Dillon, MT (September 12, 2018)—Beaverhead’s County Fair in Dillon, MT just wrapped up last week, featuring livestock shows, 4-H and FFA expos, vendors, exhibits, a carnival, PRCA Rodeo, parades and more. This year, events taking place in the Beaverhead County Fair Rodeo Arena were more audible than in the past, thanks to a new sound system spec’d and installed by Montana Pro Audio.
Key to that new system are RCF Acustica P Series speakers, chosen not only for their sound but also for the fact that they addressed a number of ultra-specific requirements that limited the installation options.
“The only placement options for the bleacher seats were light poles which are irregularly spaced with respect to the bleachers,” said Montana Pro Audio’s integration manager, Ryan Johnston. Plus, “the existing speaker wire to the far side of the arena was buried and would have to be reused for the updated system,” leaving them with pre-specified speaker positions.
In all, they needed loudspeakers that could withstand the weather with fairly high output and low power ratings; offer different horn patterns that could be deployed based on throw distance; and sport a bracket mount option to simplify rigging and supply a stable mount for the speakers.
Johnston added, “Also the far side speakers would have to be powered with a 70-volt amplifier and stepped back down using an autoformer at the speaker end to maximize the amount of power we could send over the long, smaller gauge wire runs from the existing infrastructure.”
Bringing in the RCF Acustica P Series of IP55-rated weatherproof products led to them using a combination of the P3108 (8” 2-way with a 90×60 coverage pattern) for shorter throws, and P5228 (dual 8” two-way with 2” HF compression driver with a 90×20 coverage pattern) for longer throws.
“The speakers were surprisingly easy to install,” Johnston said. “A planned seven day installation window between events only took four days. Additionally, the stainless steel mounting brackets, and watertight Amphenol connectors gave me confidence in their ability to stand up to the abuse of the harsh weather conditions they would experience. In fact, the night before the first operation of the new system, we had a fairly heavy rain and hail. Naturally, the speakers didn’t miss a beat, and the client was extremely pleased with the look and sound.”
Montana Pro Audio • www.montanaproaudio.com
RCF • www.rcf-usa.com
