It’s more than 20 years since Mexican businessman and philanthropist Alfredo Harp Helú promised the Diablos Rojos del México and their fans a permanent home fit for the most winning team in the history of Mexican baseball.
Now the magnificent Alfredo Harp Helú Stadium stands as testament to this baseball super-fan’s passion for the game.
The first new stadium to be built in Mexico City in the last 50 years, the AHH features an iconic roof resembling a devil’s fork, rising to a height of 31 metres. In the brief for a sound system commensurate with a project of such uncompromising standards, it was critical that speakers should add as little weight as possible to a structure already weighing some 5,000 tons.
“Our customer LOGEN was appointed as audio system integrator for the project, and they asked us to propose a system that could provide the power and coverage needed while meeting the demanding limitations on weight” reports Manuel Tapia, Technical Support Manager at NEXO distributor Rep de Audio.
“NEXO GEO S12 is a powerful, long-throw box already installed in many prestigious sports stadiums around the world, so we used NS-1 configuration software to design a system of just 7 relatively small and light S12 clusters that could hang from the roof and cover the main stands. NS-1 also gave us the necessary reports for system dimensions, weight, gravity centre position, forces, moments, working load and safety factors.”
Flown with an LS18 sub at the top, each cluster comprises 6 x GEOS1230s, with the steeply tapered boxes formed into a tightly curved array covering the crowd from pitch-side the rear of the top tier. “The S12’s patented Configurable Directivity Device made it easy to configure the top 2 boxes for the 120-degrees horizontal HF dispersion we needed, while focusing the bottom 4 boxes more tightly at 80 degrees” reports Manuel.
The GEO S12 / LS18 clusters in the roof are supplemented by six hangs of just 4 x NEXO GEO M10 line array elements covering the open seating at the end of the stadium where the screen is located.
“We designed a fibre network to connect the NEXO NXAMP powered controllers which are located in five small machine rooms around the stadium” continues Manuel. “It quickly became obvious that it would take one person at least 15 minutes to walk around and switch the system on and off, so we implemented a system to switch the amplifiers on and off in sequence from the control room, where they are also centrally monitored and controlled.”
Throughout the design and build phases, Manuel and the team at Rep de Audio supported LOGEN in weekly meetings with architects and builders, then on-site with training on configuring the clusters using custom metalwork to attach to the stadium roof.
“We were allocated a room at the stadium to train the guys at LOGEN on building a complete cluster from scratch” says Manuel. “Then they did a great job of replicating the process 7 more times, but this time at a height of over 30 metres!”
Commenting on behalf of Mexico City-based engineering, design and systems integration specialists LOGEN, Commercial Director Eduardo Zapiain says “We worked as a team with Rep de Audio and their personalised attention and technical support helped ensure that the project was carried out without problems.
“The installation process was quite challenging as each cluster had to be installed at the top of the very high stadium roof, with a custom-designed mounting that also allows for easy maintenance in the future.”
Speaking for the Alfredo Harp Helú Stadium, Director Francisco Ramos Peña Roja says “The sound system is of great quality. If it can be summed up in one word, it is ‘excellent’, with great clarity, power and volume, all without distortion.”
For further information on Rep de Audio, visit: rda.com.mx
For further information on LOGEN, visit: logen.com.mx
For further information on Diablos Rojos del México, visit: diablos.com.mx
