L‑Acoustics Syva at the Sorbonne
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The configuration was designed to address the challenges of a reverberant space while complementing the architecture of the room, originally inaugurated in 1889 and classified as a national Historical Monument since 1975.
“The events we hold in the Grand Amphitheatre of the Sorbonne range from conferences, speeches, and awards ceremonies to concerts, and are all highly prestigious,” says the venue’s AV technical manager Mathieu Miot. “However, this is a very reverberant space with few sound absorption elements. Our old system was desperately lacking in directivity and resulted in a significant loss of intelligibility. We needed a system that would address these issues, respect the venue’s historical aesthetics, and that could be installed without any physical impact on the building.”
Audio consultancy firm Altia Acoustics was hired to conduct a public address system audit. Over the course of two years, a dozen people from different departments in the Sorbonne compared systems, which included beam steering technology and stacked line-arrays from a variety of manufacturers. As trials were in progress, Sorbonne event organisers continued to hire external service providers for their on-going audio requirements and L‑Acoustics Kiva was often the temporary rental solution provided. Hearing Kiva in action prompted the Sorbonne’s team to request that it be included in demonstrations as part of the selection process.
"The initial request was to hear a system comprising three floor stacked Kiva II," says Olivier Inizan, L-Acoustics sales manager, France. "A few months earlier we would have agreed, but we had just launched the Syva system and, when we considered all the requirements of the project, we knew that Syva’s wide horizontal dispersion would bring better coverage for the audience at the sides of the theatre, as well as delivering better vertical directivity control in the mid frequencies.”
The aesthetics of Syva’s design, its ease of integration, and the fact that fewer cabinets were required, thus making it more cost effective, were also advantages. “The biggest challenge we faced with Syva,” adds Inizan, “was to convince the Sorbonne that we actually didn’t need to demonstrate Kiva II."
Once hearing Syva in trials, the decision was unanimous. French design and integrations company SNEF, who was awarded the tender for the full renovation of the AV cabling and diffusion system, installed the system which was commissioned and calibrated by L‑Acoustics application engineer Arnaud Delorme.
It comprises a pair of Syva atop Syva Low positioned on either side of the stage. Four 5XT cabinets, evenly positioned across the stage lip, provide front fill, while a total of sixteen 5XT positioned around the amphitheatre’s two tiers of balcony boxes provide even coverage across the entire theatre.
"By installing the Syva system we have gained enormously in intelligibility and homogeneity, while keeping vocal depth and the colour,” concludes Miot. “The aesthetics of Syva are also a perfect fit for room; the contrast between Syva’s modern design and the historical beauty of the Grand Amphitheatre is really interesting. Syva adds a form of presence to ceremonies as well as audio quality."
(Jim Evans)
