Engineers: Arjen van der Schoot, Aram Verwoest, Arjan van Asselt

A new music building was built on the banks on the river IJ in Amsterdam and was inaugurated by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands on 15 June 2005.

This impressive building, which was designed by the Danish architects' office 3XNielsen A/S in cooperation with the Dutch architects' office ABT, already enjoyed great popularity within few weeks of opening. Acoustics experts praise in the highest terms the unique quality of acoustics in the concert hall providing 735 seats and standing room for 1,500 persons when the seats are removed.

By adjusting the level of floor and ceiling, it is possible to change the hall layout as required; this leads to reverberation times of between 1.0 and 2.5 seconds, which affects the hall acoustics.

The rectangular concert hall was designed as "room in room" system. The sheathing from maple wood gives the hall a warm and cosy atmosphere. (krantz-components.com)

Quite an extensive sample session this was, using 8 DPA 4006 omnis, and the Genelec 1037. The variable acoustics of the room were set as dry as possible in the DRY samples. The high samples were microphones shoved up to 5 m heigh on poles. Exceptional signal to noise could be reached because this is a really silent room.