For over thirty years, Amadeus has designed, built, and marketed a wide range of electro-acoustical playback systems and very 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 located in Europe and Asia.
The new Holophonix hardware configurations are available for order now and feature redesigned rear panels with Neutrik-housed connectors integrated into the aluminum chassis, including one powerCON mains connector, three etherCON connectors for remote control and Dante redundant protocol, as well as HDMI and USB 3.2 connectors for service. The updated Holophonix processor models are 1.6x faster than the previous model. The Holophonix 128 model offers 128x128 I/O at 96 kHz in Dante AoIP format, while the new Holophonix 64 model offers 128 inputs for 64 outputs at 96 kHz in Dante AoIP format.
"Machined in three dimensions from a solid aluminum block – taking more than twenty hours to complete – the new Holophonix processor enclosure embodies all the technicality embedded and hidden within this unique tool," states Gaetan Byk, Amadeus CEO.
"We designed some interesting features for the Wave Field Synthesis (WFS) algorithm over the last months, which figure among the most interesting algorithms built-in Holophonix, used in 90% of the systems that we deploy," says Gaetan Byk.
"Recent work conducted at IRCAM helped us extend and improve our Wave Field Synthesis rendering engine. Originally restricted to 2D dense linear arrays of loudspeakers, the WFS approach has been generalized and is now compatible with arbitrary 3D loudspeaker layouts. This features several optimizations for large arrays, or linear arrays with large spacing in-between loudspeakers, as well as 3D dome-like speaker layouts," comments Thibaut Carpentier, Researcher at IRCAM, Lead Developer, and Head of the SPAT project.
"With immersive speaker systems, users can now create virtual sounds anywhere in 3D space; full-3D WFS gains and delays are computed in real-time, generating a convincing sound field that overcomes limitations of other techniques such as Ambisonics," adds Thibaut Carpentier.
The new Holophonix 2.1 Update features among other improvements a new 3D-native computation of gains and delays for the WFS algorithm, a new ‘Minimal Delay’ mode, and a new parameter called LSO (Large Stage Optimizer) designed to optimize intelligibility for spectators sitting in the very first rows.
"The ‘Minimal Delay’ parameter option is only available for the Wave Field Synthesis algorithm. When disabled, the WFS bus calculates the source’s delays and gains related to their real position from the speaker array. Thus, moving a source away from the speaker array increases the overall delay and latency. When enabled, the bus calculates the source’s delays and gains but subtracts the distance to the nearest speaker, resulting in lower latency," says Adrien Zanni, Researcher and Developer at Amadeus for the Holophonix project.
"The ‘Large Stage Optimizer’ (LSO) was originally designed for the Avignon Palace of Popes Cour d'Honneur at the Avignon Festival which features a very large 40-meter wide stage. The LSO function in version 2.1 offers an ‘intelligibility enhancement’ for spectators sitting in the very first rows, especially those who are placed on the opposite side of the on-stage performers. Based on the WFS pure rules, if a comedian, for example, performs on the very left front of the stage, the spectator placed 40 meters away, on the right of the audience will hear a very low reinforcement level because of the WFS’ natural gain attenuation," adds Adrien Zanni.
Additional features for the Holophonix 2.1 update include macOS Ventura compatibility for Holophonix Native, and Apple Silicon (ARM architecture) optimization for Holophonix Native. The updates add new ‘Minimal Delay’ bus function for WFS, new ‘Large Stage Optimizer’ (LSO) function for WFS, new interfaces for source and bus creation, new function enabling automatic bus creation from predefined speaker groups, and offering an automatic suggestion of the HOA order based on the number of speakers. Other improvements include preset loading much faster, graphical enhancements on File, and Display menus, apart from bug corrections.
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