Edelweiss Audio reckons to have breaken new ground with the completion of an installation at Russia’s Krasnodar Stadium, with a manufacturer using specially designed Funktion-One Evo loudspeaker enclosures.
Edelweiss Audio – the Funktion-One distributor for Russia – was initially invited to take part in a listening test alongside companies representing most of the pro audio manufacturers active in arena and stadium sound as part of a detailed specification and tender process.
Having impressed the owners, Edelweiss and Funktion-One were shortlisted and invited back for a second round of listening tests.
‘A number of factors, not least the geometry of the stands, meant that a horn-loaded solution would work best,’ explains Edelweiss Audio Technical, Director Andrei Kremenchugskiy. ‘We were looking at up to 90° coverage, which is very hard to achieve effectively using a line array.’
The owners were sold on the Funktion-One sound, which at the time was demonstrated using Resolution 5s, and appointed Edelweiss as the audio contractor for the project.
Krasnodar Stadium’s roof has two layers, which are split by a cavernous space. The architect originally wanted the loudspeakers to be positioned between these layers. Unsurprisingly, Edelweiss and Funktion-One had other ideas, so Kremenchugskiy worked with John Newsham and others at Funktion-One in the UK on a solution. The result was the development of new customised product – the Evo 6EHQ. These specially designed enclosures house four Evo 6 waveguides, arrayed two wide and two deep.
‘We spoke to Andrei and he explained that if we could get 90° vertical and 45° horizontal dispersion, then he could deliver a really good solution for the stadium,’ Newsham recalls. ‘On paper, it looked like combining four Evo 6EHs would work the way we wanted but we needed to do some tests in order to find out exactly how to combine them. We didn’t have the height available to just do a vertical hang.’
Newsham led some field tests at Funktion-One HQ in the UK: ‘For the horizontal coverage of 45°, we wanted to figure out whether coupling the mids or the high-frequencies would produce the smoothest result. In the end the best solution was to couple the mids and let the high frequencies separate. We then developed a special cabinet to house the four Evo 6 waveguides fixed at the correct angles.’
A total of 18 Evo 6EHQ enclosures have been deployed around the stadium, approximately 20m apart. Funktion-One F215 Mk2 bass enclosures were paired with the new F124 24-inch bass enclosures and installed between the Evo 6EHQs. Six standard Evo 6EH loudspeakers were supplied for pitch coverage.
More: www.funktion-one.com
