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Sound systems for stadiums, arenas and sports venues
Make Every Seat Count
Martin Audio designs and manufactures stadium speakers and sound systems for every part of a sports venue: the bowl, arena, concourse, fan zone and hospitality suites. From football stadiums to indoor basketball arenas, every system is designed around the venue, so announcements are understood in every seat, the matchday atmosphere hits hard, and the sound stays consistent from the entry gate to the final whistle and beyond.
A stadium sound system has two jobs that pull against each other
Every sports venue asks its sound system for two things at once: speech that is clearly understood in every seat, above a capacity crowd, and match presentation with the punch of a live concert. It has to do both in a structure built for sightlines rather than acoustics, often open to the weather, under a roof that can only carry so much weight.
And the matchday no longer stops at ninety minutes. Fans arrive earlier and stay later, in fan zones, concourses, bars and hospitality suites, and the experience in those spaces shapes whether they come back. A stadium audio system has to serve all of them, with one consistent sound.
Which venue are you?
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Arena
Longer throws, reflective roofs and a calendar that rarely stops at sport.
Wavefront Precision →
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Stadium bowl · TORUS + SXCF118
The stadium bowl: intelligibility and impact
In a circa 40,000-seat stadium bowl, the hard part isn't the distance to the back row. It's the rake. A roof-mounted system sits close to a steeply raked stand, so a conventional line array has to be bent into a tight curve and loses much of the advantage it was built for.
TORUS 12 takes a different approach. These constant curvature cabinets come in 15° and 30° versions, so a short array of up to six boxes covers a stand from front to back with consistent level and tone. Each enclosure has a horizontal dispersion pattern which can be manually adjusted between 90° and 60° or 75° (asymmetrical) to match the dispersion needs for each stand.
Furthermore, a phase plug mounted in front of the 12” driver increases mid-band sensitivity, while three 1.4” HF drivers keep announcements clear, and the system is not compromised when driven hard.
In practice: Elland Road, Leeds United
Imperium Integration specified more than 100 Martin Audio loudspeakers to renew Elland Road's PA/VA system ahead of a capacity increase. TORUS T1230 arrays cover all four stands and the triple-box corner hangs, with SXCF118 cardioid subs flown with the arrays and every hang on its own hoist so it can be lowered for maintenance without equipment on the pitch. Imperium used DISPLAY 3 to focus on intelligibility throughout. CDD covers the broadcast studio boxes, Yeboah's Crossbar and the Centenary Pavilion.
Watch: TORUS at Elland Road
Watch Alan Inkster talk through the challenges of Elland Road and how they were overcome with an installation of TORUS and SXCF118.
“As a fixed curvature array it's brilliant and absolutely kills it in a stadium this size. It's almost like it's designed for it.”
Arena · Wavefront Precision + SXCF118
The arena: built for game night, ready for every other night
An indoor arena sets the same brief as a stadium, but with longer throws, reflective roofs and glass, and a calendar that rarely stops at sport. Graduations, conferences and staged events all need different coverage from the same system.
Wavefront Precision is Martin Audio's optimised line array. DISPLAY 3 calculates the drive for each section of the array, so level and tone hold from courtside to the top tier, and energy is kept off reflective surfaces and empty seating. The family scales from compact to large-format systems, and with improved fit and finish as standard it suits open-air venues as well as indoor arenas.
In practice: Murphy Center, Middle Tennessee State University
Spectrum Sound replaced an end-of-life system in the 11,520-seat arena with six WPS arrays in the round, FlexPoint FP15 court fills and a CDD12 delay ring. With LED walls at each end rather than a centre scoreboard, the centre of the grid carried a 360° array of 16 SXCF118 cardioid subs, developed in DISPLAY 3, giving ±2dB variance around 50Hz across the seating with the court 6dB down. Portable WPMs and Q-SYS presets reconfigure the system for graduations and special events.
Watch: Wavefront Precision at MTSU
Take an inside look at the challenges that the Murphy Center presented, and how the complete Martin Audio system delivered.
“The Martin Wavefront Precision system has performed precisely as advertised. Its capability to control and direct the acoustical energy, both where we determine it is needed, and at the same time where we do not want audio, met our primary goal of this project.”
Smaller grounds · CDD, CDD-WR + SX
Smaller grounds and community stadia
Community stadia, lower-league grounds, ballparks and indoor courts face the same demands as the biggest venues, with simpler structures and tighter budgets. CDD coaxial loudspeakers widen their coverage close to the cabinet and narrow it with distance, so a handful of boxes on a roof edge or a pole can cover a stand or a court evenly, with fewer mounting points and less cabling. Weather-resistant CDD-WR models are built for permanent outdoor installation.
“The weatherised CDD-WR was the perfect choice.”
In practice
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Dover Athletic, Crabble
32 CDD-WR across all four stands and seven zones, replacing a simple 100V horn system, with a VIP box on its own volume control and CDD5TX-WR around the clubhouse.
Read the case study →
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Leicester Community Sports Arena
Four CDD15s on each flank cover a 2,400-capacity crowd facing each other across the court, 8m up and with no EQ needed.
Read the case study →
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Sutter Health Park, West Sacramento
CDD15-WR and SX subwoofers cover the ballpark from the infield to the outfield.
Read the case study →
Across the matchday
The matchday has grown well beyond ninety minutes. Fans arrive earlier, stay later and spend more in fan zones, concourses, bars and premium suites, and the experience in those spaces shapes whether they come back.
Fan zones
Fan zones are where the pre-match atmosphere is built. They're best served by portable solutions, and BlacklineQ and FlexPoint loudspeakers are ideally suited.
Plazas and concourses
Plazas and concourses in and around the ground are some of the hardest spaces to cover well: frequently open to the weather, crowded, noisy and irregular in shape.
Here, CDD-WR delivers wide, even coverage from fewer boxes and is built for permanent exposure.
Hospitality
Hospitality is where a venue earns its margin. Guests in boxes, lounges and bars are comparing the experience not with the last stadium they visited, but with the best restaurants and bars in the city.
Martin Audio is already in many of those places, so the same products move naturally into stadium hospitality.
ADORN and CDD provide compact, discreet coverage for suites, boxes and bars. BlacklineQ and FlexPoint step up for pop-up events in function rooms that host conferences, dinners and live entertainment on both matchdays and non-matchdays.
By sport
Football
From Premier League bowls to National League grounds: TORUS at Elland Road, CDD-WR across all four stands at Dover Athletic.
Basketball
Reverberant courts and crowds facing each other: Wavefront Precision at MTSU's Murphy Center, CDD15 at Leicester Community Sports Arena.
Baseball
Wide fields and long throws to the outfield: CDD15-WR at Sutter Health Park and GCS Ballpark; CDD and ADORN at Giants Town Stadium, Tokyo.
Ice hockey
Hard surfaces and cold, reflective halls: CDD at Lee Valley Ice Centre; CDD-LIVE in the private suites at Rogers Arena.
Athletics
Long tracks and spread-out crowds: CDD at Lee Valley Athletics Centre.
Hockey & tennis
Open-air venues and weather: CDD-WR at Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
Heard in every kind of venue
“This is the largest project we've completed with Martin Audio and the difference in the room is night and day.”
“We tested it side by side with other people's equipment and sonically and acoustically, it's stunning as well.”
“As soon as I heard the high output generated from the CDD15's 15in coaxial driver, I was bowled over.”
Designed to perform. Built to keep performing.
A sports venue system is a long-term investment. The work before installation, and the visibility operators have afterwards, decide how well it serves the venue for years to come.
Predict
DISPLAY 3, Martin Audio's prediction and optimisation software, models coverage and intelligibility before a single cabinet is flown. GLL data is available for consultants working in third-party software.
Integrate
In a stadium, the voice alarm is a regulated life-safety system in its own right. Martin Audio loudspeakers are designed to work alongside your certified voice alarm infrastructure, carrying voice and programme audio while the life-safety system does the job it is certified to do. Your consultant and integrator design the interface to meet the venue's requirements.
Monitor
A Q-SYS plugin for Martin Audio amplification brings amplifier status, current draw and per-output impedance into the venue's control platform, so operators see system health from where they run the rest of the venue.
Rely
Sports venue loudspeakers are often installed where they are hard to reach, so reliability is a design requirement.
Learn the software: Martin Audio training
Find the right system for every space
Every zone of a sports venue, the challenge it sets and the Martin Audio system that answers it.
| Zone or venue | Typical challenge | Martin Audio solution | Why |
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| Fan zone and plaza | Open air, weather, large irregular areas | CDD-WR | Wide, even coverage from few boxes; built for outdoor exposure |
| Concourse | Long, reflective, noisy spaces | CDD | Consistent coverage and clear speech at close range |
| Bars and lounges | Design-led interiors, background to high-energy | ADORN, CDD | Discreet ceiling, pendant and wall options with signature sound |
| Suites and boxes | Small rooms, premium guests, piping in atmosphere | CDD | Compact, high-fidelity coverage |
| Event and pop-up spaces | Fan zones, conferences, dinners, entertainment | BlacklineQ, FlexPoint | Portable solutions with high output for live entertainment |
| Stadium bowl, roof-mounted | Steep rake, short throw, roof loading, crowd noise | TORUS | Constant curvature coverage, voice clarity, low weight |
| Arena or larger bowl | Longer throws, reflective roofs, multi-use calendar; indoor or open-air | Wavefront Precision | Optimised, scalable line array; presets for every event configuration |
| Smaller grounds and courts | Simpler structures, tighter budgets, weather | CDD, CDD-WR | Big-venue coverage from few boxes |
More real-world sports installations
Let us design yours
The only honest way to show what Martin Audio can do for a venue is to design it for that venue.
Tell us about your venue
The stands, the roof, the zones, and what isn't working today.
We design it
Our team models the venue in DISPLAY 3, the same software behind Elland Road and MTSU.
See it
A bespoke design and an honest conversation. Ready to move forward, we'll work with you and our installation partners. Not ready yet, the design is yours to keep.
Frequently Asked Questions
It depends on the venue. Roof-mounted coverage of a steep stadium bowl suits a constant curvature array such as TORUS. Larger bowls and arenas with longer throws suit an optimised line array such as Wavefront Precision. Smaller grounds and community stadia are often best served by coaxial point-source loudspeakers such as CDD, which cover a stand evenly from very few boxes. The right answer comes from modelling the venue, which Martin Audio does free of charge.
Line arrays are designed for long throws. In many stadium bowls the system sits under the roof, close to a steeply raked stand, so a line array has to be bent into a tight curve. A constant curvature array such as TORUS covers that stand from front to back with a short array of two or three boxes. Where throws are longer, as in larger bowls and arenas, Wavefront Precision line arrays are the better fit.
Outdoor stadium speakers need weather resistance and controlled coverage across open space. Martin Audio's CDD-WR models are built for permanent outdoor installation and cover fan zones, open stands and ballparks; Wavefront Precision is also suitable for open-air venues.
By controlling coverage rather than adding volume. Directing sound at the seats and away from the roof, pitch and empty areas keeps speech clear where a louder system turns it into echo. Zoning lets each stand or area be addressed separately. Prediction software such as DISPLAY 3 models intelligibility before installation.
Systems that give separate, controlled coverage to commentary positions, press seating and broadcast studios, so the stadium sound supports the broadcast rather than bleeding into it. At Elland Road, CDD5 loudspeakers cover a sound-proofed broadcast studio that doubles as private boxes, separately from the TORUS bowl system.
Yes, and with one family of products the sound stays consistent from space to space. At Elland Road, TORUS covers the bowl while CDD, CDD-LIVE and BlacklineX cover the broadcast studio, a hospitality bar and a 2,000 sq.m event space.
CDD and weather-resistant CDD-WR deliver big-venue coverage from few loudspeakers, keeping mounting points, cabling and cost down. Dover Athletic's Crabble ground runs 32 CDD-WR across all four stands.
Yes. An optimised system can be reconfigured for different events: at MTSU's Murphy Center, presets reshape coverage for games, graduations and staged events.
It starts with a model of the venue: its stands, roof, surfaces and zones. Martin Audio models venues in DISPLAY 3 to predict coverage and intelligibility before installation, and offers a free system design service through its project advice team.
