New Dolby Europe Reference Atmos Studios Equipped with Genelec Monitoring Systems

With Dolby Atmos expanding from cinemas to home cinema, music, and automotive audio, the new Dolby Europe facility in Nuremberg, Germany, needed to provide a reference environment and technical capabilities to handle all these different application scenarios. With the move to a new building, the company took the opportunity to augment its development and testing facilities with both a mixing lab and a critical listening lab in its new, larger location. When it came to the monitoring systems in these important spaces, Genelec was the brand of choice.
  The new Dolby Nuremberg facility has been built with software development and testing in an Agile scrum environment as its priority. This will see the space used for device testing for head units and loudspeaker setups in cars, as well as TVs, soundbars, set top boxes, AVRs and wireless smart speakers. Additionally, the space will also host scrum teams working on prototypes in dedicated project rooms as the company continues to grow its product offering.

When it came to the audio lab itself, Dolby wanted a room-in-room setup for maximum acoustic isolation. It worked with acoustic consultant Radoslaw Arkadiusz Ciszewski from Müller-BBM Building Solutions GmbH in Berlin, who developed the detailed design of the labs while also working closely with the landlord’s architects and the professionals on site.
  “During the planning phase, it was very challenging to align all the different trades such as dry wall construction, lighting, power and air conditioning/ventilation, especially as we needed a noiseless environment which required a very low air speed for the ventilation system,” recalls Andreas Ehret, Sr. Director Automotive Dolby and Managing Director of Dolby Germany. “This typically requires large ventilation pipes, so we had to go through a lot of different approaches during planning. During the construction phase the biggest challenge was to ‘train’ the different professionals. These professionals had to take care of a lot of very important details, such as fixing the dry wall construction to the concrete floor with special materials.”

While the physical construction presented challenges, specifying the monitoring system was a much simpler process. Dolby Content Relations Manager and sound expert, David Ziegler, handled the monitor selection and room fit out. He has a wealth of experience with Dolby Atmos Studios and was supported by Georg Biberger from Thomann in Burgebrach who handled the entire installation. The Dolby Lab Team from Wroclaw were tasked with performing the final measurements and calibration of the room. “We had a very good acoustic consultant during the planning and execution phases,” notes Ehret. “And there is a good relationship between Dolby and Genelec which helped with the monitor selection.”
  When it came to using the two labs, flexibility was key. “The typical loudspeaker layouts for our use cases are 5.1.2, 5.1.4, 7.1.2, and 7.1.4 for both the mix lab and the critical listening lab,” explains Ehret. “As a result, we have installed a 9.1.6 Smart Active Monitoring system in both rooms, such that we can switch easily. There is a dedicated processor for each room, and we’re using it to control the routing, switching formats and tuning.”

In the mix lab this layout takes the form of 8351s as LCR with 8341s for the surround and height channels, assisted by dual 7370 subwoofers. In the critical listening lab, 19 8341s handle all of the channels apart from the low end, which is taken care of via the 7370 subs. Dolby also uses Genelec GLM software to calibrate each room, which integrates tightly with the DSP hardware within each individual monitor and subwoofer – allowing control of frequency response, playback level and distance delay. “The Genelec monitors are easy to use and offer great sound quality,” says Ehret. “We’re extremely happy! The result is of very high quality.”

Genelec’s Smart Active Monitoring technology allows studio monitors to be networked, configured and calibrated for the user’s specific acoustic environment. Each Smart Active Monitor or subwoofer is equipped with advanced internal DSP circuitry, which tightly integrates with the GLM (Genelec Loudspeaker Manager) software application, running on Mac or PC. GLM’s reference microphone kit allows the user’s acoustic environment to be analyzed, after which GLM’s AutoCal feature optimizes each Smart Active Monitor for level, distance delay, subwoofer crossover phase and room response equalization, with the option of further fine tuning by the user.
 
Reflecting on the overall project, the whole Dolby Nuremberg team is proud of its new location. “With the new labs we have a very high quality environment to listen to and create Dolby Atmos content,” states Ehret. “It also gives us the opportunity to contribute to listening tests for standardization bodies.” 

With the office now open and the teams hard at work, the new space is starting to produce results already. “With the new Nuremberg facility, we are already working on new developments for our audio and video technologies. This will help us to increase our contribution to Dolby’s overall business success,” concludes Ehret.
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