Toledo, OH (November 18, 2014)—Ottawa Hills Local School District recently upgraded the sound system in its high school’s gymnasium, centering the upgrade around Powersoft and EAW components.
“They have a fairly young gymnasium as compared to most other schools,” said Eric Harter, President of Montpellier, OH-based Harter Sound. “But the problem was that all the spectators, especially alumni and athletic directors, complained that they could not hear or understand any of the announcements in the gym.”
Since the gymnasium is routinely used for commencement activities, meetings and other district-related events, achieving audio intelligibility was a primary concern for the administration.
After determining the different locations where the audience would be seated and each respective distance from the sound source, Harter selected a two-way point source system consisting of 10 speakers in three different ‘zones’ across the length of the gymnasium. Each speaker was placed horizontally rather than vertically, approximately 18 feet from the floor, enabling the system to maintain a relatively low profile. The speaker height and horizontal orientation also made it less likely to be struck by an errant ball, intentionally or unintentionally.
At the core of the new system were three Powersoft K series amplifiers, each driving respective zones consisting of 12-inch woofers and for high frequencies, and a single 1.75-inch driver. According to Harter, one of the reasons Powersoft was chosen was because of its ability to drive such a substantial amount of power while taking up only three rack space units. Another reason was that the system amplifiers could be set up in a secure location and controlled remotely using Powersoft’s Armonia software.
“We set it up so that if someone gets access to the rack, they can’t change anything unless they know exactly what to do and how to do it,” explains Harter.
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