The Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany, has upgraded its sound capabilities ahead of the Euro 2020 football (soccer) tournament with an extensive Kara system from L-Acoustics.
The installation was completed by engineering and planning office Müller-BBM and Wilhelm & Willhalm event technology group.
Since the arena opened, Wilhelm & Willhalm has been its infotainment technology service provider and won the upgrade project when Müller-BBM launched a tender for the new sound system. It is designed to provide optimised, uniform sound level distribution across all three tiers, improve the transmission quality for music playback and increase speech intelligibility for announcements.
The new system needed to anticipate the upcoming Euro 2020, as the only matches in Germany will be staged at the venue. Three preliminary round matches and a quarter-final are scheduled and the sound system needed to align with strong UEFA stadium standards.
“The membrane roof of the Allianz Arena creates considerable reverberation in the spectator area,” said Thomas Dürrbeck, who was responsible for planning and construction at Wilhelm & Willhalm event technology group. “For this reason, care was taken to design a system that delivers sound to the spectators, minimising reflections.”
The L-Acoustics installation in the arena comprises 266 Kara line source elements as well as 54 SB18 subwoofers for the main PA, with 48 ARCS WiFo as delay arrays in the curved areas and 70 5XT coaxial compact loudspeakers under the balconies. The system is driven by 110 LA4X amplified controllers with a system output of 440,000W, which are distributed over 10 central amplifiers, each with two 40U system racks.
“Due to the static restrictions in the roof area of the stadium, only an 8in [20.3cm] array system was considered,” said Harald Frisch, sound engineer at Müller-BBM. “L-Acoustics’ Kara system offers an almost ideal ratio of weight, precision of coverage, achievable sound pressure level and sound quality.”
