L-Acoustics A Series and Concept Systems Solve the Acoustic Puzzle at Singapore’s School of the Arts L-Acoustics A Series and Concept Systems Solve the Acoustic Puzzle at Singapore’...

Reflective surfaces, a strict 200kg rigging limit, and a subwoofer redesign mid-project — Concept Systems delivered a concert-grade sound system in two weeks flat

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Singapore – April 2026 – School of the Arts (SOTA) is Singapore’s specialised independent school for students aged 13-18, offering a six-year arts and academic curriculum, leading to the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) or the International Baccalaureate Career-Related Programme (IBCP). SOTA students specialise in Dance, Film, Literary Arts, Music, Theatre and Visual Arts, honing their craft to a high level of artistic and technical excellence in a campus designed by award-winning WOHA. The Architects building’s striking design earned a World Architecture Festival award in 2010 and created exactly the kind of acoustically complex environment that demands serious engineering solutions.

When SOTA decided to overhaul the sound system in its Concert Hall, the wish list was ambitious: consistent intelligibility across 628 seats, from classical recitals to multimedia productions, without disrupting the halls carefully tuned acoustic character. What the brief didn’t fully capture was the complexity hiding in the room itself: highly reflective surfaces, serious rigging constraints, and a subwoofer geometry problem that would only reveal itself during installation. L-Acoustics Certified Partner Concept Systems navigated every one of those obstacles, completing the full installation in a two-week window with performances booked immediately after.

A Concert Hall Built for Acoustics, and the Challenge That Creates

SOTA’s Concert Hall was originally designed with acoustic performance at its heart. That’s a feature for the musicians who perform there. But for sound engineers, getting intelligibility right in that environment demanded exceptional control over directivity.

“The venue needed highly controlled coverage so that sound energy stayed focused on the audience and avoided exciting reflective surfaces unnecessarily,” says James Pithouse, Senior Engineer (Product and Project) at Concept Systems. “The A10i with Panflex was the right fit precisely because of how finely we can tune its horizontal dispersion. We can shape the coverage to match audience geometry and cut spill to the walls before it becomes a problem.”

200kg Limit, Zero Compromise on Performance

The reflective surfaces were the first challenge, but the second challenge was structural. The Concert Hall’s rigging points carry a strict 200kg maximum load for suspended loudspeaker clusters, ruling out heavier configurations and demanding a system that could deliver full-room coverage at compact scale. The A Series, engineered for high output-to-weight ratio, was dimensioned precisely to meet that constraint without trading away SPL or coverage consistency.

The final main system configuration of six A10i Focus and four A10i Wide deployed as left and right hangs fits within the weight limit while covering the full audience area. Five X6i provide front-fill, maintaining tonal consistency for listeners close to the stage.

A third challenge emerged during installation itself. The original design called for a vertical cardioid KS21i subwoofer arrangement but the available ceiling height at the venue made a vertical stack impractical.

Rather than accepting a compromise in bass performance, Concept Systems adapted the design, moving to a horizontal KS21i deployment that maintained cardioid directional control within the physical constraints of the space.

“Soundvision was essential in anticipating the room’s behaviour before we arrived,” James explains. “That let us optimise speaker aiming and Panflex settings in advance, so we understood the reflection problems before final tuning. And when the subwoofer geometry needed to change, we had the simulation tools and the system flexibility to adapt quickly.”

Soundvision: Solving the Room Before Setting Foot in It

L-Acoustics Soundvision drove the design process from the start, allowing Concept Systems to model loudspeaker placement, coverage patterns and SPL distribution across the full audience area before a single piece of kit was hung.

The network infrastructure that supports the installed system runs on a fully redundant Milan-AVB architecture, with three LA4X amplified controllers handling amplification and an L-Acoustics P1 processor managing signal distribution. The P1 receives AES signals from the venue’s existing Yamaha I/O system and routes audio across the network, a clean integration that required no additional format conversion hardware.

Two Weeks. Done.

Concept Systems completed the full scope, including de-rigging the previous system, installing and commissioning the new configuration, network setup and final optimisation within a two-week window tightly coordinated with the venue’s performance schedule. There was no margin for delay.

Initial feedback from the technical team has confirmed the results the design aimed for: improved clarity, more consistent coverage across all audience positions, and meaningfully greater flexibility when moving between acoustic and amplified programming. Training sessions brought the venue’s operators fully up to speed on day-to-day system management and ongoing optimisation.

“The initial response has been very positive,” James says. “The venue now has a system that genuinely handles what they put in front of it — and it’s built to grow with them.”

For more information on School of the Arts Singapore, please visit www.sota.edu.sg. More information on Concept Systems can be found at www.concept-systems.com.sg.

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