For the past ten years, the audio systems in General Assembly Hall of the South Korea Congress have been managed by Marshall Pro Sound – along with those of the country’s entire National Assembly building. With the latest improvements, the resulting 28-speaker install is one of the largest and most prestigious in Asia for French company Amadeus.

The hall’s acoustic required the use of both hanging speakers and compact yet high SPL speakers at the podia. Marshall Pro Sound found Amadeus’ Diva XS speakers the best fit for the main hall, while the PMX model suited personal monitoring for each podium. 

‘Many of the project’s construction aspects were complicated by limitations in the architectural acoustics of the vast General Assembly Hall,’ explains Marshall Pro Sound General Manager, Kwang Ho Park. ‘However, through a number of repeated design alterations, and painstaking tuning sessions after the speakers were installed, we were able to provide excellent sound for this important governmental institution. Amadeus was the right choice.’

The loudspeaker installation is connected to the main audio and video control room, and comprises 16 Amadeus Diva XS array speakers, four XS 15 bass cabinets and two PMX 8 coaxial speakers covering the sides. On stage, the Chairman’s monitor speaker system uses two Amadeus PMX 5 coaxial speakers. For the podium monitor, the newly released PMX 4 speakers were used with a pair of PMX 5 speakers the control room.

‘At the beginning of the project, we worried about the semicircular ceiling and vast hall space,’ says Jung Hee Gu, the systems engineer in charge of setting up the sound system. ‘The position of speakers – which needed to be hidden in the sides of LED displays – created challenging architectural acoustics and needed sophisticated sound design. We were not sure that there would be enough sound pressure and coverage with the compact Diva XS speakers. But after repeated design alterations and simulations, with the completion of the install we were all very impressed with the quality of the Amadeus speakers.’

‘Due to the special situation of the National Assembly Hall, the speakers couldn’t be installed in plain sight, where they would be revealed to people in the hall,’ says Lee Seong Wook, Director of Sound for the National Assembly Hall. ‘Therefore, we had difficulty in designing the installation- including the distortion of the phase and control of the balance of the right and left sides. To solve these problems, we chose the Amadeus Diva XS line array system.

‘The advantage of a high sound pressure level speaker, with a compact size and a wide sound coverage, helps keep people from becoming tired in spite of the often long meeting times in the Main Hall. At present, everyone concerned with the install, including sound designers and engineers, are very happy with the choice of speakers. And the members of the South Korean legislature are also very satisfied with the updated sound.’

The Diva XS is the small-format line source system of the Diva range. This two-way active speaker (with passive filtering in 2.5-way for the low-mid loudspeaker) is paired with the Diva XS 15 to extend the frequency response down to 35Hz (and up to 110Hz). The Diva XS is based on an asymmetrical line array head, including an HF assembly using a neodymium compression driver (1.75-inch, with an annular diaphragm). The midrange section uses two 5-inch diameter speakers, filtered separately giving a combined frequency range of 80Hz to 20kHz.

The Diva XS uses a proprietary waveguide for the HF section, which is optimised to give a vertical dispersion of 10° and horizontal dispersion of 100°. This load ensures uniform coverage and excellent spectral quality throughout the listening area.

Other components of the new system include Yamaha CL3 and CL1 digital consoles for main and backup mixing duties, along with Ashly NE2424M DSP matrix processors and Rio-1608D digital stageboxes. Yamaha’s Centralogic user interface is one of the most user-friendly operating environments available on a digital console, helping make the National Assembly Hall install work smoothly. The sound system was designed and installed with Marshall Pro Audio’s team including Manager Dong Hwa Kang and Assistant Manager, Tae Hwan Lee.

‘This is one of the first major installations in South Korea for Amadeus and a proud moment in our company’s history,’ says Amadeus Marketing Manager, Gaetan Byk. ‘Amadeus identified South Korea as one of three priority development regions in our 2011 strategy for international expansion. Our objective is not to be present everywhere, but to be strategically well placed and to establish ourselves as a successful brand over the long term. We opened our international expansion in 2011 following a wonderful encounter with Jin Wan Kim, from Marshall Pro Sound, which became one of our two authorised dealers in South Korea.

‘We attach great importance to the quality of our distribution network in South Korea-and all around the world,’ Byk adds. ‘We do not just sell loudspeakers and associated services. We sell sonic emotions. In this sense, we find partners with whom we share the same philosophy, the same values, the same ideas about sound, this is essential to ensure the Amadeus DNA is upheld.’

Sy Park concludes: ‘We thank everyone on the Amadeus team, including Bernard Byk, Michel Deluc and Gaetan Byk for working closely with us on this install – a great accomplishment.’

Based in France, Amadeus is focused on the Asian and European markets with distributors in Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, China, UAE and the UK.