Massive RCF speaker deployment for Dortmund Stadium

The largest football stadium in the German Bundesliga with a capacity of over 80,000, Signal Iduna Park – home of Borussia Dortmund (BVB) – recently sanctioned a radical upgrade to its public address system.

The aim was to achieve higher intelligibility, even pattern control (with extended low frequency capability) and unobscured sightlines — but most crucially to link the voice evacuation and stand systems into a unified network that could be monitored, error- and health-checked remotely.

The solution provided comprises 14 clusters of 14 RCF TTL33-A MKII line array elements, with a TTS26-A sub at the base of each. Designed to futureproof the venue for years to come, the solution is wrapped around the beams to maintain the desired sightlines. Loaded with RCF’s proprietary RDNet DSP and additional electronics for monitoring it is this inherent software that has been programmed to integrate the new PA/VA evacuation system — thereby fulfilling the EN 60849 standard for performance requirements.

The planning and design of the system was a joint venture between RCF’s 10-strong Engineering Support Group, led by product market manager (install sound) Antonio Ferrari, and RCF Group German Subsidiary, led by Georg Hofmann and Norbert Wessel, working in conjunction with integrators fulfil engineering GmbH, headed by Norbert Labudda. It is fulfil engineering’s planning department that initiated, coordinated and supervised the project.

All 196 active line array elements have been especially weatherised and the cone drivers coated, as is the wooden enclosure, which is is painted with polyurea both inside and out. All metallic items are fabricated in stainless steel.