Focusing on live electronic music, the 300-capacity terrace stage at Budapest’s A38 is now served by an HK Audio Contour X loudspeaker system from local partner, Eurhythmics.
Permanently moored on the banks of the Danube, A38 was formerly a stone carrying barge that has been completely gutted and refitted for its new role by a team comprising architects, ship engineers, acoustic designers and electricians. Now a three-stage live venue has hosted countless performances from international artists in more than two decades since its initial renovation, as well as being the location for live recordings and TV broadcasts. Today, its stages see performances throughout the summer season, making it one of the most popular venues in Budapest.
The terrace stage at the bow of the ship is a 300-person area that largely caters hosts EDM performances, and found its aging sound system unable to handle the levels required, with the subs creating a particularly noisy stage and contributing to a difficult mix environment.
Eurythmics had hosted a demo day at A38 earlier in the year to show off the capabilities of HK Audio’s extensive range. The time was now right for the A38 team to get back in touch with Eurythmics to see if HK Audio had a solution to meet the needs and acoustic challenges at A38. ‘It’s a pretty big venue and it’s half open and half closed,’ says Eurythmics’ Gábor Major. ‘That makes it interesting to work on the acoustics for the space as the roof is not symmetrical.’
To address this challenging, Eurythmics supplied four Contour CX 210 LT cabinets flown in pairs either side of the stage with low frequency support from the same number of C Sub CF118 subwoofers ground-stacked in pairs either side of the stage. The solution is completed with a pair of CX 8 speakers for delays and six Linear 5 Mk2 110 XA put to use as monitors.
‘A38 wanted to have a point source solution rather than a line array but the terrace is quite a long area to cover,’ Major says. ‘The CX210 LT was the perfect choice because they could throw all the way to the back of the space and still sounded great.’
A further challenge came from the location of the open-air venue. ‘A38 is moored in a residential area with flats very close to it, so we didn’t want the sound to leak out and disturb people,’ Major explains. ‘The CX210 LT has rotatable horns, so we were able to alter the coverage pattern to focus the sound inside the boat. We calculated the coverage in Ease to confirm this, and everything worked how we planned it to.’
One of the major improvements seen since the installation has been with low end control. ‘With the old system, when you pushed up the lows everything was on the stage and you couldn’t mix anything else because it was so loud,’ Major says. ‘We’ve installed the C Subs at the side of the stage rather than the front, so while they are still loud, there is separation and the stage is much quieter.
‘The technical team really like the system,’ Major reports. ‘They like working on it and it is pretty loud compared to the older system. Also, it isn’t falling apart when it gets loud. The HK Audio engineers have made the system indestructible, and it sounds so consistent.’
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