Utica Memorial Auditorium (Adirondack Bank Center)  is a unique venue and a registered historical landmark. The 5700 seat hockey arena is the home of the Utica Comets. In recent years, the venue has had many upgrades to the building, lighting, video and scoreboard systems. An audio upgrade was also done in 2012, but the results were not satisfactory for the owner.

After numerous attempts to improve  the system with tuning and other adjustments,    AVL Designs Inc. was contracted [June of 2018] to do an assessment of the system.

While none of the specific equipment was inherently substandard in quality, the implementation was another matter. Intelligibly was poor throughout the seating area. In the room environment (7 seconds reverberation) the speakers were just too far from seating for their acoustic capabilities. The system was under-powered and lacked user interfaces that allow tuning microphones to various voices etc…..

After an initial assessment, AVL Designs Inc. was hired at the end of July to design a new system, bid the system and get it installed in time for the first fall game of 2018, [October 5, 2018.] Not a simple task!

The design phase took four weeks. Site visits were made, testing done, and Lead Designer Geoff Nichols started in 3D CAD analysis software. During design, Danley loudspeakers were selected after an analysis of various options. Due to the tight time frame, Danley was contacted to verify their ability to meet this schedule. Danley made the unusual decision to start production of the products prior to the bid being awarded, fully aware that substitutes could occur and they might not ship these to this job. That decision is what ultimately allowed this to be a successful project that met the time line.

The project went out for bid on August 17 2018. A two week period was allowed for  bid returns and the results were in – the low bidder was Edward Simon & Co. LLC of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They bid the project entirely to spec – no substitutions.

Project Completed With 3 Days To Spare!

Edward Simon & Co. LLC has a reputation for high quality, on-time delivery with extensive  expertise in sound. This project was no exception. A crew of 5 hit the site in late-September and had the entire system operational in 10 days, three days before the first game!

The new system consists of 32 Danley loudspeakers, Danley Amplifiers, QSC Q sys DSP, Midas Console, Shure QLXD Wireless systems, and other support equipment. The system met all expectations and provided high intelligibility speech and impactful music to all 5700 seats.