Finland’s Sibelius Hall has upgraded its sound system with a d&b audiotechnik system. An architecturally and acoustically demanding venue, it has achieved an improved balance of fixed-install reliability with touring-style flexibility.
Home to the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, the 1,250-seat Sibelius Hall was completed in 2000 and is renowned for its acoustics. With several hundred events each year it offers a predominantly classical programme plus contemporary artists, amplified music, speech events and other multipurpose productions.
With the previous, ageing sound system struggling to deliver consistent tonal quality, the team began considering an up-to-date replacement. ‘It’s a great hall for classical music,’ says technical producer, Jukka-Pekka Nissinen, ‘but for other content – pop and rock with the symphony orchestra, for example – we needed a system with real range.’
The hall’s sound needs addressed coverage consistency, tonal balance, and stage spill. Technical manager Jukka Kaunisto elaborates, ‘Our main hall is very reverberant and bowl‑shaped at the back, so we have to deal with a lot of reflections and energy build‑up on stage.’
While cardioid behaviour was attractive, there were other considerations: ‘It was essential to provide the kind of production-ready solution expected of an international-level concert hall, as well as the flexibility to allow for mobile deployment, and at a reasonable cost,’ Kaunisto says. ‘Also important – looking ahead – was long-term serviceability and support.’
The sound team were already familiar with d&b, with various products already in use elsewhere in the venue, so when it came to the new main house system, d&b would be among the contenders. Once various systems had been auditioned, the cardioid functionality and other features tipped the scales toward d&b. ‘Reputation, reliability, service, and especially the software were big factors,’ says Nissinen. ‘Our staff already knows how to work with d&b, so that was a plus. Compared with some other brands, d&b’s software is more intuitive for us, and we already knew the ecosystem. If you draw a Venn diagram of price, performance, and size, XSL sits nicely in the middle. For this venue and budget, it’s a very good fit.’
Another good fit was the arrival of d&b’s new U-Series point sources. ‘The demo of the U3 only lasted about 15 minutes and we were convinced,’ Nissinen says.
Using ArrayProcessing, the system design successfully addresses the hall’s complex seating geometry. Installed by system integrator Oulun Kongressitekniikka, it comprises a main left/right system of XSL8 and XSL-Subs, with further LF support from two SL-Subs down on the stage front. The U3 front fill system is tonally matched to the main arrays, with additional U3s chosen for as balcony delays and fills, along with Y7P and Y10P point sources. Touring racks and carts allow loudspeakers and amplifiers to be easily relocation as needed.
‘The system has been designed so that it can live in the main hall most of the time, but it’s straightforward to take parts of it to the lobby or the congress centre,’ says Nissinen. ‘That mobility was a deliberate requirement.’
The result gives Sibelius Hall a far more controlled on‑stage environment, which translates to a cleaner, more clearly defined sound for the audience. It can now enjoy broad dynamic range and headroom needed for amplified music, while retaining the clarity and natural sound expected for speech and orchestral applications.
More: www.dbaudio.com