (2,000 seats were removed for solar panels); all beverage cups are bio-degradable, and the entire facility recycles. All vendors engaged in the venue are asked to follow green initiatives. We wanted a proven system that no one would ever think twice about. J-Series systems are proven to perform consistently day in and day out. Engineers at front of house know what they are going to get every time in every venue with the J-Series.”
Donnie said another determining factor is the proven track record of well-controlled directivity of d&b loudspeakers. “The J-Series are known for keeping the sound forward facing and minimizing artifacts off the sides and rear of the box. The system stands on its own without subwoofers in the air that would have created a huge noise pollution issue and taken up much of the valuable rigging space. SL-SUBs’ cardioid pattern and output were attractive to the owner to keep the low end inside the venue and out of the neighborhood. d&b offers NoizCalc software that helps predict the venue’s noise emissions and provided useful data when applying for zoning and permits from the city. The best part was that the NoizCalc data was spot on when compared to the report from a 3rd party firm that was hired independently to analyze noise pollution under show conditions. The city is thrilled with the control of the sound coming from the venue.”
“We’ve done 5 shows over 2 weekends at Westville, and I have to say I am thrilled with the performance of this J-Series rig,” stated Tim Burke, Production Manager.
“The venue is getting rave reviews on having fantastic audio and no sightline issues,” states Dave Niedbalski, promoter for the venue.
Donnie added that “Competitors to d&b just didn’t have the software suite, engineering support, or ability to prove their system would control noise pollution in this venue. The system sounds incredible; the venue is incredible, and the J-Series was the reliable solution. The J rig is compact, lightweight, and still, to this day outperforms the competitors’ systems in the same footprint. The ability to keep the sightlines clear using minimal PA while maximizing coverage and SPL throughout the venue was a huge win for making every seat location an enhancement to the audience listening experience. Basically, the solution required less J-Series, Y-Series and SL-SUBs to complete a working 10,000-seat arena then any competitor.
The complete system contains 28 CPO J8/J12 (14 per side), 12 Y8 (outfills – 6 per side), 8 Ti10P (front fills), and 8 SL-GSUB. Amplifiers are 30D installation models for all loudspeaker systems except for the subwoofers which are on D80 amplifiers. A dedicated computer running d&b R1 Control software is used for easy-to-work control for audio distribution of the entire system.
