Outline at the Minotaure: hi-fi sound in a theatre hall

Vendôme (France), October 2009 – The Minotaure complex just bought a new Outline sound reinforcement system, comprising twelve Mini-COM.P.A.S.S. speakers and two SubTech 218 SP subwoofers, controlled by an Outline Genius 26 unit.

 

Located in the centre of Vendôme, the ‘Le Minotaure’ complex has a total area of 1,500 square metres. It hosts a 769-seat theatre hall, a multi-purpose hall (holding 400 people seated and 600 standing), several smaller meeting rooms and a naturally illuminated foyer for exhibitions. ‘Le Minotaure’ was inaugurated in 2002, and has hosted numerous shows since – music, theatre, dance etc.

 

Nevertheless, the theater hall suffered from poor acoustics. The coverage was uneven, and the stereo image unbalanced. In 2009, it was decided to replace the front of house reinforcement system.

 

Several systems were compared – among them, a Mini-COM.P.A.S.S. vertical line array, lent by Outline’s French distributor Audio² (www.outline.audio2.fr). This system passed listening tests and the theatre hall now hosts six elements per side, plus two SubTech 218 SP subwoofers and a Genius 26 controller.

 

The Mini-COM.P.A.S.S. is a bi-amped speaker enclosure equipped with a Double Parabolic Reflective Wave Guide (D.P.R.W.G.). This enables to adjust the horizontal directivity angle between 60° and 150°, in 15° steps. It is equipped with two high frequency transducers (compression drivers with a 1.75-inch diaphragm) and four low-mid (5-inch diameter) transducers.

 

The SubTech 218 SP subwoofer is fitted with two 18-inch loudspeakers in separate chambers. The Genius 26 processor (2-input, 6-output) operates at 24-bit/96 kHz, and implements many types of filters, with slopes of up to 24 dB/octave, and eight EQs with 2 shelving and 6 parametric bands each, plus limiters on every output.

 

For Sébastien Bargue, who works for Scène de Nuit (the contractor that supplied and installed the system), “The Mini-COM.P.A.S.S.’ asymmetrical variable horizontal directivity was one of the key factors for the choice of the system. Being able to control the dispersion is very important in halls with poor acoustics or inadequate treatment. The product solves this problem and gives a true stereo image, which is pretty rare for this kind of system.”