latest news headlines
Euphon's Harman Pro Network for Largest Mercedes-Benz Centre in Southern Europe
The newly-opened Mercedes-Benz Centre of Milan, a unique visitor experience and the largest sales centre for Daimler AG's prestigious automotive portfolio in Southern Europe, has adopted a Harman Pro solution to create high-powered digital transmission network across its vast site.
The new Centre features highly innovative architecture, based around a ‘Brands Tower', plus modern, functional spaces for exposition. The digital multimedia infrastructure, with all the DSP handled in a single BSS Audio Soundweb London BLU-80 device over a CobraNet digital backbone, was masterminded by integration company Euphon Communications.
Under the project management of Massimo Fogliati and Marco Carazzato, audio consultant, Marco Salvati and video consultant Roberto Stella worked within a stunning architectural space, visualised by Daimler AG of Stuttgart, to ensure total immersion in the world of Mercedes for visitors arriving at the new facility. However, the heavy use of glazing for the superstructure would provide a severe test for the transparency of the JBL sound reinforcement system.
The Brand Tower forms the core of the giant atrium in this 66,000 sq. metres environment, situated close to the Milan Fairgrounds. To give an indication of scale this not only contains 70 expo spaces but a ‘Smart' area, Retail section, Café/Bistro, Waiting Room - and auditorium-style seating for approximately 2,000 people attending events and presentations.
In fact, the Centre opened up by staging a spectacular inauguration concert with pop songstress Laura Pausini, and shortly afterwards hosted a major Formula One exposition in which a new staging infrastructure had to be constructed.
For the audio transmission, Euphon adopted the Harman Pro solution after winning a competitive tender for the work. Roberto Stella believes that his company's success was based on the imagination of the design and the fact that he was able to meet the specification with a fully-integrated solution from a single portfolio - as well as competitive costing. All the Harman Pro equipment was supplied by Italian distributors, Audio Equipment.
"We visited the Mercedes showroom in Stuttgart where there was a similar concept," said Stella. "We realised the client wanted to achieve maximum flexibility and based the design around BSS Audio Soundweb London DSP and Crown CobraNet amplifiers."
Aside from flexibility the installation had to take into account that the entire multimedia system needed to be operated by technically unskilled staff - with each of the 14 zones operated independently.
The entire DSP is handled by a single Soundweb London BLU-80 device (configured 8-in/8-out). This acts as source selector and sends CobraNet feeds to the armoury of Crown CTs amplifiers, fitted with PIP USP3/CN cards, which distribute the signal source around the building - including a 4-hang central cluster of JBL VRX enclosures, mounted some nine metres above the floor; thus the cabling is kept as simple as possible.
Each of the clusters faces outwards to cover the full 360°, using a single custom bracket to fix to the roof beams; at the bottom of the clusters, a vertically-pointing JBL Control 226CT acts as a downfill.
Roberto Stella says that in addition to the huge distances between the control room and the loudspeakers, the fact that the sound was radiating through an acoustically-hostile, totally-glazed environment presented all kinds of processing difficulties - particularly the time-alignment for the delays. "The architect obviously liked glass but it caused a lot of reflection and reverberation, and the directionality of the cluster was an important factor."
The system was optimised using EASE modelling, and the gain structure and system presets can be changed remotely by PC. Euphon is able to control Soundweb by PC from their base in Turin and carry out system health checks.
The company has used a variety of servers linked to the DSP, including a Xantech XMusic digital music server (distributed by Audio Equipment) offering four different music sources simultaneously, enabling Soundweb to handle all the switching via RS-232 connection.
In addition, Soundweb London acts as a scheduler. At 4.30pm the background music flips automatically to play lounge music (although the volume level remains the same).
Euphon Communications is part of the powerful Mediacontech Group, which handles post-production and advertising for organised events as well as providing OB trucks. They are also a member of an external body of music programmers and content providers, and are thus responsible for updating the 200-disc library at Mercedes every three months.
Media feeds are distributed to a total of 28 x 42" plasmas on a LAN, each operating autonomously, and addressed by its own dedicated PC concealed behind the display.
"The player behind each plasma is fed by a central server," explains the Euphon technician. "This allows the film or playlist to be changed remotely via GPRS. In other words the video server controls and updates everything." It will also accept external inputs (including camera) up to four sources - pre-selected from an Elpro 16 x 16 video/audio matrix - all of which can be streamed to the plasmas.
Generally, the plasmas will run Mercedes corporate show reels although there is also satellite access.
At 8pm - the end of Mercedes-Benz's working day - Soundweb London comes into play again. Via the BLU-80 all 24 zones mute, the Crown amplifiers revert to Standby mode and the system shuts down (firing up automatically again at 7.30am the following morning).
With this facility completed, Mercedes-Benz Milan is now working on the development of a new, modern industrial vehicle centre to the north of the city, scheduled for completion in Spring 2009. By the time this is completed Daimler will have invested €103m in the new facilities.
In picture: the newly opened Mercedes Centre in Milan.
15th July 2008
HEADLINES
news archive
search stories
FOOTNOTE: Select the news type you require in the red band above; this will enable you to see the current news stories from that section
© 1999 - 2012 Entertainment Technology Press Limited News Stories
