Having recently hosted the Israeli Super League Final Four, an extended run of Mamma Mia!, and concerts by acts as disparate as Neil Sedaka and Oasis, Tel Aviv’s Menora Mivtachim Arena – formerly known as the Nokia Arena – is counted among the most famous venues in global sports. As the biggest indoor arena in Israel, the 12,000 capacity venue recently chose a powerful TW AUDiO sound reinforcement system, providing comprehensive audio coverage and pristine speech intelligibility. Crucially, the elegant design ensures that no undue strain is placed on the venue’s roof structure thanks to the lightweight construction of the T24N.
The home of the Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team, the Menora Mivtachim Arena is globally recognised as a centre of sporting and entertainment excellence. But when the venue’s owner, the Municipality of Tel Aviv, plus managing company Sports Palaces Ltd, began the search to find the best possible solution for the arena’s audio requirements, a number of specific challenges had to be met. Among them was the need to minimise the weight applied to the venue’s roof.
“The difficulty was to provide a solution that was low in weight yet still a powerful and high quality choice that was appropriate for an audience of 12,000 people,” explains Project Consultant Harel Tabibi, while Project Manager Kfir Ben Avat, of regional systems integrator ProTouch, adds that even the suspension of the loudspeakers required deft expertise: “Hanging the loudspeakers at these heights meant our installers had to use ropes to reach up.” Ultimately, concludes Tabibi, “We chose to base the design on the TW AUDiO T24N loudspeaker, which produces great quality sound and is particularly powerful yet still very lightweight.”
Indeed, so central has the T24N been to the creation of the arena’s new audio installation that in May of this year, ProTouch successfully provided coverage throughout the venue with a distributed system comprising more than 50 boxes including B30 subwoofers.
A total of 46 flown T24N enclosures cover the arena. Widely considered a modern multi-functional classic, the T24N is an updated, lighter weight version of the very first TW AUDiO model, the ground-breaking T24. Inside the cabinet are two 12” neodymium woofers and a 1.4” horn with a 3” titanium membrane that is capable of reproducing precise, silky highs that are free of distortion, even at the highest levels. While each enclosure is fitted with a 60 x 40 degree horn as standard, it can be exchanged for a 90 x 50 degree horn quickly, easily and without the use of tools.
In the arena, the T24Ns are suspended from the roof in two oval rings – an inner ring of 12 distributed T24Ns, and an outer ring with 16 speaker clusters, each comprising two vertically arrayed T24N boxes. Working seamlessly, the enclosures in the outer ring (producing 60 x 40 degree dispersion) deliver perfect intelligibility across the middle and upper rows of seating, while T24N boxes within the inner ring (producing 40 x 60 degree coverage) perform the same function for the lower rows and VIP seats. Two additional T24Ns are located at either end of the arena, producing 90 x 50 degree coverage for the upper-most tiers of seating. Eight B30 subwoofers provide low-end extension while power is delivered by 12 Lab.gruppen D120:4L amplifiers and a single D200:4L, and audio transport is via Dante.
“The project was a great success thanks to the successful collaboration between the consultant Harel Tabibi and project manager Kfir Ben Abat from ProTouch,” says venue director Guy Rozenblat. “TW AUDiO’s sound systems, with the support of its engineers, have produced a clean, powerful and high-quality sound that is so consistent that there is no difference between one seat and another.”
For Protouch, Kfir Ben Avat is equally delighted: “The challenge to get a very clean and clear sound with a lot of power and proper distribution was not simple, but I am very pleased with the result,” he says. “I would like to thank the TW AUDiO staff for their support and dedication, as well as Harel Tabibi, Guy Rozenblat, and Nadav Grinshpan the CEO of The Sport Palaces of Tel-Aviv Yafo Ltd. for what has been a very successful and enjoyable cooperation.”