AUSTRALIA: Novatech Creative Event Technology is putting L-Acoustics L Series firmly into Australia’s rental market, adding eight L2 and four L2D to its inventory and giving the Adelaide-based company the largest L Series rental stock in Australia, as well as one of the country’s largest L-Acoustics inventories overall. The investment comes as Novatech marks its 25th year in business and 21st as an L-Acoustics Certified Partner, following its design and installation of an L2 system at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre Theatre earlier this year.

Founded in Adelaide in 2001, Novatech began its L-Acoustics journey with a Kudo system in 2005, followed by K2 in 2014, Syva from 2017 and L-ISA in 2018 for a project with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra – the first L-ISA deployment in the Southern Hemisphere. The company added K1 in 2025, while the L Series represents its largest single investment in the brand to date.

“This wasn’t just a project for a client,” says Leko, Novatech’s Managing Director. “We’ve been buying L-Acoustics systems for our own stock for twenty years because we use what we sell, and L2 was the clearest next step for us as much as it was for the AEC.”

The Adelaide Entertainment Centre (AEC) has been South Australia’s busiest indoor concert venue since opening in Hindmarsh in 1991, hosting more than 500 events a year across its arena and theatre. A A$52 million redevelopment in 2010 added the Theatre, giving hirers a smaller-capacity performance space alongside the main arena. Its original L-Acoustics V-DOSC system could be physically repositioned according to the event, allowing the 1,900-seat venue to shift between full productions and intimate standing shows without rebuilding the rig. Novatech has worked regularly in the room over the years, including the deployment of an eight-element K2 system in recent years.

When the AEC began looking to replace the V-DOSC system in 2025, Novatech entered a competitive tender with a design centred on L2 and secured the contract.

“We’ve been an L-Acoustics partner for twenty years, and every system we’ve put into this venue has tracked how far the technology has moved in that time,” says Leko. “Going from V-DOSC to K2 to L2 in one room tells you a lot about where the brand has taken us, and why we’ve chosen to keep investing alongside it.”

Novatech designed the system with support from L-Acoustics, working to a brief that required the system to cover every theatre configuration without changing array geometry. With one L2 providing the acoustic equivalent of four K2, the team expected considerably more headroom from an array that was both smaller and lighter than its predecessor.

“The brief was to match the flexibility of the old system without re-rigging between formats, and L2 let us do that with far more headroom in reserve,” says Matthew Ruggiero, Novatech’s Technical Project Manager. “With L-Acoustics Network Manager, we can adjust coverage on the fly instead of flying the array in to re-pin it, which matters in a room that changes configuration as often as this one does.”

Initial L-Acoustics Soundvision modelling indicated that one L2 and one L2D per side would meet the brief. The AEC instead specified two L2 and one L2D per side, with the venue also requesting L2 for its appearance and overall size.

The resulting system comprises two L2 and one L2D per side, covering the audience area across the theatre’s configurations. Four KS28 per side are flown directly behind each array in a cardioid configuration, while a further 12 floor-deployed KS28 can be added for very high SPL events, with L-Acoustics Kara II pre-attached. Six X8 provide front-fill.

Novatech also designed a custom drive rack built around the L-Acoustics P1 system processor. The system runs on fibre-based Milan-AVB, with Cat5 AVB and analogue redundancy paths. Each L2 and L2D is driven by an LA7.16 amplified controller, providing 16 channels of independent DSP control over the wavefront without physically re-pinning or reconfiguring the array between formats.

The streamlined L2 rigging process also gave the Novatech crew more time for calibration. The system was tuned in each position and configuration using the M1 measurement and optimisation workflow in L-Acoustics Network Manager alongside the P1 processor, with steering and ongoing optimisation remaining within L-Acoustics Network Manager as the room changes configuration.

Since debuting at the Science Excellence Awards 2025, the system has received positive feedback from touring engineers and audiences, with the cardioid subwoofer configuration and L2’s DSP contributing to the system’s performance across different genres. For the AEC technical team, however, the operational gains are equally significant, with the speed of L2 repositioning and reconfiguration expanding the range of formats the venue can accommodate.

That experience has now translated into Novatech’s rental fleet. The company carries eight L2 and four L2D alongside its existing L-Acoustics inventory, extending the platform beyond the AEC and into touring productions across Australia.

“The L2 system delivers substantial headroom across all genres, with particularly strong high-frequency clarity and coherence. Shows have been met with consistently positive feedback, and we look forward to continuing to put the system through its paces across a wide range of productions.”