This paper is available in Français too
At the Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA) Studios which were specially built within La Gaite-Lyrique in Paris, producers, and mixing and recording engineers got to hear a new level of sound and music with the install of a pair of the newly released Amadeus Philharmonia speakers.
For the latest edition of the Red Bull Music Academy, Red Bull came back to Europe.
Over 60 participants from 37 different countries were invited to Paris to work on music together in a collaborative environment in the state-of-the-art recording facilities within La Gaite-Lyrique – a digital arts and modern music centre opened by the City of Paris in December 2010. RBMA brought French music icons Jean-Michel Jarre, Laurent Garnier, Nicolas Godin and Marc Cerrone together with the participants.
Based in France, Amadeus has become one of the premiere manufacturers of custom studio speakers, as well as high-end sound reinforcement systems for live and installed sound. Amadeus is now selling their latest creation, the Philharmonia speakers, a high definition monitoring system combining innovation and technology, with style, and a pristine sonic character. This is the second install of Philharmonia in Paris, along with the studios at the Philharmonie de Paris recording and mastering studios. The Red Bull Music Academy is a ‘world-traveling series of music workshops and festivals’ offering a platform for creative types working in today’s musical landscape.
The Philharmonia speakers were designed by Michel Deluc, Amadeus’ Director of Research & Development, along with world-renown architect Jean Nouvel, who designed the new Philharmonie de Paris concert hall building complex.
Jean Marc Harel, Director of Sound Department and mixing engineer at La Gaite-Lyrique waxes poetic about the new Amadeus speakers, “Philharmonia is an innovative, intoxicating and uncompromising speaker system, which offers experienced mixing engineers a terrific monitoring tool capable of making sublime recordings. I am able to perceive and distinguish the intrinsic characteristics of the greatest monitoring systems – timbral transparency, extended bandwidth, perfect impulse response, wide and accurate stereo image, outstanding layering of sound planes – all crowned by remarkable dynamics.”
Pierre Le Cardinale, mixing and recording engineer at La Gaite-Lyrique, continues, “Philharmonia is a brilliant and subtle mix of uncompromising research in the design and combination of components, combined with a perfect mastery of sound and style, orchestrated by passionate people at the forefront of design and innovation,” referring to the team at Amadeus and co-designer Jean Nouvel.
Gaetan Byk, Marketing Manager at Amadeus, says, “We are pleased that the Philharmonia speakers are appreciated and recognized both by users involved in the classical or symphonic music fields, as well as producers, mixers and recording engineers working on today’s popular electronic music.”
The new Philharmonia 2-way, self-powered speakers, initially created specifically for the Philharmonie de Paris recording and mastering studios, feature a 28-mm soft-domed tweeter and a custom 8-inch woofer, and boast analog and digital inputs with a customized integrated DAC and an amplitude linearity range (±2dB) from 43 Hz to 22 KHz.
The cabinets are custom manufactured from layered Birch and stand 1.6 meters tall, the casing contains the electronics inside the lower part of the speaker enclosure.
Each speaker is comprised of 547 wood veneers, accurately machined, aligned and glued, yielding a look that’s both simple and complex, and yet timeless. Each speaker features a unique hybrid laminar port using progressive termination for reproducing low frequencies. Machined into the wood material along the full height of the speaker system, the very low velocity port yields optimal linearity for the lowest possible distortion.
Philharmonia is bi-amplified using two dedicated very high resonance digital custom-built amplifiers, each amp delivers 700 Watts under 8 ohms. These proprietary PPM-PWM fixed frequency class-D amplifiers are equipped with a high-efficiency switched mode power supply.
Each speaker channel is under control by a powerful, 64-bit digital processing unit capable of a 118 dB dynamic range. Each of these on-board DSP units include a module dedicated to managing core system parameters including system EQ, time alignment between sections, limiting, transducer thermal protection. This level of control makes Philharmonia fully protected and able to operate at the full extent of its abilities.
The Philharmonia integrate standard analog XLR inputs, along with two digital inputs/outputs conforming to the AES3 digital audio data transfer standard. Both inputs are coupled with a high-resolution 24-bit/96kHz converter placed as close as possible to the electronic amplifiers, thus working together in perfect combination.
The speakers also feature an RJ-45 network input allowing remote control of its DSP processor for optimal adjustment via dedicated software to match the speakers to the acoustical properties of each listening space. The software is an app that runs on Apple Macintosh and iPad, and Microsoft Windows computers.
- For more information on the Red Bull Music Academy visit redbullmusicacademy.com
- For information on the Philharmonia speakers see the dedicated website philharmoniabyjeannouvel.com
