038 REPORT
ALLIANZ PARK
Company: Funktion One Location: London, UK
Saturday 16 February, 2013 marked a special day in the history of Saracens. The professional rugby union team, which formed in 1876, returned to London follow- ing an 18-year hiatus from the UK’s capital city. Home for the players and fans has moved from Watford’s Vicarage Road, to the newly built Allianz Park in Enfield, North London. After many years of sharing other teams’ facilities, Saracens’ own- ers were determined to shape the new stadium in a way that would ensure the best user experience possible. With that in mind, they consulted Roger Lindsay Associ- ates about specifying an audio solution capable of giving the stadium an intelligible edge. Roger Lindsay is one of the best-known sound engineers in the world. He has an esteemed history in audio, having worked with some of the biggest names in the music industry over the last 40 years. In that time he has also consulted on a host of high-profile projects outside the live environment. Roger contacted Richard Nowell at installers RNSS, and together they approached Funktion One in search of a speaker system that would service the main stand and other areas within the complex. Allianz Park has four stands in total, which combine to create a 10,000-seated-capacity. The main stand is the largest, and houses the VIP suites, function rooms and club administration facilities. Funktion One’s David Bruml said: “We looked at the plans, the geometry and positions within the roof of the main stand, and came up with a design that uses the AX88, supplemented with the F118 bass enclosures. There are eight positions along the stand, each with two AX88’s and one F118.”
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This is by no means the first time Funktion One’s AX88’s and F118’s have been prescribed for a sports arena. Ipswich Town FC’s stadium, Slovakia’s Steel Arena and various training facilities used during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa are other examples of their effective implementation. Each AX88 comprises two eight-inch drivers and a single one-inch driver, which combine to give frequency re- sponse ranging from 180Hz all the way up to 18kHz. The two-way speaker offers 60º of horizontal and 55º of vertical dispersion. It is an incredibly versatile speaker. At Allianz Park, the system is scaled up, or down as it were, with the addition of the F118 bass units. The compact, horn-loaded enclosures have a single 18-inch driver, which punches out well-defined, clean bass. The bass extension draws the frequency range of the system out to a floor of 20Hz. Each speaker is equipped to handle the testing nature of the outdoor environment. The AX88’s have silicone treated cones, stainless steel fixings, passive crossovers sealed in glanded junction boxes, o-rings around the rear driver covers and dielectric grease applied to every terminal. The F118’s have been finished in a special weather resistant paint and are fitted with galvanised suspension yokes. Amplification for the system comes from seven Funktion One E45 amplifiers - manufactured by MC2. And control is han- dled by two X04A audio management systems, manufactured by XTA in collabora- tion with Funktion One, which have Audiocore compatibility. Discussing the project, Roger Lindsay revealed: “One of the more significant challenges with this project was the close proximity to some of London’s most desirable residential properties and the possible environmental impact any sound system might have. We needed to produce very powerful, high quality audio, while also tightly controlling the dis- persion of that sound to contain it precisely within the seated areas of the stadium, and avoid any sonic impact on the local area. “I’ve known Tony Andrews and John Newsham for over 30 years and have always admired their total dedication to constantly pushing the boundaries of audio
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