Palace of Fine Arts

The Palace of Fine Arts (PFA) has an unique exterior which has made it one of San Francisco’s architectural icons. The PFA houses the Exploratorium, a hands-on science museum, and the 960-seat Palace of Fine Arts Theatre. The theatre has long struggled with sound system problems, but the venue now features crystalline sound from a new system based on Meyer Sound’s M’elodie™ line array loudspeaker.
Head sound engineer, Ryan Snyder said: “This room is different from a lot of other venues, it’s really wide and very shallow.It’s also different in the respect that there are lots of absorptive baffles hanging from the ceiling in the house that make the room really dead, along with all of the drape and the padded seats. And that’s increased tenfold when the house is filled with people.”
Meyer Sound’s Design Services group drafted several potential designs using MAPP Online Pro™ acoustical prediction software, finally settling on a system of nine M’elodie cabinets flown per side, four M1D line array loudspeakers along the stage lip for frontfill, and two groundstacked 600-HP subwoofers on each side of the stage. The system is driven by a Galileo™ loudspeaker management system.
The system was installed by Pro Media/UltraSound. According to Kate Serb, the project manager for the installation, the entire job was problem-free. “It’s a fabulous theatre and we really enjoy doing that kind of local project.” 
Snyder was pleased with the width of the coverage, but he was equally impressed that the system’s tight pattern control prevented sound from spilling farther than he wanted it to go. The Galileo system also draws strong praise from Snyder. “The ability to mute everything by zones quickly and efficiently blows me away. It’s so easy to go to the matrix section, knock the frontfill down 10dB, and strap it over left and right, but keep the sub out of left and right because it’s being fed straight from an aux on the console.”
Snyder and theatre Production Manager Kevin Taylor gave the system a true trial by fire when World Arts West’s Ethnic Dance Festival convened at the theatre. “We have done the festival here for 30 years,” Snyder says. “Every year, one of their biggest issues has been sound, primarily coverage issues. It’s a really hard festival to mix, too, because you go from a Chinese lion dance to a Swedish yodeling act to Bavarian clog dancers. You’re going from one total extreme to the next in 15-minute increments.” 
Snyder thinks the transformation has made the theatre one of the area’s best-sounding venues. “I’ve worked in pretty much every venue in San Francisco many times,” he asserts, “and I’ll put this rig and this room up against any of them as the best sounding room in the city, if not the Bay Area.”     www.meyersound.com