Princeton, N.J. (October 6, 2025)—Princeton University‘s 800-seat concert hall has been upgraded with a new Allen & Heath dLive S5000 control surface and AHM-64 matrix processor.
Lucien Dowdell, brought on as the Performing Arts Services department’s production manager in 2020, was immediately tasked with overhauling the campus’ aging audio equipment. “It became clear to me that, with such a diversity of performances, we needed some versatility,” he said.
The university’s main concert hall hosts many classical and chamber music performances, which are unamplified. Other times, the venue features events with greater technical demand, such as discussion panels, film screenings and fully amplified jazz and big band concerts.
If Dowdell had opted for a one-size-fits-all console solution, it would have required a member of the technical staff to be present during all performances—even those that were unamplified—since it requires operating a full-fledged mixing console to control simple wireless microphones. “In the old system, there wasn’t much flexibility in how we approached these different types of events,” Dowdell recalled. “I wanted to view things more holistically and use current network audio technology to make us adaptable for each performance.”
Princeton’s main concert hall now features a dLive S5000 control surface, with 28 faders and dual 12-inch touchscreens, and a DM0 MixRack, which handles up to 128 channels of 96 kHz audio processing and 64 fully configurable buses.
Dowdell opted for dLive for its power, value, and intuitive workflow. “The dLive platform is just way more user friendly compared to other consoles out there,” he noted. “It also costs considerably less than other consoles at that level.” The dLive is fed by multiple DX stageboxes strategically positioned around the venue, and a gigaACE card in the console allows digital splitting to an SQ mixer that can be used for monitor mixing if needed.
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Using a Dante expansion card, the dLive console feeds its outputs to an Allen & Heath AHM-64 matrix processor, which is key to the system’s new flexibility. The AHM-64 at Princeton acts as a central audio hub, feeding outputs to the concert hall’s main PA, assisted listening system, lobby, streaming system, and two-track recorder, each being different zone outputs within the AHM.
