d&b audiotechnik has upgraded the house sound system at London’s Royal Albert Hall with a cardioid solution built around its KSL, XSL and CCL elements. The 5,270-capacity venue, opened in 1871, has used a d&b distributed system of more than 400 loudspeakers since 2018. The new installation adds more than 140 elements and keeps most of the 2018 positions and infrastructure, with new equipment added only where it improves coverage and capability.
The main left and right hangs are 12-deep KSL arrays. XSL arrays serve as outfills and choir positions, and form two new central hangs for Soundscape. A reconfigured central hang of SL-SUBs and new ground-stacked XSL-SUBs add low end, while CCL arrays act as circle delays. 42S loudspeakers are now the front-fills, replacing the 16C columns, and 4S loudspeakers add delay and depth to the boxes. The left, centre, right and Soundscape hangs are driven by d&b 40D installation amplifiers, with D90 amplifiers powering the flown subwoofers. The rest of the system runs on the existing D80, 30D, 10D and 5D amplifiers.
Soundscape capability was part of the 2018 upgrade, but using it previously meant hiring extra loudspeakers, cabling and amplifiers, and extra labour. The permanent flown XSL hangs remove that setup. The processing has also grown from two DS100 units to three of the newer DS110, including one for redundancy, which raises the available output capacity and system resolution.
Steve Jones, team leader of education and application support EMEA at d&b audiotechnik, led the designs of both the 2018 and 2026 upgrades. He said: “With the distributed system design, the impact of ArrayProcessing providing that evenness of coverage everywhere, and now with the added cardioid advantage, pretty much all of the energy in that room is pointing at the audience members, and being absorbed by them. There is very little sound going anywhere else.”
Richard Sally-Lower, audio operations manager at the Royal Albert Hall, added: “The distributed system of 2018 was remarkable – way better than anything we’d had before. The new system improves even further on that. We’ve not redesigned anything, it’s mostly like-for-like, but with newer technology. Yes, there are some extra elements – we’ve gone a little bit bigger to cater for the larger shows – but the key improvement is the cardioid aspect.”
You can subscribe to Installation magazine for free here and the daily newsletter here.
