Active Audio on track at major rail station
- Details
Originally constructed in the 1830s, the current station design dates back to 1875, when it was rebuilt in the eclectic style. Since 2000, it has undergone a series of renovations, including the addition of a monumental roof comprising 16 sloping white domes, designed by Philippe Samyn and Partners to resemble sails fluttering in the wind, with 13 railway lines underneath serving national and international destinations.
The complex acoustic environment created by this mix of architectural styles, as well as restrictions on how the loudspeakers could be installed, presented the main challenges for Active Audio and system integrator TVV Sound, according to Arbane Groupe’s Eric Grandmougin, who defined the system’s specifications after modelling the acoustics of the station.
Grandmougin explains that the design of the SA180S - which provides a 15m SPL of 97dB in a slimline 1,840mm × 124mm package - allowed his team to experiment with installing the loudspeakers horizontally, enabling them to work around the restrictions inherent in the space.
“This new way of using Active Audio column loudspeakers was first tested and validated internally, before being integrated into an electroacoustic model of the station to predict the system’s overall performance,” he comments. “The results obtained were in line with the operator’s requirements, and validation listening sessions were carried out in Belgium at our distributor, TVV Sound. This project enabled us to validate the performance of the SA108S in a horizontal position, as well as the homogeneity of the directivity.”
“Most of Leuven station’s platforms are covered by a large, high arched canopy, while some are covered by a low, flat roof,” confirms Edo Dijkstra, CEO of TVV Sound, which was contracted by Infrabel, the Belgian public railway operator, to overhaul the previous 20 years old PA system. “The renovation included the replacement of the existing loudspeakers under these canopies, both high and low. Architecturally, nothing was allowed to change the lay-out of the existing loudspeakers.”
In Leuven, the StepArray columns, in addition to being mounted in a horizontal orientation, were coupled together in pairs (32 × 2 SA180S), helping TVV Sound to work around the space constraints while still being able to adjust the speakers’ directivity - an essential aspect of the final installation, which needed to be capable of delivering clear public announcements, along with ambient background music, to the more than 8m passengers who pass through the station annually.
“It was only with a beam steering system that we were able to achieve perfect sound reproduction,” explains Dijkstra, referring to the DGRC (Digital & Geometric Radiation Control) steering technology built in to the StepArray series, which was key to combatting the acoustic reflections produced by the station’s concrete and glass structure. DGRC uses a patented arrangement of speakers that reduces the number of amplifiers necessary to drive the loudspeaker system while still ensuring excellent directivity.”
The Leuven installation makes use of the audio-over-IP protocol Dante - a set-up made possible by the choice of Powersoft Quattrocanali 1204 DSP+D amplifiers, 32 of which power the 64 StepArray DSP+D versions of the Quattrocanali.
