However, the newly remodeled cinema vaguely resembles the once anonymously designed yellow structure. Within three months time Gella, the installation and design company, set out on a plan to give the almost 40-year-old facility a thorough remodeling.
"The response to Druzhba and the pro-audio system has been very positive," said Maxim Shevchenko, Regional Sales Manager for Meyer Sound. "Attending the opening week at the cinema were a host of reporters from Tartarstan newspapers, TV and radio, as well as Mayor Kamil Iskhakov."
The cinema project not only encompassed the installation of new communications and utilities, but also involved a thorough remodeling of the structure itself. Both of the Druzhba theaters (appropriately named the Blue Theater & Pink Theater) now contain acoustic slab halls with specially designed resonance panels to prevent LF reverberation. Brick stages for the USW-1P subwoofers were also built using a concrete subfloor with a wood floor overlay that contains sand-filled inner chambers.
Both theaters now display identical PA systems that utilize a center channel of 2 UPA-2P's that are arrayed in a single horizontal cluster. The system design, which places the UPA-2P's in the forward portals of the theaters, rather than the usual behind-the-screen placement, allowed Gella's technical staff to maintain the SPL at higher frequencies throughout the theater. In addition to the UPA-2P's, each hall integrates a left and right channel of UPA-2P's, a host of 3 USW-1P self-powered subwoofers and 6 HM-1's for rear-channel surround.
"Gella chose Meyer Sound based on their loudspeakers' precise coverage patterns which proved to be a necessity for the two halls," said Shevchenko. "The loudspeakers' accuracy and high SPL allowed Gella to design a sound reinforcement system with a minimal quantity of loudspeakers, but with a dramatic increase in both sound and operational characteristics."