The Palais des Sports in the French city of Dijon enjoys a reputation for hosting a wide range of sporting activities in its 4,628-capacity arena. Named after local international handball star Jean-Michel Geoffroy, the venue is home to the Jeanne d’Arc Dijon Bourgogne basketball team, which is its primary function.
However, the aging public address system left a lot to be desired, lacking in sound pressure level, and as a result, a lack of speech intelligibility, so the Palais des Sports launched a tender offer to refurbish the sound system.
Based in Châtenoy-le-Royal, IRELEM responded successfully to the tender for an upgrade, prepared by consultant and acoustician Acoustique France, and soon they were designing and specifying an ultra-efficient system in conjunction with Powersoft’s French distributors Axente, based around four of the Italian manufacturer’s new 8-channel Ottocanali amplifiers.
With limited capacity available in the production/control room, situated in the top tiers, the new Powersoft Ottocanali 12K4 and 4K4 met the criteria for high efficiency with an excellent power-to-space ratio, and were specified for the first time in France since their introduction.
Occupying just 2RU each, these products are extremely flexible and reliable, offering a wide range of system control and monitoring functions as well as sound shaping options.
The 12K4 offers a total of up to 12,000W output power over eight channels for lo-Z or distributed line systems while the 4K4 delivers a total of 4,000W output over eight channels.
With three 12K4s (for mid and low) and one 4K4 (for the highs) driving into 4 ohms a new EAW loudspeaker system (12 QX300 series), the system is fully optimised across the entire playing area, main public stands and VIP enclosures. Axente’s Alain Hercman comments: “There has been a great improvement in intelligibility and a gain of 12dB in sound pressure level.”
The PA system is fed from typical mic and line sources on match days via a Yamaha mixer and EAW processors. The new installation is part of a larger technical integration designed to maintain the versatility of a venue that also hosts handball and a variety of sports (including gymnasiums among its facilities).
