The annual FIS World Cup Ski Flying event in Oberstdorf, Germany presentes some of the world’s best ski jumpers competing at the 27,000-capacity Ski Stadium, with sound reinforcement supplied by Bavaria-based Harmonic Sound deploying a system utilizing CODA Audio loudspeakers, subwoofers and supporting components.
The principal area to be covered in the main ski arena, spanning about 180 meters, demanded a high degree speech intelligibility, with two smaller VIP stages also requiring coverage. “In actual fact, with a mixture of centralized and decentralized reinforcement, we managed to meet this very demanding brief with what some might think is a very small amount of equipment,” says Christian Heckmair of Harmonic Sound.
The largest part of the production was covered by a flown combination of 12 AiRAY compact line arrays joined by 16 SCV-F sensor controlled subwoofers. The two smaller settings saw the use of G712-Pro three-way multi-function loudspeakers combined with HOPS5 two-way point source loudspeakers. All units were driven with LINUS14D amplification. “The LINUS system amplifiers are characterised by great efficiency,” Heckmair states. “That’s why just seveb LINUS14D amplifiers with DSP were enough for this event. Controlled with Dante and connected via fiber optics we theoretically had 90,000 watts available, which is quite something.”
“We received a great response from every quarter,” he continues. “When music was played it was punchy; when announcements were made you could hear every single word — noone had to concentrate to hear the distances and scores of the competitors. In fact, someone told me you could still hear the stadium announcer perfectly well in a village four kilometres away.”
Since it’s first CODA Audio investment in 2020, Harmonic Sound has added almost the full CODA product portfolio to its inventory, having decided to exclusively employ the brand.
