The Palais Omnisports Marseille Grand-Est is the latest and most modern competition venue in a city known for its love of sporting entertainment. Spreading over a site some 20,000 sq.m in extent to the east of the city centre, the complex offers facilities for a variety of different sports - notably ice skating, for which a 5,600-seater stadium has been provided.
Marseille-based Objectif Plus was commissioned to design and install the stadium's sound reinforcement system. The highest acoustic hurdle here - and one most ice rinks share - is the hall's long reverberation time. "Obtaining clearly intelligible sound under such conditions posed a real challenge," admits Jean Marandet, product & service manager with EVI Audio France, "especially since the budget for the project was relatively modest. It was necessary, therefore, to find a solution capable of providing sound reinforcement of the requisite quality that at the same time represented exceptionally good value for money."
After comparing various offers, attending tests and studying simulations, the stadium management chose an Expandable Vertical Array (EVA) system from Electro-Voice. The system installed comprises 26 EVA-2082S two-way array elements featuring two different dispersion patterns (90° x 6° and 120° x 20°). The elements are flown in six arrays of four and five elements respectively - all in the same central location beneath the ceiling - and between them they provide 360° coverage.
The EVA systems are complemented by two EVID 6.2 loudspeakers in the VIP lounges. The result is powerful, homogeneous coverage throughout the building. The loudspeakers are driven by four TG7 power amplifiers equipped with RCM-26 modules to allow remote control and supervision. Three CP3000S amplifiers and one PA2250T deliver added power and headroom. A Dx46 system processor operated using IRIS-Net software governs the entire installation and thanks to the above-mentioned RCM-26 modules every individual signal can be controlled and monitored separately.
In the adjacent skating park, too, it is Electro-Voice setting the tone, in the shape of six Electro-Voice PX1152M two-way monitors. These are employed in passive mode as down-fill.
"EVA loudspeakers are special," declares Marandet. "They offer, for a relatively small outlay, magnificent performance. Hardly surprising, then, that the stadium management is delighted with the performance of the commissioned system, and delighted, too, that it is so easy and intuitive to operate. What's more, it evinces Electro-Voice's legendary reliability: despite the cold environment in which the system here has to operate, we've yet to see a single technical glitch. This is in fact the first time an EVA system has been installed in a French ice rink, but the outstanding performance of the Marseille system, we are pleased to note, has not gone unnoticed. In fact, the operators of a number of other French ice stadiums have already contacted us."
