Dynacord on track at the Neue Bult racecourse

2 August 2012

Germany - Since 1973, visitors to the 'Neue Bult Bult' racecourse in Hanover have been marvelling at the power and performance of the horses. But since the sound reinforcement system was modernized earlier this year, the same qualities have been no less in evidence off the track - a fact to which over 50,000 racegoers can testify already this year can testify.

The design and installation of the new sound reinforcement system was the work of M-Akustik e.K., a company based in Oldendorf (Hesse). Mathias Vette, the managing director of M-Akustik, collaborated with the operator, Gregor Baum, on the design. Responsible for the implementation were Uwe Schwedhelm, sales director of Fleischhauer Ing.-Büro GmbH & Co. KG, and Stefan Waltemathe from M-Akustik's technical support team were responsible for the implementation. .

The most formidable hurdles proved to the sheer size of the area to be covered and the diverse requirements of its various zones; the latter included the grandstands, the betting hall, the restaurants and bars, the paddock, the trackside, the unsaddling enclosure, the two VIP areas (which can be hired separately) and the two play-out berths for TV outside broadcast vehicles. It had to be ensured that in every sector -- regardless of the program material involved (whether recorded music, race commentary or announcements) - the highest possible level of intelligibility was achieved.

These stringent requirements were satisfied by Mathias Vette and his team through the use of a combination of Dynacord and Electro-Voice components. Seventy-eight weatherproof loudspeakers from Electro-Voice - an assortment of Sx6-600 PIX, Sx-300 PIX and EVID 4.2TW units - provide quality sound throughout the entire area.

The control and supervision of the sound reinforcement system are handled by two Dynacord P64 digital audio matrix managers that together with the DSA 8410 and DSA 8805 multi-channel power amplifiers can be operated via CobraNet by means of touch panels. These offer intuitive and easy operation of the entire system.

One P64 is used to control the incoming audio channels of the 32 zones whilst the other supervises the outgoing audio channels. Furthermore, thanks to the powerful DSA multi-channel amplifiers, each channel can be configured and powered individually.

"When choosing the amplifiers, we opted for these class D models because the extremely high degree of integration in relation to the number of channels and the amplification output they offer set them apart from other 2U devices," explains Mathias Vette. "We were able to adapt the operation mode of each individual channel to the demands of the installation and thereby obtain optimal results, a further advantage being that the power amplifiers and the P64 can be operated together on the same IRIS-Net software platform."

(Jim Evans)