MST10

Overview:

Funktion-One’s Modular Stadium Technology (MST) addresses large, acoustically challenging environments such as Arenas and Stadia.  The series of large format MST Horns allow sound to be focused where it's needed, without exciting the reverberant space, leading to clear message transmission and intimate, intelligible and involving sound.

Achieving good vocal intelligibility has always been the primary goal of any public address system. This is of particular importance in stadiums where the focus is on announcements and commentary. The major obstacles to achieving vocal clarity in large indoor and outdoor spaces are the very long reverb times and intelligibility destroying secondary arrivals (reflections) from roof or walls. This is a natural result from diffraction of frequencies whose wavelength is larger than the mouth of typically used loudspeaker waveguides. Standard waveguides are barely large enough to control female vocal frequencies. Deeper male vocal and low mid frequencies from music are not controlled and so are radiated in all directions giving rise to reflections.  Therefore, the answer to highly reverberant spaces, is to employ sufficiently large  waveguides to completely control all relevant frequencies, including low mid, enabling audio to be directed solely to the audience areas. The sound that is normally exciting the reverberant field is actually focused on the people so not only is intelligibility improved but sound level is also increased.  It is therefore desirable to  implement large waveguides of sufficient strength and stiffness to be fit for this purpose, which would usually imply large devices of impractical weight.

Funktion One have been investigating and developing composite structures since our ground breaking installation at The Millennium Dome in London.  In our MST Horns we have achieved a combination of structure and materials which integrate strength, light weight and weather resistance with outstanding acoustic properties. This composite technology has opened the door to large waveguide developments of Funktion One's unique cone driver loading technique weighing only 65kg. This technology offers unparalleled audio quality and sensitivity from a finely tuned cone driver and waveguide combination and the level of directivity control to be expected from a near 2 metre waveguide. The controlled directivity behaviour of the waveguides allows them to be vertically combined at angles varying between 1 and 20 degrees to achieve desired SPL and coverage footprint.

MST Horns were installed in the Ice Hockey Arena and the extensive Bob Sleigh site in Sochi for the Russian Winter Olympics in 2014.