New York, NY (January 9, 2023)—Football stadiums may only host a few games a year compared to other sports, but keeping them up-to-date is a year-round effort. That goes in particular for their sound systems, and the last few months have seen a number of major audio installations at scholastic stadiums around the country.
• NCAA football is the name of the game at Williams-Brice Stadium at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C. Ensuring every rowdy fan can hear every call is a brand-new L- Acoustics A15i system that was installed over the summer by St. Louis-based Cignal Systems. The enormous rig includes a jaw-dropping 318 loudspeakers, including 67 A15i Focus and 139 A15i Wide, with 75 X12 and 37 X8 coaxials, all powered by a combination of 53 LA4X and 29 LA2Xi amplified controllers.
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• Heading up north to New England, 44,500-capacity Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill, Mass., received a complete overhaul recently. The home to the Boston College Eagles football team now has Fulcrum Acoustic FL283, FH15 series, CCX series and RX series speakers that serve as the P.A. system in the stadium bowl, while the field system is made up of L-Acoustics Syva with KS21 subwoofers. Powering all that are 98 Powersoft Quattrocanali amplifiers in total, which were installed in seven locations around the facility. The primary signal is via Dante from Q-SYS, with an analog backup; mixing for the system is tackled on a number of DiGiCo consoles.
• Stadiums aren’t just for colleges and the NFL. Case in point: The 16,884-seat Paul Brown Tiger Stadium is home to the Tigers—Massillon, Ohio’s high school football team. Named after former Massillon, Ohio State, Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals head coach Paul Brown, the facility was built in 1938 as a WPA Project. While the old audio system didn’t date back to those days, it nonetheless needed replacing and recently was outfitted with three fully weatherized Electro-Voice MTS-6154-43-CFWB point-source loudspeaker systems with cardioid woofers, all powered by a trio of Dynacord IPX10:4 DSP power amplifiers.
