CHICAGO — Since its grand opening in March 2024, Flyover in Chicago by Pursuit at Navy Pier has mesmerized thousands with a breath-taking immersive experience, culminating in an aerial journey over the Windy City, highlighting its iconic landmarks. Flyover constructed this 61-seat theatre, installed a Brogent ride system and brought in other specialists to work on the audio-visual elements.

Kraftwerk Living Technologies (KLT), renowned for its expertise in flight ride attraction technology, designed and supplied an advanced audio-visual (AV) setup featuring projection, control, and audio further enhanced by the state-of-the-art IOSONO spatial audio system supplied and supported by ENCIRCLED.

ENCIRCLED has provided IOSONO systems not only for Flyover in Chicago but also for an upgraded system in Vancouver, Canada.

“ENCIRCLED takes pride in offering one of the most flexible immersive rendering solutions with excellent integration features. The company’s expertise was instrumental throughout various project stages, from working with KLT’s Audio System Designer Philipp Hartl, Immersive Sound Designer Tim Archer of Masters Digital and the Flyover team in planning the loudspeaker setup to helping KLT again on the final fine-tuning sound calibration, as well as developing the object-based content production workflow to be prepared for the newest immersive audio creation tools or the multitude of channel-based formats,” said Jan Langhammer, joint managing director at ENCIRCLED.

Eric Sambell, Global Director, Construction and Entertainment Technology, added, “We wanted a simple system that could be used across our attractions, one that could provide a breathtaking audio experience for our guests and a consistent workflow for our content and technical teams.”

The Flyover team enlisted the support of key vendors to launch their Chicago attraction. This includes TechMD’s Dave Revel as the project consultant, Kraftwerk Living Technologies as the AV system integrator, and Tim Archer from Masters Digital as the sound designer and mixer.

Curious about how immersive audio inside a flight ride attraction actually works?
At Flyover in Chicago, KLT’s meticulous multichannel loudspeaker design ensures riders receive a tailored soundscape and experience. The system features 34 JBL AM7215 loudspeakers positioned behind and to the sides of the 435 sqm perforated screen from Endurescreens plus 4 2×18” JBL ASB7128 subwoofers stacked on the floor, all driven by Crown DCiDA series Dante enabled amplifiers. In addition, there are integrated in-seat speakers powered by Innosonix multi-channel high-density amplifiers, and the advanced ENCIRCLED IOSONO spatial audio processor powered by IOSONO inside software, which manages calibration, content playback, and live input rendering.

“ENCIRCLED played a pivotal role by planning the loudspeaker layout, selecting appropriate speaker types, configuring the software on the spatial audio processor, and conducting acoustic calibration post initial speaker tuning by KLT,” said Kevin Murphy, Senior VP Sales and Business Development at Kraftwerk Living Technologies. “ENCIRCLED optimized loudspeaker directional aiming, assisted with the fine tuning of the system to meet the requirements of the ENCIRCLED processor and workflow tuning, and supported the content production process for future adaptation of content or new movies to IOSONO’s object-based format.”

The spatial audio system’s design allows precise localization of sound both horizontally and vertically, enhancing the visual content displayed on the giant screen. “Unlike traditional immersive audio formats, which often have limited possibilities in vertical panning of audio sources, the IOSONO rendering system’s unique multilayer approach utilizes multiple loudspeaker groups to achieve sound positioning across the screen,” said Murphy.

The middle layer’s high-resolution speakers enable accurate sound localization through Wave Field Synthesis, creating stable point source objects on the screen and ensuring consistent sound perception from all seats. A significant challenge was the playback of existing content, which ENCIRCLED overcame using IOSONO’s Spatial Audio Workstation. This tool treats multichannel content as a virtual speaker setup within the newly built dome, allowing precise matching of each channel’s position to the existing speakers used in other flight ride attractions. Newly produced content benefits from an object-based workflow, where individual sounds are stored with 3D position metadata, allowing the same content file to be rendered across different loudspeaker layouts, ensuring superior quality and easy content transfer.

“ENCIRCLED are extremely proud to be part of this project and grateful for the trust placed in us to support the design of the loudspeaker setup for the main show. With over 10 previous flight ride installations around the globe, we brought valuable knowledge to the table and contributed confidently to the acoustical design of this state-of-the-art flight ride attraction system,” added Max Röhrbein, joint managing director at ENCIRCLED.

The integration of IOSONO spatial audio system from ENCIRCLED not only enhances the immersive experience but also sets a new standard for audio quality and versatility for flight ride attractions, providing visitors with a uniquely engaging and memorable experience.

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