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Author Topic: Center hung system in gym  (Read 6295 times)

Brad Weber

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Re: Center hung system in gym
« Reply #10 on: August 19, 2008, 12:59:11 PM »

Here's another picture: http://www.mtsu.edu/murphycenter/images/arena_e.jpg

Josh Hoevelmann wrote on Tue, 19 August 2008 09:13

It's very difficult to convince an athletic department and graduation committee that it would be better to hang the speakers somewhere else when they've been in the same spot(not same speakers)since 1972.  With the recent addition of video boards, that has become a concern, dealing with sight line issues.

Why did they need to change anything, it was just fine wasn't it?  So get rid of the video boards or try to get them to understand that both the space and the audience's expectations have changed as demonstrated by the other changes in the space and that this also applies to audio.

You keep mentioning coverage being the problem with the existing system and the audience coverage is a factor of both the speakers and their locations.  Perhaps you can find speakers that meet all of your other requirements and can provide acceptable coverage from the existing locations, but it may be far from the most effective approach or possibly not even practical.

Quote:

The very farthest seat is only about 120 ft from court side(measured diagnaly....the very top set of bleachers would be covered by a delay ring.

Would be covered or are covered or might be covered?  Maybe others are not as confused as I am, that happens a lot, but I am not clear on what is in place or what is being added or where you are in the process.  I thought you only had a center cluster type system but in your pictures I also see a totally separate cluster for graduation type events and it is not clear how that plays into the current situation.  The pictures also make it seem the room is rectangular and with mostly glass walls, making a symmetrical center cluster appear less than ideal for a number of reasons (including that you would probably need different coverage for the sides than for the ends where the seating is further away).  It also seems that it is possible to use the arena with the upper bleachers closed and only partial seating, something which could affect the coverage desired.

Beyond the physical issues, I am also not clear on the general situation.  Is this system currently in the design process or has a specific system already been proposed?  Are you the system designer or reviewing someone else's design or what?  This may seem to be getting way off your original question but I think the relevancy is that your question was something you should be addressing with your system designer and if you are wanting comments on someone's design then we need to know all the facts in order to be able to respond appropriately.
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Brad Weber
muse Audio Video

Josh Hoevelmann

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Re: Center hung system in gym
« Reply #11 on: August 19, 2008, 04:29:30 PM »

This is in the very early stages.  Yes, athletics gets the most use out of the system, however, more than likely the money will not come from them.  If you're not familiar with University politics, graduation ceremonies trump all other events through out the year in priority, importance and finances.  We have 2 ceremonies in May, 1 in August and 2  more in December.  We are also home to 6 high school graduations in 4 days in May.  We have about 10,500 for each ceremony and about 1700 graduates each time.  In short, our total for the graduations throughout the year come close to matching our basketball total attendance.

The other speakers you see are used for graduation only, but it has been requested that speakers hung in that location be reconsidered.  There currently is not a delay ring, but there would be one with a new system, for various reasons.  Yes, there are many events when those bleachers are not used and are pushed in.

Please be aware I am playing devil's advocate with you all somewhat to better answer the questions posed to me by the audio illiterate.  Again no system has been designed, no company even hired yet.  However, the folks that would be cutting the check and those organizations that the system would effect have expressed these concerns.  
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Ivan Beaver

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Re: Center hung system in gym
« Reply #12 on: August 19, 2008, 07:29:50 PM »

Less than a year ago we did a good sized University basketball arena.  While not as large as yours (only 6000 or so seats) the concepts remain the same.  And with you, graduation was the PRIMARY concern.  This was at an expensive private school and they wanted the parents to hear their kids name when called.

The system is an exploded ring witht he loudspeakers just in front of the front row of bleachers.  There is also another couple of loudspeakers positioned above where the front of the graduation stage is set that cover the floor where the students sit-during graduation.

THere are various presets in the system that allow different parts of it to be turned off if people are not in those particular seats-in order to keep the clarity up.

For graduation the floor loudspeakers are turned on and the ring of loudspeakers is signal aligned (in the preset)to the floor cluster so as to have a system that operates as a single unit.

It works quite well.  It took awhile to align properly, but that is just part of the job.
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For every complicated question-there is a simple- easy to understand WRONG answer.

Can I have some more talent in the monitors--PLEASE?

Ivan Beaver
dB Audio & Video Inc.
Danley Sound Labs

Brad Weber

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Re: Center hung system in gym
« Reply #13 on: August 20, 2008, 03:33:43 PM »

Josh Hoevelmann wrote on Tue, 19 August 2008 16:29

Yes, athletics gets the most use out of the system, however, more than likely the money will not come from them.  If you're not familiar with University politics, graduation ceremonies trump all other events through out the year in priority, importance and finances.
Quote:

The other speakers you see are used for graduation only, but it has been requested that speakers hung in that location be reconsidered.

Do you mean that the speakers hung in the separate array were going to be deleted and they have asked to consider keeping that array (or something similar) or that they are wanting to consider not having a separate array?


Quote:

Again no system has been designed, no company even hired yet.  However, the folks that would be cutting the check and those organizations that the system would effect have expressed these concerns.

What are you trying to do at this time?  Are you trying to establish what you need the system to do and/or a budget or are you actually trying to define the system?  If you do not have someone with expertise in this type of audio system design onboard, I suggest staying focused on the functionality and approaching the actual technology and system in as general terms as possible until you have a system designer onboard.  Not only does defining specific solutions potentially limit your designer's options, but if you present those solutions to faculty and administrators then they also may develop expectations based on what is presented and you may experience resistance to varying from that later on.

While speakers at the scoreboard might actually work pretty well in that space for basketball and other sporting events, such a system would pretty much be dedicated to that use.  And you could add a dedicated array for graduation type events similar, basically the same concept apparently currently in use (in fact if the current array works for them you could probably just keep it).  However, in order to support a wider variety of events and to try to provide better intelligibility, many arenas use a distributed satellite type system as Ivan described.  With multiple speakers located closer to the listeners and each covering a smaller area you can potentially achieve better intelligibility while another advantage of this approach is that it often allows using programmable routing and processing to configure the system to support different applications and events.
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Brad Weber
muse Audio Video
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