The Royal Albert Hall, London, UK
Acoustics and Sound System
"From the Archives: Acoustic Mushrooms and the Royal Albert Hall Echo, 1969, Posted on Tuesday 24 January 2017 by John Willans, Archive Assistant - From The Archive, https://www.royalalberthall.com/about-the-hall/building-and-history/our-history/mushrooms/
It took a crack team of sound engineers armed with a reflector microphone, a bassoon and a starting pistol to solve one of the UK’s most enduring engineering challenges – the Royal Albert Hall echo.
Although the echo was identified at the time of the first acoustic tests in the Hall, on 26 February 1871, this issue that was not addressed properly until well into the 1960s.
The saying went that concertgoers heard a concert two times for the price of one, due to an unfortunate problem with reverberation – the giant expanse of empty space and glass roof of the auditorium caused the Hall to have an horrendously long echo. Between 1871 and 1968 various methods were used to try and muffle the tremendous echo that reverberated around the auditorium, but without much success.
In 1968, the Acoustical Investigation Research Organisation Limited surveyed the acoustics in the Hall with several tests, one of which involved an acoustic technician using a reflector microphone whilst another fired a starting pistol and another played the bassoon. On their advice, 135 ‘flying saucers’ filled with glass fibre wool were suspended above the arena to diffuse the reverberations."
"The Royal Albert Hall unveils new record-breaking audio system.
Posted on Tuesday 2 April 2019 by Clara Michel, About The Hall, https://lnkd.in/e5R8pJXj
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“Regardless of how much you paid for a ticket, you deserve to hear a great performance. These changes really democratise the sound.” Steve Jones of d&b audiotechnik
The 465 permanently installed individual loudspeakers took 28 weeks (that’s 6 months!) of overnight installation works, making this audio project the largest single-room speaker system in the world. All of these works happened during the Royal Albert Hall’s busiest year ever, without impacting any of the 327 shows that were held over the half-year it took to install that many loudspeakers. "
"LIGHTING, RIGGING, SOUND AND AV, https://lnkd.in/ee2gydSa
The Royal Albert Hall has a permanently installed d&b audiotechnik loudspeaker system designed to suit the particular requirements of the Hall and provide the best audio solution for any genre of performance.
This is supported by a selection of DiGiCo mixing consoles, stage monitoring systems, extensive microphone packages and all other necessary equipment that can be hired to support any event."
acoustics acousticsolutions architecture soundsystem sounddesign measurements signalprocessing audio proaudio loudspeakers audioengineering musictechnology