Home of the Widzew Łódź football team, Stadion Miejski is an entirely new construction with an all-seat capacity of 18,018. The first stage of the system’s design was a detailed Ease acoustic simulation for loudspeaker selection and placement, resulting in the selection of Community R Series loudspeakers for their power, intelligibility, controlled coverage and all-weather reliability.
Designed by architect Jacek Ferdzyn, Stadion Miejski, the stadium design meets the requirements of UEFA Category 3 classification, with the option of adapting to higher categories if required. The contract for design and installation of the stadium’s sound systems was awarded to Tommex Żebrowscy.
Flown from the roof canopy in a distributed configuration, Tommex achieved optimal coverage of the stadium’s four stands with thirty-eight R.5-96Max 12-inch high performance coaxial two-way loudspeakers. An additional two R.5HP compact voice-range optimised three-way loudspeakers were deployed to cover the playing pitch.
The system is operated from the commentator room, where a Behringer X32 digital console with Dante card controls all sound signals. Adjacent to the console is a PC with Iris-Net software, customized for Stadion Miejski. This allows for continuous monitoring of all equipment, and adjustment of parameters for particular zones of the system. The commentator room equipment also includes CD/MP3 players, wireless microphone receivers, a digital feedback eliminator and active monitor loudspeakers.
The audio feed from the commentator’s room is sent to two amplifier rooms, located in opposite stands. Each has three Dynacord DSA 8410 four-channel class-D power amplifiers, equipped with IRIS-Net RCM 810 control modules, and one Dynacord P64 modular matrix. The P64 allows for remote control of systems devices, signal processing and connection of the entire system to the fibre-optic network. Communication between the commentator room and the two amp rooms is via the Dante protocol.
In addition to the commercial audio system, Tommex installed an APS Aprosys voice evacuation system, from Swiss manufacturer g+m electronics. In emergency situations, the evacuation system assumes full priority, automatically muting commercial signals and sending alarm messages to all evacuation zones, including to the spectator stands and playing pitch through the Community loudspeaker system.
‘The combination of equipment in Stadion Miejski has been well proved for quality and reliability in the many stadia we have completed across Poland,’ says Marcin Zimny, Commercial Director of Tommex. ‘The latest R.5-96Max not only maintains R Series all-weather reliability, but also raises the audio quality to an outstanding level.’
