Comprising an ice hockey arena with a secondary field, a soccer stadium, a curling hall, and four outdoor sports grounds, the Tissot Arena in Biel, Switzerland, is home to the EHC Biel ice hockey team. With requirements for sound reinforcement in ice hockey arenas having grown substantially in recent years, an upgrade of the existing sound reinforcement system in the venue’s 7,000-capcity ice hall had become due.

Calling in Eclipse – a company also based in Biel that has provided technical support to the venue for a number of years – extensive on-site testing identified an Alcons Audio loudspeaker system as the preferred solution.

When the ice hall opened in 2015, its sound system had been designed both as an EVAC system and as a main PA for the audience areas. ‘Since then, however, the club’s needs have changed considerably,’ says Eclipse Technical Manager, Silvano Käppeli. ‘Today, significantly more show elements are being created around team entries. And more so, also goals and wins want to be celebrated with intense light shows as well as powerful sound.’

Sponsors also play a part in professional sports, as Käppeli explains: ‘For sponsor presentations, cinema-quality sound is now expected. The bottom line is that the existing EVAC system is doing a great job, but it could not keep up with these increased demands. Not all audience areas could be equally well provided with a good sound experience, so visitors often complained about the sound being too loud and aggressive. However, the audience itself generates a considerable volume in the arena. Any sound system will first have to overcome this noise barrier. So there remains only a fine line to navigate in terms of sound.’

After Eclipse installed a lighting installation in the ice stadium in 2018, and also set up a new lighting and video control room, an evaluation in 2019 determined what could be done to improve the sound in the arena. ‘They didn’t want to touch the hall acoustics itself, so they wanted us to come up with a technical solution while maintaining the existing sound system,’ Käppeli says.

The analysis showed that the main system was insufficient for only the last four rows of the stands. After an on-site sectoral listening test (with and without supplementary Alcons loudspeakers), Alcons QR24 pro-ribbon two-way line-source column loudspeakers were chosen.

Eclipse duly specified a QR24 vertical array system 6.5-inch system from Alcons Audio in combination with a centre cluster of LR18B for bass.

‘The complementary sound reinforcement had to cover precisely those last four rows, without unnecessarily stimulating the glass walls behind them and thus worsening the already less than perfect reverberation situation,’ Käppeli says. ‘The QR24s produce a very narrow sound projection. Sixteen were enough to cover the back rows all around.’

Eclipse installed a QR24 extension on the stands and an additional centre cluster of eight LR18B 18-inch compact line array bass systems. The systems are powered by four Sentinel3 amplified loudspeaker controllers for the QR24s (one per channel with individual EQ, level and delay controls) and a Sentinel10 amplified loudspeaker controller for the LR18Bs (two per channel).

The LR18B is the dedicated woofer extension to the LR18 double 8-inch line-array, but can also be combined with any other Alcons pro-ribbon system, in both fixed installations and mobile applications. The front-loaded system delivers extremely accurate bass and subwoofer reproduction with the highest performance at the lowest levels of distortion, thanks to the extremely next-generation long-stroke 18-inch woofer.

The existing full-range system also delivered bass, but proved to be too inconsistent to keep up with the desired dynamics – the show events, which are all about emotion, require tight and accurate bass reproduction. Additionally, commercials and sponsor feeds often demand intense bass.

‘Our analyses had revealed that one central bass cluster would be sufficient to cover the entire audience area,’ Käppeli says. ‘We suspended the units from the centre of the ceiling and electronically trimmed the existing system so that now only the LR18Bs provide the deep bass. Ever since, our engineers can deliver much more precision in the low frequencies.

‘Alcons provided exactly the required solution for this particular application: a very narrow, vertical sound system with perfect speech intelligibility,’ he adds. ‘There aren’t many loudspeakers on the market that have these characteristics. Alcons’ solutions excel in acoustically difficult sports arenas and multi-purpose halls.’