Loud is easy. But if you want it to be loud and sound good and have the sound quality, that’s more difficult. I think patrons of the GRAMMY Museum will appreciate that it’s going to be sonically better and artists will appreciate it as well.”
Chris KratochwillDigital Experience Consultant at Technology West
Meyer Sound renews the GRAMMY Museum®’s Clive Davis Theater with a state-of-the-art ULTRA family loudspeaker system designed to support the venue’s diverse programming—from live performances and artist conversations to film screenings and educational events. The system was installed in January, ahead of festivities leading up to the 68th Annual GRAMMY Awards®.
Located on the second floor of the GRAMMY Museum at the L.A. LIVE complex in downtown Los Angeles, the 200-seat Clive Davis Theater is the cultural heartbeat of the institution, hosting hundreds of events each year. Its programming spans intimate interviews with legendary artists, performances by emerging acts, daytime screenings for museum visitors, and morning programs for visiting school groups—placing unique demands on the sound system in an intimate, compact space.
“The Clive Davis Theater plays a central role in how we present music, storytelling, and education at the GRAMMY Museum,” says Michael Rohrbacher, the GRAMMY Museum’s Technical Director. “This new Meyer Sound system was designed to support an unusually wide range of programming—from intimate conversations and film screenings to live performances—while giving our staff and visiting engineers the flexibility and control they need in a compact, high-impact space.”
Technology West Group, the Las Vegas–based integration firm responsible for the upgrade, worked closely with Meyer Sound to design a system that could meet those varied requirements while maintaining clarity, control, and consistency throughout the room. IPR Services, a long-time supporter of the GRAMMY Museum, collaborated with Technology West to provide cabling installation support.
“We do a ton of Meyer Sound sales and installs,” says Chris Kratochwill, digital experience consultant at Technology West. “Meyer Sound is often our go-to manufacturer for designs out of the gate. So when Meyer Sound approached us for the Clive Davis Theater, it was a no-brainer for us.”
According to Kratochwill, the decision to upgrade the theater’s sound system was driven by the venue’s wide range of content and the need for a solution that could adapt easily from event to event. “The theater hosts more than 300 events annually,” he explains. “They range from a film screening to a live performance by Billie Eilish and everything in between. So it needed a versatile system that could handle today’s rock bands to R&B to spoken word, and they needed a system that is very musical.”
The new system is anchored by a pair of ULTRA‑X80 versatile point source loudspeakers, selected for their output capability and controlled coverage in a room with close audience proximity. Low-end support is provided by two 2100‑LFC low-frequency control elements; ten ULTRA‑X20XP and two ULTRA‑X22XP compact point source loudspeakers provide additional coverage throughout the audience area. A Galileo GALAXY 816 Network Platform handles system processing and control.
The Technology West team worked with Meyer Sound Technical Support Specialist David Vincent on system design. “David looked at the room and did the entire design,” says Kratochwill. “We reach out to David for all of our designs to help us make sure our thoughts are in alignment and that what we’re thinking makes sense. He always has some great ideas to improve it.”
Kratochwill says low-frequency performance was a key consideration in the design, particularly given the theater’s size and programming mix. “The comments I’ve heard from the GRAMMY Museum were that they tended to not have enough low-frequency energy before,” he explains. “This system will obviously give them quite a bit more than they’ve had in the past.”
Beyond performance, operational simplicity was also a priority. The system, based on Galileo GALAXY networking, allows staff to manage presets and pivot quickly between daytime museum programming and evening performances. “We’re creating various presets and teaching them how to use them,” says Kratochwill. “Every front-of-house person has their opinion, so we want to accommodate that.”
For a space built around close listening and live performance, sound quality is measured by precision and endurance as much as impact. “Loud is easy,” Kratochwill concludes. “But if you want it to be loud and sound good and have the sound quality, that’s more difficult. I think patrons of the GRAMMY Museum will appreciate that it’s going to be sonically better and artists will appreciate it as well.”