Rich History, Memorable Sound

posted:

19/08/2013

The historic Council building in Konstanz shines with a VIVACE-acoustic system

The great assembly hall (Konzilsaal) in the German city of Konstanz is a truly historic place. In 1417, the first and only election of a Pope in Germany took place here. Preserved in its original state and used as a concert and event venue today, the hall offers a unique historic atmosphere together with memorable sound. The reason: a VIVACE acoustic system by the SALZBRENNER STAGETEC MEDIAGROUP which was installed recently.

During classical concerts, up to 800 listeners are grouped under a ceiling that is only between 3.50 and 4.50 meters high and supported by massive oak beams. If this wasn’t bad enough for room acoustics, the ceiling also has cavities opening up to the attic, not exactly the ideal conditions for rich, enveloping sound. Therefore, the hall owners opted for a VIVACE acoustic system from the SALZBRENNER STAGETEC MEDIAGROUP designed specifically to increase reverberation time and installed during the general refurbishment in 2012.

The system consists of a VIVACE room-enhancement mainframe with its processors, 35 speakers, six room microphones and a dedicated NEXUS audio network. The microphones pick up the sound of the orchestra, the soloists, and the noise of the auditorium and pass it to the VIVACE system located in the machine room. Here the incoming signals are analyzed and processed in real time and subsequently passed to the fully redundant NEXUS for conversion and routing to the speakers for playback. With a few exceptions the speakers are built discreetly into the attic, thus maintaining the unique appearance of the auditorium.

"It‘s fair to say that with VIVACE our customer achieves exactly the natural, plausible sound which is so important for classical music. At the same time VIVACE improves sound quality in disadvantaged areas of the auditorium thus ensuring a satisfied audience", says MEDIAGROUP product manager Bjorn van Munster.

VIVACE is a state-of-the-art electronic room-acoustics emulation system which compensates for deficiencies in the existing acoustics in order to create highly convincing spatial acoustic environments in any indoor or even outdoor location. Using a patented algorithm, VIVACE creates acoustics in a virtual and therefore highly flexible way, which cannot be achieved using conventional physical acoustics modifiers. VIVACE can be installed discreetly with little hardware visible and is therefore particularly suitable for improving acoustics of listed historic venues such as the Konstanz assembly hall.