A grand, Italian-style theatre dating from 1899, the Casino Grand Cercle Theatre in the French resort and spa town of Aix-les-Bains is considered a masterpiece for both its architecture and its decoration. 

As part of a sympathetic renovation of this historic and much-loved venue, operators called in local technical solutions specialists Groupe Elypse to design a sound system that would equip the 830-seat venue for a varied program of productions ranging from drama and operetta to concerts, without detracting visually from the sumptuous internal decor of a venue with no hanging points for line arrays.

“We have a long-established relationship with the Théâtre d’Aix  and considered carefully both the technical requirements and the available budget” reports Bruno Favre-Martinoz, Founder and CEO of Groupe Elypse. “For this project NEXO proposed to us the ID84 column loudspeaker which impressed us with both its performance and cost. NEXO also has a very complete range of products with good availability and excellent technical support, which is important for an integrator.”

NEXO’s ID84 supercharges the concept of the column loudspeaker, expanding its role beyond traditional voice reproduction into powerful, high-quality music applications. Using an array of dome tweeters rather than a compression driver significantly lowers HF distortion and gives the ID84 a ‘hi-fi-like’ sonic character, while a switch on the rear of the cabinet controls a passive filter which effectively changes the HF vertical dispersion from broad (0˚ to -25˚) to narrow (0˚ to -10˚).

Accompanied by their partner IDS312 subs to extend LF performance down to 40Hz, left and right pairs of ID84s address each of three seating tiers, with an additional pair of NEXO L18 subs on the floor at either side of the stage to further reinforce low end punch and performance in live music applications.

Also from NEXO’s ID Series, compact ID24 cabinets are used front fills and on delays to fill in the sides of the third tier of seating, and in the highest seating, farthest from the stage. Amplification and processing for the entire system comes from a rack of 6 x NEXO NXAMP4X1Mk2 Powered 4-channel TD Controllers, one of which is bridged to power the pair of L18 subs.

Having collaborated with Groupe Elypse at the design stage, the NEXO Engineering Support team were onsite to tune the system. “The goal at Théâtre d’Aix was to have a soft and pleasant sound, much less tainted by distortion specific to compression, but at the same time capable of carrying sufficiently far. A versatile system that’s very good on voices which, of course, is a key requirement in a theatre.” comments NEXO Sales manager Stéphane Brocard.

“Other brands were auditioned and the choice of NEXO was based on the musicality and tonal balance of ID84 and, of course, its price.

Find out more here:

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