25 Jan, 2017 | Electro-Voice
The recently opened Karbala Olympic Stadium in Iraq is a 30,000-seat venue designed to host major sports, music, religious and youth events. Audio for the project was provided by Baghdad-based APCO Electronics, which provided acoustics design and participated in the actual installation as well. The company chose a sound system from Electro-Voice, creating a multi-zone digital audio system based around the IRIS-Net system control and supervising software and Electro-Voice EVH-1152 horn-loaded loudspeakers. The selected sound system stands for reliability, superior sound quality and scalability to future requirements. In addition, Electro-Voice amplifiers, microphones and wireless systems were also utilized.
The primary system requirement was that the sound system would meet FIFA football standards, which require 92 percent direct coverage and high intelligibility, with a Speech Transmission Index (STI) of 0.50 or higher. The installed system exceeds those standards, delivering 95 percent coverage with an outstanding STI (Speech Transmission Index) rating of 0.80, indicating excellent speech clarity. Next to public address announcements, the system should also be used for voice alarm and evacuation purposes.
Using EASE simulation software, the APCO team developed a design based on the Electro-Voice EVH-1152 loudspeaker system, a two-way 15-inch horn-loaded design available in six dispersion patterns. For the specific grandstand angles at Karbala Olympic Stadium, APCO used 24-each of 60×40-degree and 90×90-degree coverage patterns. Paired together, this combination provides direct, full-range coverage to all seating locations, including the difficult corner areas. In addition, two EVH-1152 loudspeaker systems with 90×90-degree dispersion are deployed individually at either end of the field to deliver audio onto the playing surface as needed.
The entire sound system is networked together using Electro-Voice N8000 Dante- enabled DSP matrix controllers and powered by Electro-Voice CPS series amplifiers with RCM-810 remote control modules. The N8000 from Electro-Voice provides complete system routing and control via graphical user interface in IRIS-Net software. The main loudspeaker system is divided into four zones, each with its own N8000 from Electro-Voice and either three or four amplifiers, with the east side zones requiring and extra amplifier to feed the field speakers. All amplifiers are connected to their associated N8000 via a gigabit Ethernet switch to handle signal routing, with redundant connectivity to ensure a reliable digital network. A fifth N8000 is stationed in the stadium’s main control room, and acts as the master unit for the entire system, routing the audio to each of the four individual zones. APCO programmed the signal processing core to handle all required audio sources, including microphones, PC-based streaming audio, emergency notifications and scoreboard audio.
Karbala Olympic Stadium represents the largest Dante system that APCO Electronics has designed and installed. Thus, the feeling of accomplishment was strong when the APCO team finally heard the Iraq national anthem being played through the Electro-Voice system at the opening ceremonies. That feeling was reinforced shortly after the event when APCO received calls from the Minister of Youth and Sport, and from local broadcaster Ishtar Media, thanking them for the outstanding audio quality.
This article is originally from Pro-Systems Africa News
20 Jan, 2017 | Electro-Voice
- X-Line Advance compact vertical line array loudspeaker system receives PIPA international press award in the concert sound category
- Journalists from 100 dedicated special interest magazines from around the world were asked to cast their vote.
Frankfurt am Main/Straubing, April 2016 Every spring, Frankfurt becomes the center of the professional audio and musical instrument industries for almost a week. This year the Prolight + Sound and Musikmesse trade shows together attracted almost 110,000 visitors from around 130 countries. One of the highlights for the attending companies is the annual Prolight + Sound International Press Awards (PIPA), an event that has established itself as the Grammys of the pro audio and musical instrument industries.
More than 100 dedicated special interest magazines from all over the world voted for the best pro audio equipment and musical instruments of 2015/2016 in 38 categories. The official awards ceremony took place on April 7 at the Prolight + Sound show. This year, Electro-Voice received a PIPA award for the second time in a row: the X-Line Advance compact vertical line array loudspeaker system convinced the jury in the concert sound category. Introduced in spring 2015, X-Line Advance is gaining industry notice for providing a uniquely satisfying combination of precise, linear output, a best-in-class performance-to-size ratio and a user-friendly rigging system. Last year, EKX series loudspeakers from Electro-Voice prevailed over the competition in the portable sound category.
Guillermo Wabi, Product Manager for Concert Sound Systems with Electro-Voice, proudly accepted the award: “I’m thrilled that the X-Line Advance is honored with this prestigious award. With the X-Line Advance we channeled our concert sound expertise and R&D resources towards a product that has pushed the art and science of sound forward, rather than following the pack.”
About X-Line Advance:
The result of rigorous research and development, the new X-Line Advance family of line array loudspeakers from Electro-Voice represents a dynamic step forward in line-array loudspeaker system design, offering a range of new features and advanced audio technologies that work together to surpass the performance of other line arrays available today– and all in a significantly more compact cabinet. The X-Line Advance line array is developed for the most demanding applications, including large houses of worship, concert and event/tour sound, sports venues, and theaters/ performing arts centers. Though it is approximately a third smaller in size than systems typically used in these environments, X-Line Advance designed to deliver outstanding audio performance, superior full-bandwidth coverage, and higher output — meaning fewer units are required to achieve desired results — while also making system design, transit, and setup/teardown more efficient and cost-effective.
17 Jan, 2017 | Electro-Voice
In 2012, Crossroads Church in Alberton, Johannesburg, had a change of leadership and with this came new levels of required excellence including the decision to upgrade the PA system for the 400-seater church.
Prosound installed an Electro-Voice SX300 rig with Tour X and SB122 Subs, all powered by Q series amplifiers and processed by a DC-One. This system provided better speech and music reproduction than has ever been experienced at Crossroads.
2015 saw even bigger changes for Crossroads, starting with a name change to Bridge Church, building alterations and upgrades and an additional EV Rig for the Main Auditorium. Due to the existing relationship with Prosound and EV, it made sense to continue building with EV and the new ETX was the chosen loudspeaker series and consists of four flown ETX-15’s at the front of the stage, with ETX-10’s as flown side fills. Two more ETX-10’s have been added as delays about mid-way down the length of the venue. Six S-40 front fills are mounted to a ladder truss at the front edge of the stage to add some HF sizzle for the front couple of rows. Two ETX-18s 18” sub woofers handle the majority of the low end enhancement and are installed in the venue’s sub pits to the left and right of the stage, with two more ETX-15s 15” subwoofers being installed at the front of the stage to provide even bass coverage for the entire audience area.
The system is being processed by the existing DC-One from the original installation, but with the Sub-woofers running off a Mono Aux from the Midas M32 Mixing console. Existing Q series amplifiers were also re-used to power the S40 front fills in the main auditorium. The existing SX300’s and SB122 Sub Woofers have been re-used in other venues on the church premises.
Pastor Trevor Coleman agrees that the EV ETX range has proven to be very well-priced value for money, saying that “we have been pleasantly surprised by the powerful but rich quality sound that could be expected from the more high-end systems at a significantly more reasonable price.”
