Mach Speaker System at Club Med Oyyo in Tunisia

Situated on the Tunisian coast, Club Oyyo is a sun and sand soaked holiday resort aimed at 18-30 year olds with a distinct taste for 24-hour music.

But it’s not the exotic landscape or climate that draws the thousands to Club Oyyo. What unites Oyyo’s clientele is its unique bias for music and marathon clubbing.

So when it came to sound reinforcement, Club Oyyo went for the no-compromise solution, a massive Mach sound installation.

“The more we demand of the system, the more it reveals its potential”

Charged with installing the Mach system, Gérard Giraudon of SES Giraudon confesses he had to work hard to get the budget for such a large installation approved. “Club Med had never integrated so much equipment into one of its resorts before.”

All doubts evaporated as the Mach system underwent a punishing 4 months, playing 18-24 hours every day – and survived without a scratch.

“The more we demand of the system, the more it reveals its potential,” Gérard continues. “The first time we tried it, we achieved comfortably what we could normally only achieve by pushing a system to its limits. The DJs here work from evening to dawn, and the sound quality is consistently good all night.”

Two separate Mach systems

Club Oyyo’s outside dancefloor is constructed around 2 separate Mach systems. The dancefloor is formed by an octagonal truss 4.5 meters high and 16 meters wide. In the middle of the floor a second structure forms a perfect circle 8 meters wide.

Gerard states, “The sound is concentrated in the center of the octagon, and remains absolutely uniform in all areas of the dancefloor.”

The outer octagon is fitted with 16 medium throw Mach M127i top boxes, coupled with 8 Mach M152i sub-woofers. The inner circle where the sound is concentrated is equipped with an even more powerful installation: 4 Mach M156i speakers and 4 Mach 182i sub-woofers.

Gerard continues, “ Both installations are arranged in a 360 degree formation. In order to avoid phasing problems we went to pains to ensure that no speakers were ever placed exactly opposite each other.”

The Mach M127i top boxes were switched to passive mode. Gerard explains, “We achieved a good result just with the passive filter. If we’d had the crossover switched to active we’d have had to use more amplifiers and processors. There was no need to make the installation more complicated, especially not for an open-air installation with the speakers properly aligned. The active filter would have been perfectly justified in an indoor event.”

Harsh environment a challenge

The harsh environment was one of the challenges the system had to cope with. There were the occasional but intense storms and sandstorms, along with the corrosive sea air to consider. The team took steps to protect the open-air installation. Gerard explains, “To protect the speakers we used a special micro-perforated film otherwise used in aviation. We placed the film between the grill and the foam, which doesn’t interfere with the sound output but which protects the speaker from dust and humidity.”

Club Oyyo in Tunisia is only the first of 12 Club Meds in the Mediterranean region to receive a Mach speaker system.