Opened in 2011 to host the European Basketball Championships, Lithuania’s Kaunas Žalgiris Arena is now a multipurpose hall that is able to accommodate up to 17,500 when used for music concerts.
Built by the Kaunas City government at a cost of €50m, it is the largest in the Baltic states and required a sound system that could reach every seat in the house. The arena management found this in a Martin Audio H3+ horn-loaded system – the largest H3+ complement installed in a single location.
The system was proposed by Martin Audio’s Lithuanian distributor, Audiotonas. The proposal met the specification and provided further advantages when used for basketball or ice hockey matches: ‘During basketball play in particular, we typically have audience noise crossing over at 105dB – and thanks to the H3+ the bowl sound can be heard loud and clear above it,’ Audiotonas co-owner, Algirdas Sidiskis, explains. ‘On top of that, powerful enclosures run with no subwoofer support, are great for the music breaks during pauses in the play. And excellent sound coverage is delivered to every seat in the arena.’
Having won a competitive tender for the installation, Audiotonas was responsible for both the main bowl sound and the PA/VA systems within the five-zone complex, which were designed by project engineers, Orunas Urbonas and Darius Zalaga. The Martin Audio components had been selected in view of their suitability to fulfil the project requirements, in terms of SPL, power output and frequency range as well as compliance with venue-style specifications for both speech intelligibility and music playback.
The main bowl PA operates as 24 zones and – following Ease predictions – comprises 52 Blackline H3+ enclosures set around the perimeter in two lower and upper rings, firing back into the audience. These are complemented by four AM15 stadium boxes to cover the playing area under the LED video cube, all mounted on custom brackets.
Run bi-amped, with each channel controlled by its own DSP, source feeds to the system include live voice announcements and live music with separate line feeds from CD, MP3 and DVD.
Operating alongside are the four AM15s – one covering each axis. This two-way passive enclosure has been designed for applications where high SPL and weather-resistance are of prime importance.
The system is driven by Yamaha amplifiers in four amp racks, with DSP and control. Signal management is via CobraNet, using Biamp AudioFlex CM, with remote input and output modules. The separate voice evacuation is based on a Honeywell system and several thousand horns, ceiling speakers, wall-mount speakers and sound projectors (from AMC).
As a result of the careful planning that went inot the project, Algirdas Sidiskis reports that the client is ‘delighted’ with the new system.
More: www.audiotonas.lt
More: www.martin-audio.com
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