The Ebimpe stadium renews its sound infrastructure with Powersoft

In this sports venue in the Ivory Coast, they have installed 61 Quattrocanali 4804 y 14 Duecanali amplifiers 6404 DSP+D de Powersoft to obtain additional power to the system 104 speakers.

More than 60 amplifiers Powersoft Quattrocanali 4804 are supplying the power for a brand new public address system serving one of the largest stadiums in West Africa.

Located in the homonymous suburb of Abidjan, the largest city in Ivory Coast, he Ebimpé Olympic stadium alberga at Les Éléphants, the country's national football team. The enclosure, with capacity for 60.000 spectators, was inaugurated on 3 October 2020, date on which it received the additional name of the Alassane Ouattara Olympic stadium (Alassane Ouattara Olympic Stadium), in honor of the president of the Ivory Coast. It is expected that, over time, constitutes the heart of a vast Olympic village of 287 hectares, and next year it will host the opening ceremony and final match of the African Cup of Nations 2023, that has been postponed.

The need for a new sound system so soon after its construction arose after its original public address solution - installed by Chinese company Beijing Construction Engineering Group (BCEG) was damaged by adverse weather conditions. The new system was designed by Ricardo Castro, headmaster of the Portuguese audiovisual consultant RCOe, commissioned by the local integrator Protech Distribution.

In addition to the 61 Quattrocanali 4804 (of which the DSP+D model was chosen, with Dante audio network over IP) Castro specified 14 amplifiers Powersoft Duecanali 6404 DSP+D to provide additional power to the system 104 speakers, which is divided into 28 clusters to maximize audio coverage throughout the stadium.

A pair of Quattrocanali are bi-amped for each speaker group Community R2-66MAX, while the Duecanali are used to power the subwoofers Community IS8-215.

All amplifiers, patchboxes and network switches are divided into four rack rooms, located in the four corners of the stadium, to minimize the length of the wired connection to the speakers. It uses a DSP TesiraForté AND of Biamp as a Dante converter for primary audio source to amplifiers, as well as a four-zone public address system for safety and emergency announcements.

To confirm that the stadium operator had made the right decision in approving its design, Castro initially equipped one of the four areas of the venue with the Powersoft-Community/Biamp system as a proof of concept.

The stadium audio team particularly appreciates the operator view interface offered by ArmoníaPlus, Powersoft system design and monitoring software, as it limits user access to system configuration options. “The client wanted to have a system that could only be monitored and operated safely”, explains Ricardo Castro, “with limited access to the system, to avoid dangerous situations such as changing the equalizer or presets or even unpairing an amplifier.”