The Central Academic Theatre of the Russian Army (CATRA) underwent a recent upgrade with the installation of an Alcons Audio system.
Founded in Moscow in 1929, the theatre was built in 1939 in the shape of a five-pointed Soviet star with the main auditorium seating 1520 spectators.
“The (theatre’s) existing audio system was installed in the 1990s and it no longer met modern audience expectations. There was a particular issue with loud live music events, which modern systems are expected to cope with without any distortion,’ says Natalya Kondrat of the LTM Music Company, who supplied and installed the Alcons system.
“Because of the building’s architectural significance, there were very limited areas where we could install equipment. We consulted extensively with the theatre and suggested an Alcons system. We did a demonstration and were able to prove that it would fulfil all the required aims of uniform coverage, high level SPL with no distortion and that it could be installed while not impacting on the aesthetics and historical structure of the theatre.’
The latter was achieved by installing the entire Alcons system within the proscenium arch. It comprises left and right arrays, each including a mid/high frequency column and a low frequency column. 14m high mid/high columns each contain QR36, QM36, QR18 and QM18 units, with 12m high bass columns featuring QB363 subs. In total the system includes 28x 18′ pro-ribbon drivers, 84x 6.5′ M/F drivers and 26x 12′ bass drivers.
