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QSC Enters Turin University's Historic Great Hall
The Università degli Studi di Torino (University of Torino) is one of Italy's leading Universities with an international reputation for high quality teaching and research. With its 13 Faculties, 55 Departments and approximately 70,000 students, it is today one of the largest in Italy, covering all disciplines except Engineering and Architecture.
Although the Rettorato (Chancellor's Building) at the Palazzo dell'Università - which houses the entire administration - occupies an architecturally-magnificent building with historic quadrangle that dates back to the mid-1700's, the University has already celebrated its 600th anniversary, since it was originally founded in 1404 by Pope Benedetto XIII.This date, other than making the University one of the oldest Italian institutes, places it among the few of European Universities to boast a medieval origin.
Recently the aula magna del Rettorato - the great hall, and main assembly room for the University - underwent a complete audio-visual fit-out.
QSC Audio components were chosen for the sound reinforcement and signal transport following a highly-competitive evaluation process.
However working in an environment with marble floor, adorned with famous statues of Vittorio Amedeo II and Carlo Emanuele III - the work of eminent brothers, Ignazio and Filippo Collino - and many old canvasses proved an exacting task for the contractors, Electronic Engineering.
Fortunately the University had taken the precaution at an earlier stage to create a room on the floor underneath and insert conduits into the cavities to allow the fixings to made easily, and non-invasively up in the aula magna.
Technical manager Antonio Caprioli says the requirement was for a system that could transparently reproduce a wide programme of events, from full orchestral recitals to Honorary Doctorate presentations and conferences, in which delegates would be speaking through eight gooseneck mics to audiences of up to 250. Evenly-dispersed sound needed to be distributed in an uncomplicated manner, across the floor and up to the raked seating area.
A smaller system had already been installed during an earlier phase but the next phase was to enlarge the control room, to accommodate video switching, an FOH mixing position and audio drive rack, with the option for a secondary control position out in the auditorium (when the speaker positions would also be reoriented).
The Università degli Studi di Torino sought the best advice and enlisted as their consultant top acoustician Emanuele Prochietto, who lectures at specialist audio and acoustics college APM. He created the specification document. "Mr. Prochietto is the only person in this country that can teach at this level of sound theory," believes Giammario Piumatti of Audio Link - QSC's Italian distributor, who provided all the audio equipment.
Since complex cable runs were out of the question, Mr. Prochietto wanted to see an easy, bi-directional signal path that would transport multiple audio channels to and from the mixing desk from the top table and lectern mics over a single CAT5 cable; at the same time it would provide a monitor system and allow streaming of events to the University's website.
RAVE 520uz and 522aa network devices, operating under QSControl.net, were specified for control. This would enable multi-channel audio to be run over CobraNet, with low latency and high sampling rate - offering pristine audio through an Ethernet cable; this solved all the problems.
"The need for an expanded system was driven by the number of high-profile events now being staged here," confirmed Mr. Caprioli. "It needed to be better and simpler and the DSP matrix also needs to service an annexe room which is used for overspill."
Six QSC ISIS I-282H, with rotatable waveguide, are spaced evenly down either side of the room (with two delay taps set into the system processor). The sound reinforcement system is powered by three QSC Audio RMX 4050HD amplifiers.
Visually, the infrastructure is served by an electric drop-down screen above the main stage and a number of plasma repeater screens. It also incorporates video conferencing and all signal feeds are switched through an Extron device.
Summarising, Antonio Caprioli says: "The sound is a good deal superior to what we had previously with a high degree of intelligibility. The fact that we can have two scene presets gives us further flexibility for changing the desk positions."
The sensitive installation certainly pays homage to a building that is truly a palazzo and the infusion of QSC's proprietary digital technology has provided a simple and intuitive audio network solution to the University's complex requirements.
9th December 2009
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