After a saga stretching back to the team's birth in Prague in 1892, the new 21,000 seat Stadion Eden opened in the Vršovice district of Prague this spring, with an innovative roof suspension that allows an unobstructed view from every seat.
Lucie Antonsonova of the company's Czech distributor, Audiopro, observes: "Sound distribution in sport stadiums is usually a big issue - there are only few which can be proud of their solution. It's often a last-minute solution because the budget has already been spent. SK Slavia Praha wanted their new stadium to set a new standard."
Stadion Eden is the first major sports facility in Europe equipped with RHAON (Renkus-Heinz Audio Operations Network), which delivers audio control and networking, via a MediaMatrix Nion distribution hub, over a single Cat 5 cable to all 64 loudspeaker locations under the stadium's roof.
System integrators Soning, working in cooperation with Audiopro, created a system design to provide high quality, localised sound distribution to all 21,000 seats. The physical constraints amounted to a partially roofed stadium where the football pitch is 5m below the surrounding terrain, creating a crucible of intense noise in the reverberant seating areas during matches.
After 3D modelling of the stadium, Soning specified 64 distributed short-throw loudspeaker clusters. Each cluster has a pair of CF 151-5R full-range two-way self-powered loudspeakers, each with a built-in RHAON-equipped PF1-500 Class D 500W digital amplifier.
Each cluster receives loudspeaker-specific audio and control signals over CobraNet via a single Cat 5 Ethernet cable from the system's digital hub, a Peavey MediaMatrix Nion distribution processor, giving the customer the benefits of simplified installation and operational manageability, as well as lighter cabling.
Karl-Gustaf Kahlau, Renkus-Heinz export sales manager, comments: "This installation is proof that loudspeakers can be treated in integration terms as IP addresses in a network, and that this installation could pass as any computer network installation.
"Not only is a minimum of hardware used in this installation, this is one of the most cost-effective stadium systems out there, yet still exceeds all the required international standards. The well thought-through system design makes not just announcements but a live music experience really enjoyable. After fine-tuning by Robert Nilsson of Swedish design and installation company DAT AB, we could listen to well recorded jazz/soul without getting annoying reflections hitting us from everywhere - and that was in an empty stadium, the worst possible situation."
(Jim Evans)
