L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal Sound Powers Shenzhen’s Longgang International Arts Centre Opera Theatre and Concert Hall L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal Sound Powers Shenzhen’s Longgang International Arts Ce...

Kunkel Consulting and Rightway Audio Consultants deploy full 360° L-ISA systems in two of Shenzhen’s most prestigious performance spaces, with every loudspeaker concealed from the audience

SHENZHEN, China – July 2026 – Shenzhen has spent four decades reinventing itself from a fishing village to a global technology hub, and the Longgang International Arts Centre is its most ambitious statement yet. The centre opened on 30 January 2026 as the flagship venue of Shenzhen’s 14th Five-Year Plan, the centrepiece of the city’s drive to position itself as an international capital of performing arts. Its 110,000-square-metre building, conceived by American architectural firm TVS Design and realised by the Beijing Institute of Architectural Design, draws on the forms of traditional Chinese instruments — the pipa, the xun, and the erhu — to create what TVS describe as a giant urban musical instrument. The centre hosts a 1,501-seat opera theatre, a 552-seat drama theatre and a 305-seat concert hall, and within weeks of opening it staged the Asian premiere of the prestigious Verbier Festival. For its opera house and concert hall, the centre chose L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal Sound.

Invisible by Design: L-ISA Behind the Architecture

The acoustic design brief set two requirements that cut against each other: the sound system had to fill some of the most architecturally intricate spaces in Shenzhen, and it had to do so without a single loudspeaker being visible to the audience. Every element of every system — from main arrays to surround speakers — would need to be concealed behind fabric grilles and integrated into the fabric of the building, protecting extensive painted artwork and working within tight tolerances. In the opera theatre, that meant achieving full coverage with just 80 cm of clearance above the ceiling panels. The solution that met both requirements was L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal Sound.

For the system design, the venue engaged Kunkel, Germany-headquartered consulting engineers with an established project portfolio across China and Asia. Kunkel developed the system concept in collaboration with Rightway Audio Consultants (Racpro), who had an existing working relationship with the venue. Both firms brought deep familiarity with L-ISA spatial technology and a track record of specifying immersive systems into major performance spaces across the region.

“The venue’s architects set an extraordinary challenge,” Shawn Yu, Senior System Engineer, Racpro explains. “The building is itself an instrument where every surface and every curve carries meaning. The sound system had to serve that vision completely, which meant disappearing into it. L-ISA gave us the object-based resolution to fill spaces of this scale and complexity while keeping every element of the system out of sight.”

Opera Theatre: Seven Arrays, Full 360° Immersion

The 1,501-seat opera theatre is the most technically ambitious space in the centre, and the system design reflects that. Seven independent, equally spaced Kara II line source arrays are deployed above the stage in a scene and extension layout, supported by KS28 subwoofers. The ultra-wide array configuration multiplies the horizontal resolution of the stage sound significantly: the L-ISA processor maps each audio object to its corresponding physical position on stage, so as a performer moves, the sound field moves with them across all 1,501 seats. With limited rigging clearance above the ceiling panels, Panflex variable directivity technology was used to direct sound energy into the audience area and away from the reflective side walls.

The full 360° surround network relies on 5XT coaxial loudspeakers installed at high density along balcony railings and walls on every level of the house, giving every seat in the venue a sound field with a distinct sense of direction and distance. Compact X8 coaxial loudspeakers provide near-field coverage, while X12 and KS21i units overhead complete the three-dimensional picture. The result is a system that can simulate acoustic environments from the intimacy of a chamber space to the reverberance of a cathedral directly from the dedicated control room, where the engineering team uses Sound Spaces within L-ISA to monitor and mix in immersive audio and refine the experience for each production.

“Not a single loudspeaker is visible to the audience,” Yu adds. “Every element of the system, from the Kara II arrays above the stage to the 5XT surrounds at every level, is concealed. We achieved that with just 80 cm of clearance above the ceiling panels, and while taking care to protect the venue’s extensive painted artwork throughout.”

Concert Hall: L-ISA in an Intimate Space

The 305-seat concert hall presented a different set of constraints: lower rigging height, a more intimate acoustic environment, and a programme weighted towards instrumental performance. During the design phase, the team recognised that an object-based approach would serve the space as well as it served the opera theatre.

The main system is built around a Scene System of X12 coaxial loudspeakers, whose 90° x 60° elliptical directivity delivers high SPL and a wide frequency response under the hall’s limited rigging height, ensuring fullness across the main coverage area. Six Compact X8 coaxial loudspeakers handle near-field fill and surround duties; their consistent off-axis response closes coverage gaps and maintains tonal uniformity throughout the hall alongside six 5XT overheads.

A Standard for Performing Arts in China Shenzhen Longgang International Arts Centre opened with the Asian premiere of the Verbier Festival — 23 world-class concerts and seven masterclasses in its first weeks. The venue’s L-ISA spatial systems have since supported a programming schedule that covers opera, chamber music, contemporary performance.

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