National Theater and Concert Hall upgrades audio system with d&b.
Taiwan’s National Theater and Concert Hall, seated on Taipei’s Liberty Square, are the state’s most important venues for live performance.
While some artists performing in The National Theater require only background music or simple vocal reinforcement, others, like contemporary dance troupes, make higher SPL demands. To obtain the coverage and power required for all applications, while simultaneously preserving the venue’s intricately detailed woodwork, the National Theater chose to install a solution based around the Yi8 line array from d&b audiotechnik, designed and delivered by local audio production and installation specialists Topsound.
“At The National Theater, we needed to install the most aesthetically pleasing PA system possible, while achieving the SPL we required throughout the auditorium, particularly in the sub frequencies,” explained Yip of the National Theatre’s Technical Management Department. “The line source solution put forward by Topsound covers the entire auditorium, across all four tiers and every one of the 1,498 seats.”
Three clusters of Yi8 were hung along the top of the proscenium, hidden behind its decorative wood panelling. Four more clusters of Yi8 are concealed behind the proscenium’s upper and lower left and right. Bi6 subwoofers supplement the Yi8 clusters, while Yi7P and Yi10P point source loudspeakers are deployed as side fill. E6 compact coaxial loudspeakers have been specified for front fill, Yi10P and MAX2 wedges for stage monitoring. The four channel 30D amplifier have been employed for permanent integration & d&b’s loudspeakers that able for adopting to high Sound Pressure Level requirement.
“The National Theatre is a significant historical building,” said Kenny Liu, the general manager of Topsound.
“The National Theater did not want to have any loudspeakers visible in the auditorium,” elaborated Allen Tin, from d&b. “So a new distributed point source solution was a big ‘No’ from them. There was a design proposed early in the process with line arrays hung outside of the proscenium, but all parties agreed on a solution with multiple arrays hung inside it. During the design period, we had to be very careful of the accuracy of measurements, but thankfully, CAD drawing is a precise science, so the arrays and subwoofers fit perfectly within the proscenium.”
“The inputs patch to the d&b amplifiers installed in the machine room next to the stage, which made the speaker wiring run shorter,” Alex Tsai of the Topsound installation team outlined. “d&b R1 Remote control software is running in the control room, which gives the engineers a complete overview of the processing running in the amps and their operational status. We created different presets for the amplifiers to meet different performance criteria, and the engineers are also free to mix separate levels or even sources to any part of the PA, as required.”
“The National Theatre is the most important performance venue in Taiwan,” Kenny Liu acknowledged, “and it hosts first-class performances. Topsound chose to design and install a d&b audiotechnik PA solution because we have the greatest confidence in the quality of their products and after-sales service. We were very happy that our design to replace the Theater’s PA was chosen, and even though the construction period was so short, our team worked together to overcome the inherent difficulties of working in a heritage venue.”
“This project had a very long lead-time, from inception to delivery,” observed Allen Tin. “We were refining angles and alignment right through the commissioning period to ensure absolute perfection in the coverage. We think we got a pretty good result, and hope that the end-users and visiting sound engineers agree!”
“All of our post-installation testing verified that we’d achieved our design goals,” concluded Kenny Liu. “After six months of the PA being in operation, we’ve got a positive evaluation from the in-house performance team. I hope that the high visibility of this project will lead to more Taiwanese system integrators, rental companies, and end users becoming familiar with d&b audiotechnik products, understanding them, and then using them.”
