Volgograd, Russia (June 25, 2018)—Home to 1 million people, Volgograd in Russia is also a host to the World Cup this month, presenting four matches in Groups A, D, G and H in the newly built Volgograd Arena. Constructed on the site of the previous Central Stadium, the new venue is, despite its name, is a stadium, complete with open ceiling and a massive 43,713 capacity. To cover all those people, it also sports a massive audio system based around 638 Funktion-One loudspeakers and 50 MC2 Audio amplifiers
The project began in spring 2017, with both UK-based Funktion One and its more local counterpart, Funktion-One Russia, coordinating to make the installation happen in time.
The loudspeakers are arrayed and aimed using bespoke metalwork – 24 C-shape clusters along the sides and 12 Y-shape clusters for the corners. Each array features Evo 6SH loudspeakers with 50-degree horizontal dispersion for the closer seats and Evo 7SH loudspeakers with narrower dispersion and resulting higher intensity for the further seats. Alternate clusters are supplemented with either two F215 Mk2 midbass or a single F221 enclosures. Under-balcony coverage is provided by Funktion-One’s highly intelligible and compact F81 and F101 loudspeakers.
Amplification comes from 50 OEM Delta amplifiers from MC2 Audio. The amplifiers are all quad output, providing 200 channels of DSP and amplification, and a total power just short of 500 kW.
Richard Fleming, sales and applications manager, who was involved in drawing up the specification of the amps explains: “All the amps are connected via Ethernet and configured using our ‘AudioCore: Amped Edition’ software with…grouping architecture. This allowed channels to be logically grouped and sub-grouped to minimize the apparent complexity of the system, simplifying it from 200 channels down to just eight sets of grouped controls.”
Funktion-One sales director, David Bruml, recalled, “John Newsham and I visited Volgograd in May 2018, ahead of the World Cup, to help finalize tuning. The system performed fully as modelled and predicted during the design phase. The sound feels perceptibly close to the audience, with an intimacy and accuracy rarely heard from stadia sound systems.”
Funktion-One Russia’s Andrey Kremenchugskiy commented, “The fully redundant Dante network and easy control of this huge system is second to none. It gives me the confidence to say that we have installed a system of the highest audio quality from these two prestigious British manufacturers. It sounds absolutely amazing and, long after the World Cup is over, I expect it to be thrilling sell-out 40,000 crowds!”
Function One • www.funktion-one.com
