Latin America. Rihanna delivered the second-most-watched halftime show in Super Bowl history, surpassing the average viewership of the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs football game by 5 million, according to Fox data.
The long-awaited performance was powered by Sennheiser's Digital 6000 wireless microphone system and a custom chrome-plated SKM 6000 transmitter with an MD 9235 dynamic cardioid microphone capsule. The choice to opt for Sennheiser's wireless system may seem like a minor detail, but the sound integrity of the performance was at stake, as the State Farm Arena in the Phoenix metro area is technically one of the most challenging environments for coordinating wireless frequencies.
There were more than 2000 coordinated frequencies in Phoenix during Super Bowl weekend, as dozens of simultaneous events were held in the area, including the 2023 NFL Honor Awards, various VIP events, outdoor concerts, and more. With this, and the shrinking spectrum available to wireless microphone operators, audio engineers and frequency coordinators for this year's broadcast had a lot of work cut out for them.
"Phoenix is a challenging city because it's the only one that officially doesn't have a vacant UHF TV channel. They're all assigned for streaming, so there's very little spectrum available for wireless microphones," says Joe Ciaudelli, Sennheiser's Director of Spectrum and Innovation, "to complicate matters further, although it's an indoor stadium with a retractable roof, the State Farm Arena doesn't provide much protection against external RF signals, making it vulnerable to interference."
Ciaudelli is an industry veteran and an international expert in spectrum operations and wireless systems. He contributed to the wireless microphone chapter of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) Handbook and is a private sector advisor to the U.S. delegation to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations specialized agency for information and communications.
The location and circumstances made the Super Bowl halftime show, which already had a lot at stake, much more demanding for the audio professionals involved. "Thanks to their ingenuity and diligent planning, the NFL's audio engineers and frequency coordinators were able to combat the harsh RF environment this year by leveraging Temporary Special Authorizations (STAs) through the FCC, along with a few other solutions," Ciaudelli said.
An STA provides licensed wireless microphone operators with temporary access to frequency bands that are not allowed for wireless microphones. Engineers also took advantage of channels occupied by distant or low-power television stations and used intelligent directional antenna placement to further attenuate these unwanted TV signals, before wireless microphone receivers picked them up. Without this planning and ingenuity, the entire broadcast, including Rihanna's performance, would have risked audio interruptions and interference, a huge potential misstep for her long-awaited presentation.
Beyond safeguarding the wireless signal through the STA and directional antennas, the audio team had to be careful with the choice of wireless microphone system for Rihanna. Not only to ensure his voice sounded as remarkable as the last time he performed live all those years ago, but also to combat the harsh RF environment and establish a reliable wireless connection.
His MD 9235 microphone capsule brightened his voice, while the Digital 6000 did the rest. Ciaudelli shares, "The Digital 6000 with the MD 9235 capsule is not only a great-sounding microphone, but also has such good intermodulation suppression and a clean RF signal. This is a tool that would work in an environment where all others could fail – it's an engineering marvel from both an RF and audio standpoint. I'm not surprised that it was used by the star."
