The new Xi’an Olympic Centre Stadium, the largest sports venue in the Shaanxi Province of Northwest China that’s due to host the opening ceremony and track and field competitions for China’s 14th National Games in September, has been outfitted with a large-scale sound reinforcement system spanning across three zones that’s driven by Powersoft amplification.
The venue includes a stadium with 60,000 seats, a gymnasium with 18,000, and natatorium with 4,000, with Powersoft’s Chinese distributor EZPro driving the sound system project. “The brief we were given was to create a world class audio system, that was advanced, stable, cost effective and flexible,” explains Yongjun Jiang, EZPro’s technical manager of the project. “With the system working as an entertainment, vocal and emergency audio system, it was vital we used the best in the business to create the most reliable and impactful system possible. For us, this meant using top brands with the best technology on the market, including Powersoft.”
In total, EZPro deployed 236 Eastern Acoustic Works (EAW) loudspeakers, nine Allen & Heath digital mixers and four Symetrix digital processors, with audio power delivered by 43 Powersoft Quattrocanali 4804 DSP+D amplifiers and controlled by ArmoníaPlus. After investigating each venue’s size and acoustic conditions, and recognizing speech comprehension as the most vital aspect of the audio set up, the decided that the three venues of the sports center were to be given different system layouts.
“Speech comprehension was the most significant aspect of the audio requirements, with the upcoming games and competitions held in the venue relying heavily on commentary,” Yongjun Jiang notes. “The stadium and natatorium adopt a distributed layout to ensure coverage to all the seats, while we opted for a more centralised lay out for the gymnasium, as it’s a smaller venue. Each EAW loudspeaker is given its own independent channel, allowing to simplify control of audio coverage and reduce interference.”
More than 130 EAW loudspeakers deliver coverage to the stadium. “The catwalk in the stadium has a weight limit for loudspeaker installations, so we had to take that into account when creating the system,” Yongjun says. “We also needed to consider the durability of any products we put out there, and in particular ensure that the loudspeakers were weatherproof, lightweight, precise and with a high output.”
Driving these speakers are 34 Powersoft Dante-enabled Quattrocanali 4804 DSP+D amplifiers. Yongjun: “With reliability as the most vital requirement, choosing amplifiers that were up to the immense task of driving this system was crucial. Powersoft amplifiers have an incredible reputation, we knew them to be highly efficient and extremely reliable, not to mention their immense power output, which made them the perfect choice for us.
“The built in DSP modules Powersoft offer were incredibly useful, like the advanced EQ,” he continues. “And with lengthy cable runs like the ones we used for this installation; the active damping control feature was also essential.”
For the diamond-shaped gymnasium, reverberation presented another challenge, along with the need for the space to transform into a basketball court or an ice hockey rink when needed. For this area, EZPro opted for a total of 70 EAW loudspeakers, a combination of RSX212Ls, RSX18Fs, RSX129s and VFM129is. Accompanying the loudspeakers are three Allen & Heath digital mixers and two Symetrix digital processors. Just a single Powersoft Quattrocanali 4804 DSP+D is able to provide ample power for the loudspeakers.
Finally, the natatorium features 30 EAW loudspeakers powered by eight Powersoft Quattrocanali 4804 DSP+Ds, along with two Allen & Heath digital mixers and two Symetrix processors. “The Powersoft amplifiers play a significant role throughout the entire venue,” says Yongjun. “Main signals go directly into the amps with Dante cards before feeding the loudspeaker systems, which ensures the best signal quality. The amps are capable of detecting and switching channels automatically as required, whilst dealing with all the digital and analogue signals flawlessly.”
The system is supported by ArmoníaPlus, Powersoft’s system design software that’s designed to foster simplistic control of complicated installations. The software allowed EZPro to speed up the initial system commissioning phase, thanks to its speaker pre-set models, and has continued to be an essential part of the system control.
With ArmoníaPlus, operators can quickly check if the amplifiers are online, their signal and temperature ranges, and they can monitor the speaker impedance, whenever and wherever required. “The clear and intuitive user interface of ArmoníaPlus is a crucial asset to the installation for daily system operation,” Yongjun says. “The offline editing functions, quick set up and group control functions are extremely practical for the install.”
ArmoníaPlus allowed EZPro to visually represent the amplifiers in their locations, thanks to its customization features. “The amplifiers located in the four different rooms are replicated in corresponding zones in the software, arranged in actual installation order. It’s completely invaluable for operators and makes controlling this complex system intuitive,” Yongjun says.
The entire installation spanned just over a year and was completed in July 2020. “Overall we were really pleased with how the installation turned out,” he concludes. “Everything went exactly as we planned, and the delivery and final result have been commended by the client.”
Zhou Jun, chief technical engineer of the stadium project, adds, “The schedule was pressing, yet the sound system installation and commission were finished on time thanks to EZPro’s efforts. Third party experts were invited to approve the installation, and they gave high praise and recommendation to the installation. It lives up to the highest Chinese standard for fabulous technical performance, including max SPL, sound field uniformity, and sound fullness.”
Image Credits: EZPro
