HOUSTON, Texas – November 2025 – Since its curtain first went up in 2002, the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts in Houston, Texas has hosted some of Broadway’s biggest hit shows, including Wicked, Hamilton, Les Misérables, The Lion King, and Moulin Rouge! The Musical. And now, productions staged at the center’s 2,650-seat Sarofim Hall are sounding better than ever thanks to a new L-Acoustics loudspeaker system that pairs K3 main left and right hangs and a Kara II center array with A Series delays and X Series fill enclosures for comprehensive coverage to every seat in the three-tiered venue.
“This new system supports the Hobby Center’s goals of expanding artistic programming and developing and sustaining infrastructure,” says Michael Metzdorf, Operations & Production Director, the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. “This is one of many projects we have undertaken to modernize technology in Sarofim Hall over the past year that are possible with a grant from the Sarofim Foundation, and I am absolutely thrilled with the result. Our guests are now experiencing smooth, even coverage from the orchestra section’s front row all the way to the back of the upper gallery, including a palpable amount of low end.”
Right-Sizing for Broadway and Touring Productions
The Hobby Center had long since replaced its original horn-loaded speakers with a modest L-Acoustics setup but wanted a system that would better satisfy the sonic demands of current Broadway shows and other touring productions. To design a suitable replacement system, the Hobby Center worked with Charcoalblue, the global theatre, acoustics, and experience design consultancy. “Their familiarity with L-Acoustics products helped their decision to move forward with this design,” says Texas-based Nick Correa, Associate Director with Charcoalblue, who led the design. When considering which models of L-Acoustics speakers to incorporate into the new system, he says, “We modeled a lot of options and ultimately felt that K3 was the right product with the right size for the space, and it fit their budget.”
He continues, “It’s easy to attempt to cover as much as we can with the main arrays. But it’s also important to acknowledge that this is a touring house, and often Broadway shows bring in their own PA systems while relying on the house fill system.” The new rider-friendly K3/Kara II main system should more than meet the needs of most productions, he says; but for any show that has an alternative main speaker preference, “We wanted a robust fill system that would also stand on its own,” he states. “And we made sure that they have carts and chariots to haul the main system away into storage if needed.”
Strategic Subwoofer Placement and Comprehensive Coverage
The new system incorporates 12 flown K3 enclosures per side with a center hang of 14 Kara II. Six KS21 subwoofers are flown to either side of the center array in a 2:1 cardioid configuration. Suspending the KS21 subs behind the K3 would have meant moving the two main hangs forward, blocking sightlines from the box seats, Correa notes. Flanking the center hang was the most effective way to provide uniform coverage throughout the room, he says, and mimics many L-ISA designs. “We also gave them some KS28 subs that they can roll out on the deck when they need additional low end.” There is also a sizable complement of speakers for onstage monitoring, including X12 and SB15 subs with Kara II enclosures for side-fills.
Filling Every Seat Across Three Tiers
Sarofim Hall’s seating is arranged in three tiers—orchestra, mezzanine, and gallery—and additionally includes several private boxes. The farthest seat in the gallery is just 128 feet from the stage. To provide coverage to every seat in the house, Correa designed a fill system that expanded the venue’s previous speaker layout. “There were some quiet areas in the hall where we added new fills, and we also relocated some existing positions,” he says.
Eight compact 5XT systems are mounted across the stage face for the audience in the front orchestra seats. Eight 8Xi two-way coaxial speakers are distributed under the gallery to cover the mezzanine seating with another eight 8Xi installed below the mezzanine level for the rear orchestra seats. Three flown arrays of two A15i Focus over one A15i Wide cover the upper gallery. One 8Xi per side provides additional coverage on the orchestra level with one A10i Wide per side covering the mezzanine. Three 8Xi enclosures per side direct coverage to the private box seats.
Fast Installation with LA7.16i Amplification and Individual Control
The venue was dark for a relatively short time to accommodate the installation, reports AJ McGlynn, Project Engineer, LD Systems, a Clair Global company. “We pulled off the project in a very condensed time frame; we had five weeks to get the PA portion of the project done, including pulling cable. It’s easy to put the main boxes up, because they’re touring boxes and they’re meant to go up fast. But all the install positions changed from the original under-balcony speakers, so we had to get creative.”
The entire system is powered and processed by LA7.16i amplified controllers, apart from the floor subs and balcony delays, which are driven via LA12X amplified controllers. The amplifiers are addressed from front-of-house via a Milan-AVB network. “The LA7.16i is a great amplifier,” Correa comments, and using 16-channel amplifiers and individually wiring as many speakers in the fill system as possible provides greater control. Broadway shows could treat the gallery delays as a single channel, he says, “But they may still want to individually adjust those, and that’s a requirement for the resident theatrical productions. So we made sure all the fills could be individually amplified and matrixed appropriately.”
Tour-Ready System Serves Resident and Visiting Productions“Now touring acts can use this awesome system because the Hobby Center has a superb quality system that can handle anything from a rock band to a hip-hop artist,” McGlynn says. Visiting artists, seeing the L-Acoustics rig on the tech rider, will know that they can leave their PA in the truck. The front-of-house system accepts analog, AES, and Dante inputs and feeds the L-Acoustics rig over AVB, stereo, or LCR, and Danny Nordby, Jr., the Hobby Center’s House Audio Engineer, is able to switch to the desired configuration via snapshots in the system processor, he adds.
The new L-Acoustics system design also accommodates the Hobby Center’s principal resident company, Theatre Under the Stars (TUTS), which produces and presents its own shows at the venue. “They bring in designers from all over the country, but have a resident sound designer, Andrew Harper, with whom we engaged during the design process. Andrew provided some valuable feedback regarding equipment selection and the overall design, and our consensus is that with the new L-Acoustics system now in place, the Hobby Center will be delighting artists and audiences alike for many years to come,” Correa reports.
For more details on the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, visit www.thehobbycenter.org. Charcoalblue and LD Systems can be found online at www.charcoalblue.com and www.ldsystems.com.
Please visit L-Acoustics at www.l-acoustics.com.
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Since 1984, we have been continuously innovating to shape the future of sound.
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