MIGHTY ANTWERPS SPORTPALEIS TAKES 72 OMNILINES

Ampco Belgium has achieved its first Martin Audio OmniLine installation in the country - in spectacular fashion. The company has supplied and installed 72 enclosures in different hang configurations within the massive, five-storey high Antwerps Sportpaleis concert and sports arena.

Ampco Belgium sales manager Steven Kemland says, 'It is ironic that the smallest line array in the market should open its account in one of the largest, multi-purpose venues in the country.'

Built in 1933 (and recently augmented with a new building) the main arena - with its distinctive green roof - holds around 17,000, with the new space offering about half that capacity.

But it is on three floors of the public, general concourse areas that technical manager Geert Torfs has made his boldest move, as part of an upgrade plan implemented when he joined the operation more than a year ago.

Optimised by the Martin Audio Engineer DSP, the new, award-winning OmniLine micro line array takes a wide range of feeds - from delayed sound off the concert stage, to earlier background music from a satellite Digibox (when Engineer's BassCreator algorithm kicks in to beef up the low end).

Equally the system can deliver important announcements to the arriving crowds, link into the voice evacuation procedure, pump out potent dance music (if a merchandising team is running a special foyer promotion), and even play pre-recorded ringtone messages, stored in the NION 3 digital matrix, which will be coupled to the fire system.

The 72 Omniline cabinets have been designed and distributed around the arena in four clusters of four and four clusters of six (on the ground floor), two clusters of eight (on the first floor) and four clusters of four (on the second floor).

Geert Torfs had previously worked with Ampco Belgium prior to joining Sportpaleis, the pro audio company having carried out installations at theme parks such as Plopsaland for Torfs' previous company, Studio 100.

Heading a technical team of ten, Torfs today is part of the operating company,
Antwerp Sportpaleis nv set up in June 1997.

Ampco's Steve Kemland remembers, 'When we first arrived on site in Antwerp there were lots of different analogue feeds going everywhere in the building, all with different EQ, none of it compatible, and no delayed sound out in the ring.'

He instinctively knew he had a formula 'for achieving high intelligibility via a small line array' and invited Sportpaleis' technical team, which also included head of sound Christophe Cammaert, to an OmniLine demonstration at their Boom HQ.

The elimination of high-frequency sidelobes makes OmniLine suitable for high quality music reproduction and speech in large, reverberant spaces such as the solid concrete outer ring at Sportpaleis.

'We were immediately sold on the system,' said Torfs. 'I was not only impressed by how it sounded but what it could achieve in combination with the Engineer. For me it was perfect solution - an aesthetic speaker which sounded great and was easy to optimise.'

In fact Ampco Belgium employed several layers of optimisation on each of the three floors - starting with the set-up. OmniLine achieves vertical beam forming by physically articulating individual array modules using powerful optimisation software to curve the array rather than applying DSP to a traditional column. This enables focused sound energy to be delivered exactly where it is needed and kept away from reflective surfaces and ceiling.

The system's different performance characteristics were then programmed into the MediaMatrix NION 3 (in the case of the delays) and the Engineer (in the event of smoothing out the input source, and applying or subtracting the BassCreator function).

As part of the same contract, Ampco Belgium have taken the opportunity to create a simpler network for the auditorium. A separate optical fibre system spans the venue, to keep cable runs as short as possible, and a wireless tablet PC links in with the network. In the upper balcony are 14 stacks of classic Martin Audio F2 enclosures.

'We have had a lot of favourable comments - from both customers and professionals alike,' states Geert Torfs. And he says it has moved the infrastructure of a venue - which also has its own velodrome, and hosts basketball and tennis - light years forward.

The final word comes from Christophe Cammaert: 'The speakers we had before sounded dreadful, particularly without delay. OmniLine has made a big difference - aesthetically it's really beautiful, but in practice it is even more so.'

Further information from:

Maureen Hayes, Martin Audio Jerry Gilbert, JGP Public Relations
Tel: +44 (0)1494 535312 Tel: +44 (0)1707 258525
Fax: +44 (0)1494 438669 Fax: +44 (0)1707 267140
E: maureenh@martin-audio.com jerry.gilbert@ntlworld.com