SDE makes noise prediction a standard shared by d&b y L-Acoustics

The engineering company SoundPlan continues to expand the scope of its standard for noise prediction, SDE, through its compatibility with two brands of recognized international prestige: d&b Audiotechnik y L-Acoustics.

Until now, Predicting noise emissions from festivals and events with systems from different manufacturers has been a challenge, since each system uses its own tools. The lack of interoperability This often led to inconsistent results in noise predictions., which in turn made it difficult to meet environmental requirements.

The standard SDE directly addresses this challenge by providing a unified method and file format that “guarantee” reliable predictions, consistent and equivalent in environmental noise software. The system defines how export data from system design software, as ArrayCalc of d&b o Sound vision of L-Acoustics, and details the methodology to calculate complex acoustic interactions. In addition, The solution includes the calibration and the factors of decoherence, which “guarantees the highest level of precision at any distance, something that had not been possible until now”.

With SDE, Systems technicians can export their designs as standardized SDE files, that can be imported into environmental noise software, as SoundPlan. This workflow, which also takes into consideration the sum of complex acoustics for the correct calculation of coherent sources (consideration phase), allows event organizers to make equivalent calculations to accurately predict noise emissions for festivals with various scenarios and systems from different manufacturers. In the future, the SDE format will be available to other manufacturers and other types of noise pollution software.

Florian Hahn, software product manager d&b audiotechnik, considers the standard “an immense step forward”, since the system allows “effective and comparable noise management to be accessible to all”. Yann Gaël Gicquel, director of product management for the space systems area L-Acoustics, is expressed in similar terms: “The use of SDE offers all parties involved (promoters, advisors, local authorities…) a shared and trusted source of truth for all those conversations. That's what makes it important.".

Jochen Schaal, director general de SoundPLAN, trust that the interoperability with the deployments of d&b audiotechnik y L-Acoustics continue to help consider SDE as a reference for noise prediction: “Its innovative and collaborative approach will allow SDE to be the industry standard: “It simplifies workflows and offers the most reliable and accurate prediction to date of noise emissions from different sound system manufacturers.”.