SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt — The Maritim Sharm El Sheikh International Congress Center, located at this Red Sea resort, has a 2,000-capacity main conference hall that was recently equipped with a Renkus-Heinz ICONYX Digitally Steerable Array loudspeaker system. The project was carried out by Cairo-based TECO (Telecommunications Engineering Consultant Office).
Since its opening, the center, operated by the German Maritim Hotel Company, has served as a venue for the International Conference of Foreign Ministers on Iraq Security, the World Economic Forum Conference and other major events. The main hall, equipped for broadcasting and teleconferencing, required high speech intelligibility and clear sightlines for TV cameras.
The Renkus-Heinz ICONYX IC24 digitally steerable loudspeaker system used for the main stage is supplemented with ceiling loudspeakers for background music. The twin arrays form the audio centrepiece of an AV installation that also includes 11 combinable meeting rooms and six VIP suites.
“All the audio and video brands and models were based on the best available technology in the market, as the project is the most prestigious congress facility in Egypt,” said Magdy Sidhom of TECO. “The main hall in particular is a neat and impressive installation, particularly from a performance point of view.
“The main challenge was to provide a very high level of speech intelligibility across this huge room, but without using large loudspeakers that would obscure sight-lines for delegates and television cameras,” Sidhom added. “With a conventional system in a hall like this a lot of acoustic energy is dispersed as reflections from walls and ceilings. With ICONYX we were able to focus the sound on the seating alone, and the result in architectural terms is close to perfect: the system is invisible unless you look really hard.
“Time was the other great challenge as the whole project schedule, including construction of the building, all finishes, MEP, low current and AV was just 10 months from start to finish,” Sidhom added. “Our AV works were allowed only two months from the date of contract to be supplied, installed, and ready to go.”
TECO’s design team configured the system using Renkus-Heinz’s PC-based BeamWare software, which interacts with each of the two IC24’s 24 coaxial drivers via their individual Class D amplifiers and DSP units via Cat-5 cable.
By focusing each driver’s beam on a specific horizontal angle, a single pair of IC24 units — supported by DR18-2 subwoofers for full-range reproduction — provides high-intelligibility speech coverage across the hall without the need for loudspeaker clusters or line array hangs.
To complete the project on schedule, including all the AV, conference, sound and master clock equipment, TECO had five on-site engineers and 22 trained technicians working 24 hours a day. Alongside the ICONYX system is a video network including Barco and NEC projectors, Draper screens, Extron switching equipment, Crestron control systems and Auditel Conference equipment.
For more information, please visit www.teco.com.eg and www.renkus-heinz.com.
