GLENDALE, California – November 2007 — Built in 1925, the historic Alex Theater is a landmark on Glendale’s Brand Boulevard, with its magnificent 100-foot-tall Art Deco neon column topped by a glowing starburst towering above the street. The Alex’s interior design is a marvel as well — its ‘atmospherium’ auditorium with open-air illusion and Greek and Egyptian motifs creates a unique ancient garden-like environment. Several restorations over the years have kept up the interior and exterior decor of the Alex, which is now a performing arts center. The latest addition to the theater is an L-ACOUSTICS KUDO™ line source array system, installed in July to optimize the venue for musical performances.
Originally a vaudeville theater and silent movie house, the Alex became a premier venue for big star-studded movie screenings in the 1940s, and later a public favorite for blockbuster movies due to its particularly wide screen and early surround sound system. In the early ’90s, the Glendale Redevelopment Agency acquired the Alex Theater and put it through an extensive restoration. At that point, according to Jack Allaway, the Alex’s director of theater operations, a center speaker cluster was installed to suit the musical theater that was the venue’s main business.
Since that last installation, Allaway describes, “Over the years, it’s evolved that we’re doing more concert work, and the center cluster system just wasn’t adequate to handle that. We previewed several systems in the theater — we flew different speakers and brought in live musicians to demo them. This was about a two-year project, and we did as much homework as we could. The L-ACOUSTICS KUDO system worked best for this room sonically and aesthetically.”
Between its orchestra level and second tier, the Alex Theater seats almost 1500. It was the shape of the room–its curved side and back walls–that presented the challenges in this speaker choice and install, says Allaway. “The big advantage of the KUDO system is that they have adjustable louvers, so when L-ACOUSTICS did the survey of the room, they determined what would be the best angle placement of the louvers in each cabinet so that we didn’t have sound bouncing off the walls and back to the ceiling. It’s a 1925 building — they didn’t build them for high SPL back then.”
Given the ornate atmospherium environment, aesthetics were especially considered in the sound system design at the Alex. Allaway appreciated the relatively compact size of the KUDO arrays. Working with Jim Kinkella and Dan Palmer at L-ACOUSTICS, Allaway spec’d two vertical arrays left and right of stage, with eight KUDO boxes per array, and each array divided into three zones for full-room coverage. After first making some reinforcements to the ceiling/roof structure and adding necessary attach points for the arrays, Allaway notes, “With the adjustable louvers, we were able to install them at a perfect distance from the wall.”
Allaway opted not to replace the Alex’s existing subwoofer enclosures due to the fact that the new KUDO arrays are now very capably providing full-frequency sound coverage from first row of the orchestra section to the back of the second tier. “The system performs so well that for the type of music we do here, we really didn’t need subs,” he shares. “But when we tuned the system, we rented L-ACOUSTICS subs and we recommend that, if there’s a need, people rent them; the system’s been EQ’d for them.”
Since installing the L-ACOUSTICS system in August, the Alex Theater has hosted just a few shows, but its busy season is fast approaching. “We’re anticipating a lot of dance performances with orchestra, several world music events, and more musical theater,” says Allaway. Upcoming shows include the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, The Nutcracker performed by the Los Angeles Ballet with orchestra, and presentations by the Alex Theater’s resident companies, including the Alex Film Society, Glendale Symphony Orchestra and Musical Theater Guild.
For more information on the Alex Theater, visit www.alextheater.org.
L-ACOUSTICS is a leading innovator and manufacturer of high-performance loudspeakers, amplifiers and signal processing devices for touring and installed sound markets. Known around the globe for pioneering and championing the modern line array loudspeaker concept, the company has received numerous accolades for its V-DOSC®, dV-DOSC, KUDO™, KIVA™, ARCS®, MTD, XT and various subwoofer loudspeaker systems. L-ACOUSTICS products for the North American market are manufactured and distributed by L-ACOUSTICS US of Oxnard, California.
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Contact:
L-ACOUSTICS US, 2201 Celsius Avenue, Unit E, Oxnard, CA 93030
Tel: 805.604.0577 / Fax: 805.604.0858
Email: [email protected] / Web: www.l-acoustics.com
