The experimental hall is located at the CERN North Area, close to the French village of Prévessin-Moëns.

The experiment is a two-staged spectrometer with numerous tracking detectors, particle identification and calorimetry.

The experiment consists of three major parts: the beam telescope, the target area and the two-staged spectrometer.

The target cell contains either ammonium or deuterium, which are polarised by the means of microwave radiation and strong magnetic fields.

Due to the Lorentz boost, most of the final states and the scattered particles are created along the beam axis.

This leads to the distinctive set-up of a fixed-target experiment: most detectors are placed behind the target ("forward spectrometer").

In addition, the first stage holds a Ring-Imaging CHerenkov detector ("RICH"), able to distinguish pions and kaons between 10 and 50 GeV.