Audiosure installs Audio Solution for KES Aquatic Centre

AUDIOSURE PROVIDES AUDIO SOLUTION FOR WORLD-CLASS KING EDWARD VII SCHOOL AQUATICS CENTRE

In 2019, King Edward VII School, one of the top public all-boys schools in South Africa, embarked on the construction of a ‘game changing’ new Aquatics facility. The facility would boast two swimming pools, fully covered roofing, multi-purpose internal space and complete lightning protection. Following multiple consultations with the school’s headmaster, administrative staff and the buildings architects, Audiosure were tasked with providing a professional turnkey audio solution for this spectacular new facility.

Greg Payne, Audiosure’s Sales and Marketing Director explains, “The school wanted an audio system which would provide clear audio at a perfect level. Considering the substantial acoustic challenges within this space, our team of product specialists did an amazing job to overcome these challenges and delivered a system which ticks all the boxes.”

 Audio Product Specialist, John Greaves, says the new state-of-the-art venue posed a few challenges, “The sheer size of the aquatics center and an abundance of reflective surfaces really made us question how we should go about designing the best audio solution for this project. Correct speaker placement throughout the facility was of paramount importance.” Humidity would also be a factor for all the electronics in the venue. Fortunately, Audiosure were able to provide the school with 6 DSPPA 3008A speakers for the main pool area, which provide long term durability with their water-resistant enclosures. “The 6 DSPPA 3008A speakers were mounted 9 meters above the ground,” John continued. “Working at this height was difficult and dangerous for the installation team, but they managed to overcome this hurdle with relative ease.”

 For the upper balcony section, 15 Qbit co-axial CSL611T ceiling speakers were installed to provide full coverage to the area. A further 4 speakers were also installed in the lower entrance area. All the ceiling speakers are driven by a DSPPA MP2500 amplifier. Three DSPPA MP1500 amplifiers were installed to power the 6 DSPPA 3008A long-throw musical horns. All these speakers are controlled by a speaker management system, namely the Wharfedale Pro Versadrive SC-26. This system enables the user to make essential adjustments to the speaker configuration with extreme accuracy. All amplifiers, the speaker management system and microphone receivers were all positioned inside a lockable rack unit.

 Dave Skinz, AKG Product Specialist, specified that the WMS420 Vocal set be used. “With its professional D5 capsule and high-quality transmission system, the WMS420 is as accomplished on stage as it will be in the center.” To ensure uninterrupted coverage across the entire venue the wireless system was supplied with an APS4 antenna power management system connected to a pair of ceiling mounted SRA2 antennas so that the speaker can deliver their voice and be heard from anywhere in the venue.

 The entire audio system is controlled by an Allen & Heath ZED60-10FX. Marc Paynter, Allen & Heath Product Specialist, says that this compact, multipurpose mixer is the perfect solution for the school’s Aquatic Centre. “The ZED60-10FX is the perfect control surface for this venue. It’s a simple-to-use mixer, with independent channel fader controls for the microphones and music source. We’ve set up the mixer to plug directly into a dedicated wall plate, which is easy enough for anybody to connect up.” Marc then added, “we wanted to make the audio system as easy as possible for the schoolboys and teachers to use.” Audiosure also provided a custom designed flight case for the ZED60-10FX, the microphone and all relevant cables. The system can be locked away safely when not in use.

 “We were really pleased to have the opportunity to provide King Edward VII School with a world class sound system for their world class facility,” Greg said. “Both Marc Paynter and I are KES Old Boys, so when we were awarded this contract, we personally ensured that the supply, install and commissioning of the system was perfect as always. It was a pleasure working with Ian Sim and Andrew Hodgkinson on this project and they were blown away by the quality of the system when it was finally commissioned,” continued Greg. “The new Aquatics Centre is such an amazing facility and we are so glad to have played a small part in this project.”