With any new audio system install, the P.A. is key: It should be geared toward the type of entertainment that will be traipsing across the stage. It must offer adequate coverage to deliver the sound all the way to the back wall. And, of course, it needs to sound good. But being able to adapt to altitude and air pressure? That’s not a requirement many installers may encounter, but for Bret Dowlen, president of Arvada, Colorado–based Dowlen Sound, this factor is paramount for the Denver area. And when he was hired on to handle the audio system install and limited acoustic treatments for the recently opened 1st Bank Center (a joint venture between AEG Live Rocky Mountains and Kroenke Sports Enterprises, now dubbed Peak Entertainment), he automatically turned to a P.A. he knew would fit the bill for this 6,500-seater.
“In Denver, where I’ve been my whole sound career, it’s the altitude that you deal with,” he explains. “And in the early days when I was building sound systems—and I still build them—we modify virtually everything due to the fact that at a mile above sea level, you have less air than you do at sea level. This interferes with cooling aspects of the system, and it can also change the tunings of cabinets and the precise alignments between the drivers. So having a system that has been aligned here will really help out because it’ll work here.
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