The Comédie Française, Paris, France, which is said to be one of the most important and historic performing arts institutions in the world, now operates with Tannoy’s innovative QFlex beam-steering technology in its main theatre.
The Comédie-Française was born in 1680, the century of Louis XIV. In recent times, the theatre went through one of its most important renovation programmes ever: closed for around a year, Richelieu Hall – the main theatre space – had to undergo an extensive refurbishment to bring back both the aesthetic and sound quality lost over the years following the previous transformations.
With the recent restoration, the main focus was to restore the room to its former glory, both acoustically and aesthetically. French company DV2 was commissioned to design, supply and integrate a new sound system that would be conscious of the room’s aethetics – with its different features (velvet carpets, satin, etc) – while providing for the needs for audiences and performers. This lead to the solutions comprising Tannoy’s digitally steerable, multi-channel, column array loudspeaker system.
Nicolas Faguet, sound and video manager for the venue, commented: “From the beginning, we knew we had limitations on what we could use to form the main sound system here, and when DV2 suggested QFlex from Tannoy, we were very interested to hear what it could do, and see it in place.”
The team at DV2 settled on two QFlex 48s, mounted discretely on either side of the stage. These units blend with the elaborate white and gold of the stage surround, and with the steerable nature of the internal drive units, allowed DV2 and the staff of Comédie-Française to compensate for the challenging acoustics and reach each level of the steep incline of seating in the theatre.
Elsewhere, a small series of custom-painted Tannoy VX 5.2s were employed as side fills to cover those seats right on the side of the stage at each balcony level, allowing for the same Tannoy sonic signature to be projected throughout. These are controlled by XTA processing, and amplified with Lab.gruppen C 20.8X amplifier, the most powerful eight-channel amplifier in the C Series family, delivering an eight channels of 250W power at four ohms, eight ohms, 16 ohms or 70 Vrms; 500W at 100 Vrms is available in bridge mode.
A pair of Adamson 115 and a pair of sub Adamson 215 subwoofers, artfully integrated, provide additional power and punch for those occasions where a particular performance needs extra impact.
