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Author Topic: speakers and lighting in high school hallways  (Read 19148 times)

Joseph D. Macry

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Re: speakers and lighting in high school hallways
« Reply #30 on: January 13, 2014, 02:04:50 PM »

I have an opportunity to bid on an install at a local high school that wants to play music throughout the hallways for the 5 minutes between classes.  The system would have to be loud enough to be heard over the commotion of high schoolers yelling at each other in hallways but not at the levels of what you'd hear at a high school dance.

In our school PA/intercom business, this is a fairly standard feature that the administrators call "March to Music". It is integrated with the IC/PA/clock/bells system. The music is piped through hallway announcement speakers, timed between the bells. The idea is that when the student hear music, they'd better be marching along to next class. When music stops, you'd better be there.
We usually have AP announcement speakers in the hallway ceilings; our standard is Atlas SD72W cut into ceiling tiles, max 20 feet apart. Not real hi-fi or hi powered, but clear and loud enough. You might be surprised how loud speakers tapped at 1/2 watt can be.
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Kyle Malenfant

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Re: speakers and lighting in high school hallways
« Reply #31 on: January 13, 2014, 02:10:53 PM »

In our school PA/intercom business, this is a fairly standard feature that the administrators call "March to Music". It is integrated with the IC/PA/clock/bells system. The music is piped through hallway announcement speakers, timed between the bells. The idea is that when the student hear music, they'd better be marching along to next class. When music stops, you'd better be there.
We usually have AP announcement speakers in the hallway ceilings; our standard is Atlas SD72W cut into ceiling tiles, max 20 feet apart. Not real hi-fi or hi powered, but clear and loud enough. You might be surprised how loud speakers tapped at 1/2 watt can be.

This is exactly the effect the school is looking to achieve.  What I'm having a hard time understanding is what does a 1/2 watt tap sound like in reference to a standard small PA system i.e. jackie or JBL powered speakers (SRM450, PRX etc.).  I certainly understand these are apples and oranges as far as speakers go, but looking for a base point to reference off of.
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Jason Lavoie

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Re: speakers and lighting in high school hallways
« Reply #32 on: January 13, 2014, 04:16:29 PM »

This is exactly the effect the school is looking to achieve.  What I'm having a hard time understanding is what does a 1/2 watt tap sound like in reference to a standard small PA system i.e. jackie or JBL powered speakers (SRM450, PRX etc.).  I certainly understand these are apples and oranges as far as speakers go, but looking for a base point to reference off of.

Bring an SRM350 to the school and play music at max volume in a hallway and I think you'll find out pretty quick that it is not the benchmark you should be referencing.

Jason
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John Moore

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Re: speakers and lighting in high school hallways
« Reply #33 on: January 14, 2014, 10:34:52 AM »

Specific mfr. make systems that will do just what you want, maybe not the fidelity you are after.
Rauland, Dukane, Simplex, Telecor, Valcom etc. and all have disconnects to fire alarm and emergency call, etc. built in. Those would be the only systems we would spec out for a project like this. Most are through dedicated distributors in the area, other than Valcom....look at these first. Yes they are costly, but also serve for main PA, background music, voice announcements, warning systems, clock and bell, all in one package.
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Brad Weber

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Re: speakers and lighting in high school hallways
« Reply #34 on: January 14, 2014, 02:40:44 PM »

This is exactly the effect the school is looking to achieve.  What I'm having a hard time understanding is what does a 1/2 watt tap sound like in reference to a standard small PA system i.e. jackie or JBL powered speakers (SRM450, PRX etc.).  I certainly understand these are apples and oranges as far as speakers go, but looking for a base point to reference off of.
It's the overall performance that matters rather than just the tap value and different speakers can provide significantly different levels and response with the same tap value.  Then you also have to go beyond the speaker itself to address frequency based losses for listeners off-axis, losses from the distance of listeners from the speakers, possible signal processing that may be applied, etc.
 
Quite frankly, I'd guess they really just want some decent quality music at a reasonable level with quite a bit of variation in the level and response being acceptable.  I think the focus on sound quality, the music being clearly heard over the ambient levels, comparisons to foreground music systems, etc. may be causing you to make it more complicated than it really is.
 
One concern I have is that is you try to get full range music at sufficient level to be heard over the ambient noise everywhere in the hallways then not only will you have very high levels in some areas but the music levels might be to where they could potentially interfere with life safety and emergency systems.  That is why it may be required to automatically mute the music during any emergencies or life safety announcements.
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Re: speakers and lighting in high school hallways
« Reply #34 on: January 14, 2014, 02:40:44 PM »


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