Four L-Acoustics L2Ds at Highmark Mann Center for the Performing Arts

	Andrew McMahon recently performed at Highmark Mann on his Three Pianos tour with L-Acoustics K2/Kara II main arrays and KS28 sub hangs provided by Bauder Audio Systems. Photo: Jordan August

Philadelphia's Highmark Mann Center for the Performing Arts opened in America's Bicentennial year as the summer home of The Philadelphia Orchestra, which still performs there today. One of Philadelphia's premier outdoor venues and one of the largest nonprofit open-air music centers in the US, drawing more than 400,000 visitors, it has spent the run-up to that anniversary rebuilding: a new backstage facility, the Skyline Stage, a completely reimagined Plaza and entry experience, and now an L-Acoustics L2D system for the two thirds of its audience who sit outside the TD Pavilion on the venue's Great Lawn.

Highmark Mann vice president/general manager Evan Rogers audited the loudspeakers and rigging used by acts playing the venue, also polling the presenters Live Nation and AEG. He kept finding L-Acoustics: a great deal of K2, and a growing appetite for K3 and L2. With nine out of ten incoming productions asking for the brand, calling local L-Acoustics Certified Provider Bauder Audio Systems was a straightforward decision.

Highmark Mann seats 4,500 under the roof of its TD Pavilion. Beyond the roofline, 2,000 more sit in the fixed seats of the Connelly Terrace, and past the terrace the Great Lawn holds over 6,000. "In our terrace section, the speakers that had been spec'd and designed for the venue up until now really overshot the seating section," Rogers recalls. "I don't think it's uncommon to go to venues, especially amphitheatres, where there is a sense of 'us versus them' in terms of the experience in the house versus the experience on the lawn. We wanted to make sure that the sound experience is universally incredible for everyone, no matter their seat."

Another concern was the venue's proximity to the residential Parkside neighborhood; the venue was obliged to make sure sound didn't cross the property line.

Brian Naab, production manager for Bauder Audio Systems, says, "Highmark Mann, in general, is a good-sounding space compared to some of the newer concrete sheds. But distance and SPL were still our main challenges." Conversations about the upgrade started two years ago and, in Naab's words, "they cranked up the conversation with the request for a demo" last summer. Bauder brought in an L Series system for three nights across two engagements in late September and early October 2025. Highmark Mann had heard enough, and installation was set for mid-May.

Four L-Acoustics L2D now fly at the back of the pavilion above the lawn, one enclosure per position. The team hung the boxes and ran cable in a single day, and Bauder lead system tech Craig "Junior" Kaufmann came back a few days later to tune the system.

"One of the reasons this lawn system went up so quickly is because there was an existing delay system there before, so the infrastructure for hanging these four different sources of lawn speakers was already there," Kaufmann explains. "But the amount of sound we could fit into that pre-existing space is orders of magnitude higher now."

The arithmetic behind that is straightforward. Four hang points were already in place and could not be multiplied, so the question was how much output four positions could deliver. A single L2D carries 20 transducers in one enclosure: four 12" and eight 10" neodymium cone drivers with eight 3" compression drivers, run by one 16-channel LA7.16i amplified controller. Covering the same ground with conventional six-enclosure hangs would have put 24 boxes on those same four points.

Naab points to the footprint. "If I said 'this group of four enclosures is going to cover 12,000 people tomorrow night on the lawn', you'd say 'no way'," he says. "It's crazy when you see how compact they are. L2D's performance versus size is very impressive."

L2D runs on PULS, the Progressive Ultra-Dense Line Source design that combines multiple line source elements in one enclosure and closes the gaps, in cabinetry and in air, that sit between the drivers of a conventional array. Thus, people at the back of the lawn hear what the people at the front hear. "The wavefront stays coherent much farther away from the source than anything else on the market," Kaufmann says.

"It still feels like you're sitting in your living room with a hi-fi system only 10' or 12' away from you, even though you're hundreds of feet away from these speakers," he adds. "L Series was absolutely the correct choice of loudspeaker for this application."

The Connelly Terrace had suffered most: close enough to the pavilion for the audience to feel part of the room, far enough out to fall past the old system's coverage. L2D resolves that within a single enclosure. Its 60 degrees of progressive vertical directivity put the lower part of the box on the near field across the terrace while the upper part carries to the back of the lawn, and the bottom two modules widen horizontally from 110 to 140 degrees with cardioid behavior built in.

"First and foremost, we were able to hit that terrace very efficiently because of the splay angle and the curvature of the cabinet, and we were really able to erase that line that you feel as a guest between being inside the house and being in the terrace," Rogers says. "L Series created a really smooth sense of transition between the two PAs."

Before anything was ordered, Bauder built a CAD model of the venue and ran the design in L-Acoustics Soundvision. Kaufmann and Naab both credit the accuracy of the prediction, which showed early that coverage would stay within the site. For a venue with neighbors this close, that was the point on which the project turned.

The system is a serious investment for a nonprofit institution, and Rogers rates the process behind it as highly as the result. "L-Acoustics and Bauder have been right here with us all along during this upgrade, and it really feels like a very successful partnership," he says. "That's not always the case when you're dealing with vendors that are just pushing the next sale. The most important thing is that sense of engagement, of being connected to what's happening inside the pavilion, and our new system truly delivers that."