APEX CloudPower remotely managed amplifiers have been installed as part of a full upgrade of the Municipal Stadium motorcycle speedway venue in the city of Ostrów Wielkopolski, Poland. The refit was triggered by the promotion of home speedway team, Arged Malesa Ostrów Wielkopolski, to the premier PGE Ekstraliga division. Speedway is a hugely popular sport in Poland and attracts top riders from across the globe.
Established distributor of professional audio equipment, Tommex was awarded the contract to design, deliver and commission a new audio system fit for the needs of a modern, top tier venue. Tommex had just 99 days to complete the installation before the start of the new season, with upgrades to seating and lighting taking place at the same time. The stadium in Ostrów Wielkopolski has a roofed stand on the west side, while the remaining stands are open, resulting in less reflection and almost no reverberation. Passionate fans in the stands and powerful engines on the track conspire to make speedway an inherently loud sport, so the primary challenge for Tommex was to deliver high sound pressure levels and excellent speech intelligibility, allowing the audience to clearly hear announcements above the background noise.
Key Account Manager, Tomasz Lulkiewicz, selected APEX CloudPower CP1504 four channel amplifiers to feed the numerous RCF P series loudspeakers deployed to provide coverage to the track, covered stand and open seating areas. A total of four CP1504s was installed, with each amplifier serving eight speakers and providing up to 1500W per output channel. A Yamaha MTX5-D matrix handles distribution of signals to the amplifiers, with a Yamaha PGM1 paging microphone directly connected to the matrix in the control room. The stadium’s announcer employs Sennheiser EW 100 wireless microphones and a variety of media players, connected to a compact Yamaha MG16XU mixing console. Audio is carried from the control room to the amplifiers via Dante, with a Radio Design Labs AV-LN4 converter used to convert analogue signals from the mixer.
The CloudPower amplifiers can be configured and managed remotely from a phone or laptop, a feature appreciated by the Tommex team, as Lulkiewicz explains, “In projects of this scale we are working with a lot of long cable runs and significant distances between the speakers and the control room. Being able to make adjustments from anywhere in the venue saved us a lot of precious time, and we found the IntelliCloud WebUI really easy to work with. The CloudPower amplifiers sound great, and they deliver a lot of power at a realistic price.”
Tommex successfully completed the audio update of Ostrów Wielkopolski Municipal Stadium in time for the start of the 2022 PGE Ekstraliga season in April.
