Top Live-Sound-System Manufacturers Team Up To Better Manage Stadium Noise

Just announced, the SDE standard provides a unified method and file format to ensure consistent and reliably comparable noise predictions

Sports and entertainment are converging like never before, but they are increasingly diverging when it come to the noise one generates within the other.

The issue is real and current: just last week, a homeowners' association in Queens, NY, won a small victory in its long-running fight over loud local concerts held at the Forest Hills Stadium, once the home of US Open tennis and, since the 1960s, a host to high-profile concerts. The $150,000 settlement includes ongoing consultation with the local NYPD precinct commander regarding noise levels and related matters.

An announcement today by a pair of leading sound-system manufacturers may also become a factor in this ongoing project. France-based L-Acoustics and Germany-headquartered d&b audiotechnik have created an alliance with another German company, SoundPLAN, to develop the System Design Exchange (SDE) standard, a non-proprietary standard for noise prediction across multiple sound systems.

The format-neutral standard overcomes incompatibility problems between manufacturers' systems. Predicting noise emissions from festivals and events with systems from multiple manufacturers has been challenging, with each system relying on its own proprietary tools. The lack of interoperability often resulted in inconsistent noise predictions, making it difficult to meet environmental requirements.

A Step Toward Accessible Noise Management

The SDE standard is a huge step forward in addressing the noise-management challenges of large-scale events, says Florian Hahn, product manager, application software, d&b audiotechnik. With SDE, we're making effective and comparable noise management accessible, ensuring that audiences can enjoy [events] while respecting nearby communities, public facilities, and natural habitats.

Combined, L-Acoustics and d&b audiotechnik have a dominant share of the global top-end touring market. Each is also increasingly used in installed-sound systems for sports venues.

Noise continues to be both a bane and a perceived benefit. NFL stadiums have routinely had both their sound systems and acoustical architectures tuned to heavily amplify sound for team encouragement or to interfere with opposing teams' signaling. In a particularly egregious example, the Florida Marlins gave away vuvuzelas to the first 15,000 fans at a 2010 game with the Tampa Bay Rays, creating a noise hell for fans and area residents alike. One commentator called Vuvuzela Night a disaster of Biblical proportions.

Previous approaches to remedying the problem have included municipal decibel limits, in which cities enforce noise ordinances - setting limits, such as 55 decibels at the property line, to control volume. Stadium owners and/or teams may be also required to reposition speakers or upgrade to technology, such as cardioid subwoofers, that keeps sound contained.

However, if multiple systems are used within a single venue - not unusual as sound systems undergo partial upgrades at various times or touring shows bring in their own systems but need to connect with the installed system to use as delay speakers - incompatible software made bridging the systems' ability to predict resulting noise unreliable.

Unified Approach for Reliability, Accuracy

The SDE standard directly addresses this by providing a unified method and file format to ensure consistent and reliably comparable predictions in environmental-noise software. Specifically, it defines how to export data from system-design software, such as d&b's ArrayCalc or L-Acoustics' Soundvision, and details the methodology for calculating complex acoustic interactions. This includes calibration and decoherence (the decay of phase relationships over space and time) factors, ensuring a very high level of accuracy at any distance - something the companies involved contend hasn't been possible until now.

With SDE, system technicians can export their designs as standardized SDE files, which can be imported into commonly used environmental- noise software like SoundPLAN. This streamlined and secure workflow and consideration of complex acoustic summation for the correct calculation of coherent sources (considering phase) allow consultants and event organizers to perform equivalent calculations to accurately predict noise emissions for events with multiple stages and systems from different manufacturers. In the future, the SDE format will be made available to other manufacturers and other noise-pollution software.

SDE will set a new benchmark for noise prediction in the audio industry, says Jochen Schaal, managing director, SoundPLAN. Its innovative, collaborative approach promises to establish SDE as an industry standard, simplifying workflows and delivering the most reliable and accurate prediction of noise emissions from different sound-system manufacturers to date.

The new SDE standard is available immediately. For L-Acoustics users, it is currently available to consultants trained and certified by L-Acoustics and through the company's Environmental System Design service; details are available at www.sde-info.com. For d&b users, SDE is accessible directly within ArrayCalc.

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2026/04/15/top-live-sound-system-manufactu...
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