Inspired by the five petals of a jasmine blossom – the emblem flower of Fuzhou – the city’s spectacular new Fuzhou Strait Culture & Art Centre was designed by Finnish architecture master Pekka Salminen of PES-Architects. Sometimes compared to the Sydney Opera House, each of the venue’s ‘petals’ is a separate building – a multi-function theatre, 1,600-seat opera house, 1,000-seat concert hall, art exhibition hall and movie centre – all covered by massive white steel lattices and linked by a Cultural Concourse and large roof terrace.

Serving one of the world’s fastest-growing cities and the capital of China’s Fujian province, the centre’s multi-function theatre has a three-layer auditorium seating more than 700, with walls covered by CNC-cut, solid bamboo blocks in shapes that conform to both acoustic and visual language requirements, simultaneously reflecting and diffusing sound and enhancing desirable sound reflections to the audience.

For the theatre sound system, the centre called on Shenzhen EZpro Sound & Light Technology...

In response, the EAW JFL213 line arrays now mounted left and right of the stage comprise the main front-of-house system. Four EAW MK Series passive two-way full-range loudspeakers are mounted on the sidewalls of the apron, while multiple EAW CR72z Cinema Surround Monitors serve as fills around the audience area.

To manage the system, EZPro chose a Symetrix Jupiter 4 audio DSP, which offers four analogue inputs and four analogue outputs. As with other Symetrix processors, the Jupiter offers a wealth of dynamics processors, EQs, FIR filters, and other processing. Thanks to 85 turnkey apps, it’s very easy to set up mixing, routing, crossovers for sound reinforcement, loudspeaker management, and more. An embedded web server hosts Symetrix’ ARC-Web browser-based interface for smartphones, tablets, and computers.

‘We chose the Jupiter 4 due to its incomparable flexibility, 4x4 input and output control, and optimized audio solutions apps for specific venues and systems,’ explains EZPro Senior Marketing Manager, Mei Hong. ‘The audio quality is superb, as we have come to expect from Symetrix. Another reason we chose Symetrix is that the Fuzhou Strait Culture and Art Centre is an extremely important and prestigious venue where system failure is not an option, and we knew we could count on the Jupiter to perform reliably for years to come.’