Russia - St Petersburg’s council chamber, situated within the city’s monumental Marrinsky Palace, has undergone a two-year renovation, including newly installed sound and video equipment. The ‘Grand Hall’, as the chamber is known, has the most problematic acoustics - a case in point being a reverberation time of around 3.5 seconds.

Ruton S, the Russian Electro-Voice distributor, was the firm entrusted with the responsibility of bringing the venerable 19th century hall into line with the high standards of modern communication, and one of the first tasks was to install a conference and voting system - of which the sound reinforcement system was a major part. After conducting simulations (using EV’s EAMS software), Ruton S decided on a set-up which not only offered excellent sound quality as well as compact dimensions and an elegant appearance. The system utilized 16 Electro-Voice EVID 4.2T speakers, two Sx-300 front speakers and two Electro-Voice CPS-2T amplifiers.

For the city councillors, meeting for the first time in the newly-refurbished city hall, the new sound system was a revelation: in all areas of the chamber, they could hear loudly and clearly what was being said. As Ruton’s Gregory Ronin relates: "Our customers were full of enthusiasm and even somewhat surprised, having previously tried out several rival systems none of which even came close to EV’s in terms of sound quality."

(Lee Baldock)


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