GYM DANDY

Reading H.S. Ready for Tip-Off

Reading High School, located in Reading, PA, equidistant from Philadelphia, 60 miles to the southeast, and the state capital of Harrisburg to the west, sought to upgrade their gymnasium’s sound system and contacted SAGE after experiencing the quality of their work first-hand at several nearby schools.

As is the case with all well-done jobs, it all started with a phone call from the client, Reading High School’s Director of Facilities, Daniel Morcombe, to SAGE’s Systems Specialist, Mark Showers.

Reading High School’s gymnasium, however, isn’t the dank, drafty, multi-use facility with faded lines that you visited only for your mandatory Physical Education period. With its dual-level bleachers, official press box, and 3,200-person capacity it could masquerade as a mid-size Division 1 college arena. In fact, Reading High School’s impressive gym has played host to Pennsylvania’s state high school basketball championship tournament in years past.

Showers remarks, “Reading HS wanted to know if anything could be done to their existing sound system, but they also wanted a proposal for a replacement system. I found that their existing system was quite old and there had not been upgrades to it for many years – a considerable number of the speakers had questionable drivers or blown horns, and the center cluster as a whole had coverage pattern issues. Therefore, there were limited, if any, performance benefits that could be derived from tweaking the existing system.” Showers continues, “We talked about the future plans for their school and budget issues, and with that knowledge I formulated a new system with our engineering staff using Peavey Architectural Acoustics products as the cornerstone of the system. They liked the plans we came up with and decided to install the new system.”

Covering approximately 20,000 square feet, with a 40-foot ceiling, the Reading High School gymnasium contains what Showers calls, “an incredible amount of air-mass to get moving.” Couple that with Reading High School’s desire to “make the system thump,” and Showers and company needed to install enough power to drive the air mass, but also maintain the subtlety needed to produce intelligible audio in a massive room of reflective-surfaces.

GYMNASIUM INSTALLATION

SAGE’s Lead Project Technician, Galen Kraybill, designed a center loudspeaker cluster consisting of six Peavey Architectural Acoustics QW-3 three-way enclosures above the suspended scoreboard. To make best use of the cabinet’s dispersion pattern, two QW-3s are directed at each sideline and one aimed at each baseline.

Showers admits, “Even though it was the first time we used the QW-3 loudspeakers, we were comfortable going with them because we’ve used Architectural Acoustics products on installations for years, and their reliability and toughness make Architectural Acoustics one of our stand-by brands. We performed distance loss calculations based upon the 1 watt per 1 meter output levels of the QW-3, and based upon the price vs. performance factors, we found the Architectural Acoustics equipment was what we needed to make this room rock.”

Always cautious about installing a never-before-tried piece of gear, Showers states, “Before installing the QW-3s’ Gaylen and I ran them through a series of sound pressure level tests and we were very impressed with the clarity, voice range, and overall bass response of the cabinets.”

SAGE’s engineers decided that in order to achieve quality sound and avoid the out-of-phase sonic jungle so common in gymnasiums, Reading High School needed to augment their center cluster with two delay rows – each consisting of four Peavey Architectural Acoustics Quadra 15 two-way enclosures, ceiling-mounted above the double-tiered sideline bleachers.

Showers states, “When I first surveyed the gym, there was a small event taking place, and it was immediately evident that the RT time was going to be a factor.”

Gaylen later measured an RT time of more than five seconds.

Showers knew he was dealing with an educated customer when, he continues, “The facilities director immediately said ‘we need a delay row.’ We later found out he had worked at a school that upgraded to a center cluster system with a delay row for far superior sonic results, so he knew what he wanted.”

Showers continues, “I knew the Quadra 15s would work well as delay speakers, since we had previously installed them in several similar projects with exceptional results. It’s a small, resilient enclosure, strong enough to withstand direct and consistent basketball attacks, plus it also generates a significant sound pressure level.”

A Peavey Architectural Acoustics Digitool™ MX digital signal processor was installed to provide eight independent channels of signal processing. Selected primarily because it offered similar functional performance at a lower cost than the two DSP packages typically used throughout the industry, the 2RU Digitool MX utilizes parallel 24-bit SHARC processors to provide superior sonic performance.

The Digitool MX’s eight input channels were allocated to provide signal processing (compression, limiting, parametric EQ, etc.) for main house feeds, and an additional channel was used for crossover and time-alignment delay for delay speakers. The simplistically designed device allowed Gaylen to rapidly program all of the presets with little effort.

The Digitool MX is capable of supporting multiple remote control stations, and in this application the customer accesses Gaylen’s presets through an Architectural Acoustics D4S preset recall control panel and two Architectural Acoustics D1V volume control panels.

Kraybill comments, “Any time we program and install a Digitool or a MediaMatrix system, I closely interact with the customer about the potential uses for the room, providing them all the necessary presets that will cover all of the facility’s applications. After the system is programmed, set and locked down, with all presets backed up, we just show the customer how to access the presets through the control interface.”

Showers quips, “Usually a gym teacher doesn’t have a degree in audio engineering. The people who will be operating the system just want basic, necessary and reliable, tamper-resistant control of the system. They like having fine-tunable controls far beyond the reach of wandering hands, because it doesn’t take too many turns of a wrong knob to get a bass-happy fan into trouble with the gain structure on a sound system.”

All power is supplied by a rack of five Architectural Acoustics IP 8.5C dual-channel amplifiers. Two of the amps power the eight Quadra 15 delay loudspeakers, one amp powers the two QW-3 ‘baseline’ speakers, and the remaining two IP 8.5Cs power the four QW-3 ‘sideline’ loudspeakers.

Given Reading High School’s desire to make the system “thump,” Showers and his fellow SAGE employees briefly considered boosting the system with subwoofers. Showers laughs, “Due to the large space and the RT time of the lower frequencies in the room, we needed to be careful not to excite the air mass too much. Since this system is primarily used to get the announcer’s voice out there clearly over a screaming crowd, and second to play modern music before, after and during breaks in the game, we tried to avoid subwoofers. And, we’re happy we did because there’s safety in numbers with six QW-3s and eight Quadra 15s driven by a rack of five power amps. There’s a lot of cone area and the system definitely thumps!”

SAGE also spiffed up the gym’s peripheral areas including the press booth, which sits above the second-tier of bleachers on the home side of the court, glassed-off from the main space. An Architectural Acoustics UM-10 ten watt mixer/amplifier provides press attendees control over their booth’s volume, and allows for a line-out should reporters require their own recorded copy of the PA action.

Next to the press box, in the control booth, SAGE installed a Teac AD-600 3-disc CD player/cassette deck for music playback, rack mounted with the Architectural Acoustics IP 8.5C power amps. A Telex SM-1 Assistive Listening System was installed for the main seating area, providing hearing impaired fans with individual earbuds so they too can follow the action. Finally, SAGE upgraded Reading’s existing microphones, replacing the main PA microphone with a Crown CM-310ASW differoid condenser and adding a hand-held Audio Technica AEW-4260 for wireless applications.

SUMMARY

The Reading High School installation took two weeks to complete due to gymnasium availability, during which time Gaylen Kraybill spent more time on a lift replacing hanging speakers than he did on the hardwood. Almost immediately upon completion, the 2003-2004 basketball season tipped-off putting the new system through its paces.

Showers concludes, saying “Reading High School is extremely pleased with their new sound system. The PA announcer comes through loud and clear over the screaming crowds, and music sounds great through the Architectural Acoustics enclosures. We were excited when we drew up the plans because we felt like it would address their needs for years to come and fit within their budget, and sure enough it did! Pleasing a customer is always the most satisfying aspect of this business.”

-Christopher Butler