Atlanta’s Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre Updates Audio System

Atlanta, GA (January 30, 2025)—Since it first opened in 2007, The Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre in Atlanta, GA has been a cornerstone of the city’s performance community, hosting Broadway shows, ballet, opera, concerts, poetry, stand-up comedy, and a wide variety of other special events. Throughout all that time, the venue has put its original audio system to good use, but recently found it was time to swap out its Meyer Sound MICA system for an up-to-date Panther P.A.

Consultants Theatre Projects were brought in to design the system, looking to address issues that had come up over the years. One of the goals was to improve vocal intelligibility in the farthest reaches of the hall. “They were getting feedback from guests that at the very top of the grand tier, they were struggling to understand stand-up comedians and heavily dialogue-driven performances,” explains theatre projects associate Greg Hanson, who conducted an analysis of the existing system in Meyer Sound’s MAPP 3D system design and prediction tool in collaboration with Meyer Sound’s director of system optimization, Bob McCarthy.

After first rehanging the existing system in a more optimized setup to see whether that would extend the system’s lifespan or confirm the need for an upgrade, the team opted to move ahead with an upgrade. The first step was to demo Panther large-format linear line array loudspeakers and the 2100-LFC low-frequency control element at a local vendor. “They set up a small ground stack in a concrete warehouse with no tuning, no timing, no nothing,” says the Cobb Energy Centre’s A1 mixer, Mike Froedge. “It was phenomenal.”

The new system centers around left and right arrays of 14 Panther loudspeakers and a center array of six Leopard compact linear line array loudspeakers, supported by a cardioid array of three 2100-LFC elements. This setup replaces the original system of two-dozen MICA line array loudspeakers and a center cluster of CQ-1 wide coverage main loudspeakers and CQ-2 narrow coverage main loudspeakers.

Not all of the old system was removed—the new system still employs parts of the original setup, including four 700-HP and 600-HP deck subwoofers, four M1D ultra-compact curvilinear array loudspeaker front fills, 14 M1D balcony and under-balcony delays, and an upper grand tier delay system comprising four UPA‑1P compact wide-coverage loudspeakers and two UPM-2P ultracompact narrow-coverage loudspeakers, processed by two Galileo 616 network platforms.

Daniel Group Updates HOW P.A.

Integrator Sound Associates led the installation. Because the old rigging was welded in place onto the I-beams, the team had to re-engineer rigging points, but the installation was completed in just four days, thanks to coordination between the Cobb Centre team, Theatre Projects, Sound Associates, Atlanta Rigging Services, and Meyer Sound.

“This is the first time I’ve ever done an install where it came out of the box better than the paperwork and the computer said it would,” says Fiegelman. “The new arrays eliminated the need for probably half of the delays in the room. And, we’re also able to have better sight lines.”

“Every problem that we had, Panther solved,” says Froedge. “As far as coverage, low-end consistency, vocal presence, intelligibility, and the stereo image, it addressed all our issues.” He adds, “since we’ve done the upgrade, we’ve had Sting, we’ve had Dave Koz, we’ve had Jadakiss with an orchestra, we’ve had the Atlanta Opera, numerous comedy shows. We’ve gone the entire spectrum from hip hop to classical, and the fidelity is just unreal on all of it.”