Renovation of the historic Himeji castle began in 2009 and has been recently completed. The reopening ceremony for the castle saw Martin Audio’s MLA Compact multi-cellular loudspeaker array brought into play. Kobe International Stage Service (KISS) was in charge of sound duties.
The Himeji castle site is surrounded by a zoo and many residential properties,
and so careful management of the noise pollution problem was essential. Additionally, over
the course of past events, it has been extremely difficult to deliver even coverage
to more than 100m depth using conventional point source systems. Six MLA compact enclosures
per side were rigged in the tower, with two DSX subwoofers ground-stacked to
provide audio for the event.
Katanami, system tech, said: “I changed the coverage area
of the system using different optimisations and adopted the infill system for the relevant
areas. I also zoned the system to give me greater control of the
downfilll cabinet. Not only the intelligibility, but also the controllability of any sound leakage is remarkable.â€