Building to Last

As a student, a teacher, and now an AV professional working in schools, I have used many school AV systems. These systems typically were installed when the schools were built and lasted 15 or more years, untouched and unmaintained, before failing or exhibiting some signs of ending their functional lives. School budgets are tight and can’t be used to refresh a major room audio-visual system every five years. Lasting reliability is how we approached a new AV system in the natatorium for Pine Creek High School in District 20.

​The primary requirement, and place we started, was audio coverage. First, all speakers needed to be weather-tight with sealed connections for the highly corrosive pool environment. Second, school pool is a highly reverberant and ample open space. The sound echoes a lot, and by the time you add cheering parents, it can be a nightmare to hear what’s going on clearly. To address the clarity issue, we used higher-power speakers to get audio above room noise-level. We added more speakers to ensure each audience area around the pool had direct coverage rather than reflected coverage.

The primary audience seating area is supported by 3 of the newest Danley Sound Labs OS-15CX weathertight speakers to provide high sound level and clarity. Around the pool, audio is supported by Sound Tube SM82WX waterproof loudspeakers. Rather than use one speaker mounted higher up to cover an area, we mount more speakers lower, providing direct coverage at a short distance to the audience. More speakers lower help us solve what I call ‘the restaurant problem’. Many times, a restaurant can seem loud and crowded when music is playing, and it can be hard to hear what’s going on, while other times, it seems the music is quieter and in the background. The times it is hard to hear often have the problem of too few speakers that are adjusted to a higher volume rather than more speakers adjusted to a lower volume, providing a more comfortable atmosphere. This is why we added many smaller speakers rather than a few large ones.

The control for the system needed to be simple. Transitions between staff members and coaches as well an inconsistent use to build habits, prevent a clean handoff of training and procedures. Because of this, we use a control system with a custom design touchscreen interface rather than a soundboard. A simple start button turns on the room, and then our intuitive “One Page” allows a user to make any adjustments within everyday events in one glance without needing in-depth training. Our one page design provides the adjustment of microphone levels and the routing of a presentation video signal all from one location. Fewer adjustments and fewer controls also offer a longer service life and a gap between service events.

To complete the system, we placed XLR audio inputs around the room as well as HDMI display inputs for easy use wherever events were happening. A true digital Audio Technica ES wireless system rounds out the package with interference-free use and extremely long battery life. Teachers and staff can walk in, press start, grab a microphone, and get to work. The TV’s power on automatically, the microphone levels are automatically mixed, and the system functions day in and day out. When the system is turned off from the touch screen, all levels and buttons reset to a standard point, allowing the next user to come in and work with the system without troubleshooting anything left in a non-standard state.

We love building systems that meet the user’s goal! We want to help end users do what they need right away rather than force them to spend time learning complicated systems. We use our experience in picking high-reliability components and pairing them with UI/UX pathways to guide the end user through the task they want to accomplish. Do you have a space with an ageing audio-visual system? Or a new one space that needs a reliable system? I often say every AV system costs the same amount of money. The only difference is whether you spend that up front and reduce headaches or spread the spending over time and add headaches in between. Let reliability be the goal for your system!