KATOWICE, Poland – Natural Sound Service and Danley Sound Mission Europe followed up on their collaboration on a temporary system for the Spodek Arena for the 2009 EuroBasket basketball championships with an upgrade to the 40-year-old saucer-shaped venue's permanent audio system. The new system includes 12 Danley Jericho Horns (JH-90), two Danley Genesis Horns (GH-60) and several dozen Danley subwoofers and full-range cabinets.
At the 2009 event, "everyone who heard the temporary system at EuroBasket was impressed," said Piotr Pronko, head of Natural Sound Service. "The system had the clarity of a home hi-fi set and the well-resolved impact of a great club system. We only used four Danley Genesis Horns to cover 11,500 seats! After that, the owners weren't interested in sampling any other speakers. They were happy and settled on Danley horns for the permanent installation."
Pronko used Danley gear in his design for the main arena, and the adjacent Ice Arena and the outdoor video screen as well. Trias integrated and installed the AV system, including the design of a 100-square meter screen outside and another 90-square meter wrapped screen inside the arena.
The well-defined beam widths of the Jericho and Genesis Horns allowed Pronko to aim specific boxes at specific seating sections, with virtually seamless transitions at their edges. As such, the Horns form an exploded circle around the arena's central screen. Each one is separately controlled and voiced, and each is self-powered. Two Danley TH-215 and six Danley TH-118 subwoofers provide the system with bottom end.
Acoustician Doug Jones flew in from the U.S. to take measurements on Spodek's Danley horns and found consistency from seating area to seating area and from seat to seat. "They couldn't have achieved that level of performance with line array technology," he said. "The advantage of the Danley Jericho and Genesis Horns is that they are true point source boxes. In contrast, line arrays inherently introduce tremendous interference that damages intelligibility and makes the frequency and phase response deeply inconsistent from seat to seat."
In the Ice Arena, Pronko covered all 2,500 seats with 16 of Danley's SH-50 full-range loudspeakers. Like the Jericho and Genesis Horns, they are designed to provide point-source clarity and knit together seamlessly. Four additional SH-50s with mobile hardware provide the Spodek AV technicians with the flexibility to cover events that don't conform to the standard setup.
To support the large outdoor screen, which provides bystanders with a view of what's happening inside, Pronko installed eight Danley SM-60s. Even at a distance, the molded and compact SM-60s deliver clearly intelligible audio across the audible frequency range. Eight Danley SH-100s serve as mobile stage monitors, and 130 Yorkville C130 100-volt speakers cover the hallways, the bathrooms, and the like.
Eight Lake ML26 processors in a centrally-located control room provide all of the system's input and output conditioning. Every Danley loudspeaker in Spodek is self-powered, with each of the Jericho Horns receiving more than 18,000W. Jones noted that other venues with greater seating capacity had been abundantly covered with fewer Jericho Horns.
"Spodek wanted a sound system with impact, and they got it," he said. "Even at top concert volume, you get the sense that there is still tons of headroom. Nothing's working hard – not the amps and not the Danley Horns – so you still have that comfortable sound that other systems only display when they are very quiet. The Danley installation at Spodek is truly remarkable."
For more information, please visit www.danleysoundlabs.com.
