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Clair Brothers Provides Unconventional System Upgrade At South Korea’s Sokcho Art Center

Subwoofers deployed in the middle of the main arrays in unique design.

A recent renovation of the main hall/auditorium at the Sokcho Art Center, located in Sokcho City in the far northeast of South Korea, includes a new sound reinforcement system designed and installed by Clair Brothers in a very specific manner that might be unexpected in most other markets, with the subwoofers deployed in the middle of the main line arrays.

J.J. Song, VP of sales, Clair Brothers Korea, explains that, “While this configuration is used on a case by case basis, it exists because of the size of our buildings and the available amount of land they sit on, especially in the center of the city, where to handle the necessary amount of people the rooms are designed to be taller and shallower than typical theaters.

“In these cases, the subs in the middle of the line array usually face toward the edge of the balcony and divide the top section of the array from the bottom. The key with this set-up is to have the ability to control and process the system as two line arrays in one cluster.”

The loudspeaker set includes nine Clair Brothers C8 array modules per side; four flown CS118 subs; two stacked CS218 subs; three CAT115s as center fill; two kiT15s for stage fill; four 1AM stage monitors; and four 8CXs under the balcony. All audio power is delivered by Clair Brothers/Lab.gruppen amplifiers.

A closer look at the unusual array configuration.

For this 600-seat room, considerations were made with regard to the quantity of speakers in each array as part of a determined speaker cluster’s location and height, and the system’s ability to fit within a set budget. An Allen & Heath dLive S5000 mixing console was also installed.

Seong Keun Ahn, chief engineer, Clair Brothers Korea explains how Clair Brothers was specified on this project: “In 2018, we did a C8 line array demo for a selected group of audio engineers in Korea. They were impressed and praised the quality of the sound and the high SPL out of a such a compact box. Especially noteworthy in the C8 speaker design is the ‘integrated passive crossover network’ that can reduce the amp channel count required while functioning as a bi-amped 3-way speaker.

“We must give a great deal of credit to Mr. Josh Sadd, Clair Brothers chief design engineer, for designing technology that saves client budgets without compromising sound quality. Here in Sokcho, we held a competitive system demo right in the art center – Clair Brothers versus two other top brands. The demo took place in front of Sokcho Art Center officials. Of course, they chose Clair Brothers.”

Hyo-Seong Song, technical director and chief sound engineer at Sokcho, adds, “Our Clair Brothers system is like an extremely well-built car. It drives as you drive without compromising quality.” This is saying a lot given the dynamic range of performances taking place in the auditorium, everything from city conferences and dramas for kids, to classical music, Korean traditional music, K-Pop performances, and even heavy metal bands. “We are enjoying every bit of it.”

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Linea Research is a leading designer and manufacturer of high performance power amplifiers and DSP controllers for the entertainment, live sound, installed sound and commercial sound markets.