Eleven-time championship-winning ice hockey team EC Red Bull Salzburg play their home games at the 3,400-capacity Eisarena Salzburg (Kunsteisbahn) indoor arena where, after more than a decade spent relying on patchwork, inconsistent sound, the venue has installed a KV2 Audio system to deliver clear, intelligible game announcements.
Over the years, the venue’s sound system had been assembled from mismatched components and no longer met the high-performance, festival-level expectations of professional sports venues. Existing loudspeakers were mounted in three-box clusters aimed in different directions, resulting in more than a dozen conflicting coverage angles in each section and making speech intelligibility practically impossible. To add to the problem, the glass, concrete and metal arena, and the ice playing surface caused reflections that further reduced clarity.
EC Red Bull’s Operations Team turned to Key-Wi Music, Salzburg’s leading music shop. ‘As a Salzburg-based supplier and installation partner, Key-Wi Music is always looking to support local projects,’ says Gerhard Bernegger, founder and CEO of Key-Wi Music. ‘As always, we evaluated solutions from major manufacturers, but we were confident that only KV2 could deliver an audio experience that met every technical requirement of the venue.’
To gauge a reliable first impression of a KV2 system, an on-site test was conducted at Eisarena Salzburg by audiovisual engineering specialist AV MATTR, who led the project’s technical management and system integration. ‘When I was consulted, it was clear that the only viable solution was a coherent, high-quality point source system,’ notes AV MATTR CEO, Tim Niedermeier. ‘In my previous projects – from the Haus für Mozart to the Haus der Philharmonie Salzburg – KV2 systems have proven their ability to deliver clarity and coverage in acoustically demanding spaces. After the on-site test, it was clear that KV2’s point source philosophy and exceptional midrange resolution were uniquely suited to Eisarena’s acoustics, and all alternative proposals were quickly dismissed.’
With the primary goal of achieving uniform coverage and minimising reflections, Niedermeier worked with lead system designer, Stefano Trevisan of KV2 Audio Deutschland to develop a KV2 system that optimises speech intelligibility, musical impact and operational reliability.
‘At the heart of the system are ten SL412 wide dispersion loudspeakers, which act as the main PA,’ Trevisan explains. ‘We then deployed two ESD10 and four ESD12loudspeakers in the near and far-range perimeter zones, driven by SL3000D and ESP2000D amplifiers.
‘A key challenge in this type of venue is wavefront tearing, an issue commonly seen in ice rinks,’ he continues. To reduce this destructive filtering, all loudspeakers were aimed in the same direction toward the audience and aligned with a central delay line rather than a single point. ‘This method allowed us to guarantee a coherent wavefront with stable localisation across the entire spectator area.’
As expected for a venue of this type, a strong resonance was observed around 160–180Hz. ‘Instead of increasing overall system levels, we pulled the main loudspeakers out of the full-range mode and attenuated the problematic frequencies directly via EQ,’ says Niedermeier. ‘Even under these constraints, the system still delivers a focused +3dB of punch at 70Hz, ensuring that music cues and stingers remain impactful, while vocal clarity stays intact.’
Signal distribution is run over redundant Dante (primary/Secondary) via Netgear AV-Line switches with analogue fallback, managed by Linea Research ASC48processors. FOH operation and monitoring are handled by a Yamaha QL1 console using a custom control interface.
‘Eisarena Salzburg has proven once again that even in challenging environments, a coherent point source approach and a clean signal chain deliver consistent, high-quality results,’ Niedermeier reflects. ‘Where speech intelligibility was previously non-existent in large sections of the venue, spoken word announcements are now delivered with clarity and consistent coverage across the audience zones.’
‘The planning support, technical depth, and overall system performance surpassed levels others simply couldn’t match,’ adds Bernegger. ‘Working with partners like KV2 Audio and AV MATTR makes projects not only incredibly successful, but also genuinely enjoyable.’
More: www.kv2audio.com