Initially specifically designed for the world-famous Avignon Festival – and used within the Courtyard of the Palace of the Popes each summer – Les Colonnes d'Avignon or the ‘Avignon Columns’ Series line array from Amadeus is now available for every performance venue and the most demanding music reinforcement applications.
For two years, experts and specialists in culture-oriented facilities, craftsmen, and industrials of different trades and domains have worked together to create and install this new pro-level hifi system for the festival. The system which is installed and used each summer at the Avignon Palace of the Popes features ten A 470 ‘Focus’ column modules, installed in a stereophonic configuration, offering two high-fidelity line-source speaker columns, each one 4-meters long.
The stereophonic system suspended in the courtyard – spaced almost 40 meters from the Avignon Festival stage – is combined with the largest long-throw ‘soundbar’ ever built for the front of the stage – almost 30 meters long. "This system offers a masterly combination of smoothness, response, precision, and reach,” says Michel Deluc, Director of the Research and Development Department at Amadeus.
"The spectral response – naturally extended to 45Hz without any additional equalization – is quite remarkable, as it is in-phase and requires no additional reinforcement or complement for the vast majority of musical messages."
Each A 470 module is 80 centimeters high for only 28 centimeters wide and houses 14 transducers. Each Avignon loudspeaker incorporates four internal sections, offering exceptionally precise coverage, including four 6.5" long-excursion drivers – co-developed with Purifi Audio in Denmark – as well as four planar ribbons and six 8" diameter passive radiators. The nominal directivity of a loudspeaker in the horizontal plane is 100 degrees on average.
"The new A 470 column-type speaker is active and bi-amped. It features planar ribbon transducers placed in front of the low/mid-range section, thus creating a 'coaxial' type setup. The proprietary waveguide for the bass/mid-range transducers also works as a closed-back load for the planar ribbons. Each section features a linear-phase FIR crossover filter with a very steep Brickwall-type slope at 1000 Hz offering a perfect optimization of both power and finesse for the planar ribbon drivers across their entire frequency range, while also protecting them from low frequencies," says Numa Galipot, Acoustic Engineer at Amadeus.
The A 470 ‘Straight’ column module features a straight enclosure design for the same configuration, while the A 470 ‘Focus’ column module, features a 1-degree enclosure angle for tight dispersion control in the vertical plane. The A 470 ‘Wide’ column module, features a 4-degree enclosure angle and expands the dispersion in the vertical plane.
"The off-axis response of the ‘Avignon Columns’ above 600Hz, measured on-site at the Avignon Courtyard of the Palace of the Popes, is within +/- 1.5dB, which is quite exceptional given the acoustic characteristics of the venue, the specular reflections on the walls, and the reverberation time of more than 3 seconds on average. Moreover, the length of each line array – around 4 meters corresponding to a wavelength of 85Hz – favors a directivity effect and the natural range of the bass. The feeling of precision in the lower end of the spectrum is therefore noticeable and appreciable, even at 30 meters and in totally uncontrolled acoustics," adds Marc Piera, who was in charge of the electro-acoustic calibration of the ‘Avignon Columns’ sound system at the Avignon Festival.
All three models of the Avignon Columns are available for ordering now, with delivery starting in Q2 2024.
At ISE 2024, Amadeus also presented the miniature C3 and C4 miniature coaxial loudspeakers, created originally as a custom development to deliver intelligibility and directivity control over an extended spectral range while maintaining a point source design, as required for Spatial Audio installations.
For over thirty years, Amadeus has designed, built, and marketed a wide range of electro-acoustical playback systems and high-end signal processing equipment, bringing together high technology, style, and emotion. The Amadeus brand has grown to become a leading supplier of high-end audio solutions and services for theaters, opera houses, concert halls, museums, recording studios, and research centers. All development and product manufacturing are centralized in Amadeus headquarters in France, with field offices and authorized distributors in Europe and Asia.
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