Ibrox is listed as a heritage site, which means that parts of the 130-year old building's architecture are protected by law. It is also of huge cultural importance to its community of supporters; many fans have been attending matches, sitting in the same seat, for decades, and so the design and installation of a new sound system had to consider sensibilities far and above the provision of audible evacuation instruction.
Stephen Scott, project manager for Ibrox, explained that the respect for the club's supporters was one of the most critical factors in the new design. "The objective was that the dispersion would be such that the SPL would be exactly the same in every seat in the stadium. And to be sure, believe me, we will check every seat in the stadium."
Scott has formed a formidable team consisting of his installer Tommy Gorman of Sound Acoustics, Richard Northwood of COMS and Gareth Collyer of Nexo, key supplier to the project. Between them, these experienced professionals have seen through one of the most significant AV/PA overhauls in British football.
Northwood's design, based on a long working relationship with the venue, responded to the club's modern-day need for a high-quality system, offering wider bandwidth and lower frequencies than its previous brand, and capable of delivering superior pre-match entertainment and audio support for the on-screen advertising.
"Rather unusually for a sports venue, the Ibrox team was concerned about the actual quality of audio," says Richard Northwood. "For a short time, they had been renting in a pitch-side system but that was not ideal. In an extensive research period, they went to visit some other clubs, but what proved decisive was a trip to the Stade de France in Paris, the national stadium of France, and listening to the new NEXO installation there."
Unlike the famous elliptical shape of the Stade de France, Ibrox has a more conventional rectangular design. "It is close to symmetrical, which is good from my point of view as I don't have to do so many sums," jokes Northwood. The two matching side stands house 7,500 fans at each end. The long sides of the stadium's rectangle, named as the Govan Stand and the Bill Struth Main Stand, seat the majority of spectators.
In the roof of each of these two shorter stands are 2 clusters of Nexo Geo S12 line array modules, each cluster comprising six cabinets, and alternating with pairs of RS18 sub bass. In the long stands, there are four clusters of S12 modules, and three RS18 sub bass points. Single S12s and Nexo PS8s handle the balcony requirements of the club deck in the main stand, and additional clusters of Geo S1210 support the large video screens in the corners of the stadium. In total, there are just over 100 Nexo loudspeaker cabinets in the stadium, entirely powered by 12 NXAMP4x4 loudspeaker management processor/amplifiers.
"We were all impressed by the sound quality of the system in the Stade de France," says Stephen Scott, "but it was also a question of aesthetics. Nexo's GEO S12 cabinets array into very compact clusters which don't obscure any sightlines. The installation is zoned per stand, with the pitch being an extra zone, and we have wired each cluster individually back up to the roof, which enables us to control which boxes are coupled in each cluster. By doing that, we can put more power into the lower boxes, which are throwing over a longer distance."
(Jim Evans)
