The Event Cinema at Berlin’s Sony Center is the flagship cinema of the Cinestar chain, which has more than 500 screens in Europe. It recently upgraded its sound system with Harman’s JBL 5742 ScreenArray four-way cinema loudspeakers.
The 5742 ScreenArray incorporates patented SSC Screen Spreading Compensation, which corrects for the high-frequency dispersion of a perforated movie screen when the speakers are placed behind the screen. The 5742’s Focused Coverage Technology provides an asymmetrical coverage pattern tilted 10º downward from horizontal to deliver uniform coverage in every seat.
In addition, the JBL 5742 ScreenArray cinema loudspeaker features a 4in titanium high-frequency compression driver operating in conjunction with a patented Optimized Aperture waveguide for uniform frequency response over a large area. The 5742 has a quad midrange array of four 8in Differential Drive cone midrange drivers and the low-frequency section features two 18in woofers. It also has a shallow profile to accommodate minimum behind the screen depth requirements, and a Flat Front Waveguide design for easy baffle wall installation.
The Event Cinema at the Sony Center features three 5742 loudspeakers behind the screen. To accommodate multiple needs, the cinema also boasts 12 SRX725F high-performance PA loudspeakers to create an immersive audio experience.
Some 16 Crown I-Tech 5000 HD amplifiers power the system with a total capacity of 80kW, of which two are for each front-end system (four amplifier channels), six SRX725F (one amplifier channel per speaker) and four for the sub-bass (one channel per sub-bass). The I-Tech 5000 HD amplifiers feature Omnidrive HD DSP processing to handle the signal processing for each individual loudspeaker, including crossover functions.
