The Azteca Stadium in Mexico City has installed the largest sound system of its kind from audio specialists Mayer Sound.
From hosting FIFA World Cup Finals to Olympic Games and the first regular season NFL game to be held outside of the USA, the 87,000 seat Azteca Stadium is used to doing things on a grand scale, and its new audio installation is no different.
With a requirement for the latest audio technology the Azteca Stadium approached California-based Mayer Sound to install the largest CAL digital beam steering column array loudspeakers to date, all networked using AVB/TSN technology – which is a first for any stadium sound system.
The distributed system of 69 loudspeakers projects highly intelligible, full-bandwidth voice announcements, incidental music, and soundtracks for videos on its Panasonic screens throughout the stadium bowl.
The advanced beam steering technology built into CAL allowed Meyer Sound engineers to precisely adjust the beam spread and tilt for uniform coverage, while the slender profile of CAL loudspeakers keeps sight lines open.
”We approached Meyer Sound for this new system simply because they offered us the best solution,” said Azteca Stadium audio manager Alejandro Aguirre. ”We needed the latest in technology, and the CAL system with AVB fulfilled all our requirements.”
For the lower ring of the stadium, the system deploys 24 CAL 64 loudspeakers along with 10 600-HP subwoofers for low frequency extension. The upper ring is covered by 26 CAL 96 and eight CAL 64 loudspeakers, with one additional CAL 96 covering the playing surface.
Two Galaxy 816 network processors are placed at the head of the system for overall optimization, and two RMServers are inserted in the network for comprehensive status monitoring and troubleshooting.
The Galaxy 816 master processors are connected to the control room master switch via AVB/TSN, with bi-directional signals routed over a fiber optic network from the control room switch to the 11 local switches distributed around the stadium. Each local switch connects to its assigned group of CAL loudspeakers via Cat-5e cable. All switches are Extreme Networks X440-G2 series.
”The stadium hosts a variety of events, not just association football,” noted Aguirre. ”We also have concerts, religious events and the annual NFL games. It was essential that we have intelligible audio in every seat, and with the power and clarity needed to deliver a complete watching and listening experience alongside the HD screens. All of this has been fully accomplished with the new Meyer Sound system.”
August 9, 2018
