Located a few hours north of Madrid, in the mountainous Castile-Leon region of Northern Spain, Burgos, is known as the “Land of Castles.”
While Burgos is renowned for it’s history, it also has a reputation as a leading destination for corporate conventions.
For some time, the city has sought to construct a truly modern venue equipped with the facilities necessary to host a wide variety of national and international congresses, concerts and theatre to meet the needs of both the cultural and business communities who are drawn there.
Recently, those needs have been met with the construction of the Auditorio y Palacio, a beautiful new complex featuring sound reinforcement systems designed by SeeSound and installed by Vigo-based A/V integrator and installer, Spica Sistemas Audiovisuales.
The systems serve the 1,550-capacity Auditorio Principal and 653-seat Auditorio Secundario and are comprised primarily of Adamson Metrix line array loudspeakers, driven by Powersoft amplifiers and XTA Electronics digital processors.
SeeSound first became involved with the project in 2011, tasked with the job of designing systems that would fulfill the requirements of modern performances, traditional orchestral and theatrical applications as well as corporate presentations and special events, says Carles Ribo, product manager at SeeSound.
Given the fact that the project was a completely new build, the challenges presented by the venue were minimal. “But still,” Ribo adds, “these are large auditoriums with highly reflective walls. The advantage of using a system like Metrix is that the boxes are very directional, so we can send a lot of power to the bottom rows and, obviously, the lower we go to the front rows the energy is distributed more quickly, so we’re not killing people at the front with too much SPL.
“Apart from that, we can control them electronically and have three distinctive zones where we can provide the SPL we need in each.
“The small auditorium is more for corporate events and presentations and smaller events, while the larger venue will host live musical performances, theatre and large corporate presentations,” he continues. “The main auditorium needed to be covered in an even way with high quality sound from the last row to the first, taking into account that the stage can be extended to encompass some of the first few rows. The small auditorium had required a L/R system and a quantity of speakers that could be added on the side and back to transform it into either a 5.1 or 7.1 surround system.”
Auditorio Principal
The larger space, which officially opened in September, is more of a typical theatre venue, Ribo explains. In this space, the mains consist of seven Metrix-i 5-degree cabinets, and three Metrix-i W 15-degree cabinets flown below three double 15-inch Metrix-t Subs, per side, that provide coverage throughout the entire seating area.
“Acoustically, it’s designed to host anything from classical to modern music,” says Ribo. “There is a balcony and an orchestra level and we need to cover the whole auditorium, so we had to have different zones where we can select what sound pressure level will be sent to each.”
In all, there three distinct zones. Beginning from the top, per side, the first four Metrix-i boxes point at the balcony, and then another three Metrix-i boxes that point cover the under balcony and orchestra level, followed by three Metrix-i W boxes that point at the first rows. They’re supported by a center cluster of two Adamson Point 15 full-range loudspeakers for center fill, one pointing at the balcony and the other at the orchestra level.
