PANSTADIA & ARENA MANAGEMENT WINTER 2013/14 THE OLYMPIC SPIRIT
Funktion-One’s sound solutions, including what is believed to be the world’s largest commercially available bass horn, are performing an outstanding job in the Russian Winter Olympic resort of Sochi.
T
he Olympic spirit; bestowed upon the world by the Greeks and carried
through the winding passage of time by those entrusted to protect its enduring legacy. It’s a spirit of bravery and belief – an unapologetic commitment to being the best you can be.
The Sochi Bob Sleigh Run course layout.
As Sochi prepares for the 2014 Winter Olympics, it does so with a huge amount of new infrastructure, including 11 new sports venues. It’s a signifi cant level of redevelopment, but most will have expected that from the Russian Federation in the lead up to its fi rst ever Winter Games.
What was, perhaps, a little less predictable is that one of those venues is now the proud home of one of the largest bass horns in the world. It’s both a unique and stirring excerpt from British loudspeaker manufacturer Funktion-One’s contribution to the new Sochi landscape, which includes state-of-the-art audio solutions for the 2km long Bobsleigh Track and 12,000-capacity Bolshoy Ice Dome.
The Bobsleigh Track can be found amongst the Mountain Cluster – one of two multiple venue sites that will be used during the Games. The other, known as the Coastal Cluster, is less than 48km away, making Sochi the most compact Winter Games in the history of the Olympic Movement.
The project started with a speculative conversation in 2009, between company founder Tony Andrews and Andrei Kremenchugskiy from Funktion- One’s Russian distributor, Edelweiss Audio. Andrews was asked about designing high intelligibility sound system solutions for the two venues. The Ice Dome presented typically diffi cult acoustic challenges and the mountainside Bobsleigh Track had areas where sound coverage was required and areas where it was not.
Having recognised a lack of audio quality in sports arenas and stadiums generally, Andrews had started to consider how Funktion-One could raise the standard. At the time, F1 were in the early stages of developing new technology that would lead to today’s MST (Modular Stadium Technology) Loudspeaker Horns.
Physics AND COMMON SENSE
All too often, audio solutions for large public space environments such as stadiums and arenas produce poor, indistinct results, which have become accepted as the norm. In contrast, the MST Horns have been designed specifi cally for the challenges that these environments present. Due to their size, the large format loudspeaker
The Mega Bass Horn with MST Loudspeaker Horns on the Sochi Bob Sleigh Run. 118
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