AmericanAirlines Arena

New DAS Audio professional sound system for the AmericanAirlines Arena in Miami

The AmericanAirlines Arena in Miami is an international and versatile venue in a vibrant waterfront setting that showcases sophisticated and world-class events. Located in Downtown Miami, on the waterfront of Biscayne Bay, the AA-Arena is situated between the skyline of the city, the beautiful beaches and the nightlife of South Beach. It is home to the NBA Champion Miami Heat and it also serves as a leading venue for concerts and a variety of live entertainment. With a seating capacity of 19,600 that can be tailored to the nature of the event, this multi-disciplinary facility attracts a large number of visitors.

The HEAT Group, responsible for the venue, has been committed to making the AmericanAirlines Arena the premier sports and entertainment venue in South Florida, adding cutting-edge technology and investing in state-of-the-art renovations on an on-going basis.

The AmericanAirlines Arena hosts the NBA´s Miami Heat stadium. The stadium has 2,105 VIP seats, 76 booths, 80 luxury suites and 19,600 standard seats. The AA-Arena is a first-class complex. the architecture of the arena requires a Line Array system since it allows focusing the energy over the audience attenuating reflections on the ceiling and walls.

The system design had to guarantee uniform pressure distribution and a homogeneous frequency response over the entire audience. For that reason, during the design stage, modelling tools (AutoCAD, Sketchup) and acoustic simulation programs (EASE, EASE Focus) were used, which helped to accurately estimate the optimal configuration in a 360º distribution of the sound systems.

For that purpose, eight line arrays were deployed, each with sixteen high-performance Aero-40 systems. Besides, sixteen units of Aero-20 were used under the scoreboard to ensure an equally enjoyable audio experience in the first rows. We worked on the sizing of the system optimizing the position and angle of each cluster, reducing possible differences in relative level and tonal balance over the audience.

Four UX-218 systems were installed in four clusters extending the system´s frequency range to 30 Hzs. The system had to be able to reproduce low frequencies with high-pressure levels, achieving a powerful sound during the music acts played in the shows.

The American Airlines Arena is a multi-disciplinary space, so it needs to be flexible to adapt to the requirements of each particular event. The challenge was to find a way to raise the systems above the catwalk when the main system was not in use. To achieve this, custom rigging was designed with the help of the company Mountain Productions.