Damian Orritt, installation contracts manager of Sounds Commercial, commented: "The old system was underpowered and also very dated in terms of equipment, range and reliability. There was little or no fault monitoring and quite simply it was not up to the club's expectations for the forthcoming season."
The new sound system had a number of roles to fulfil, firstly it had to be integrated with the voice alarm system to form part of a life safety system that would comply with BS 5839 part 8, BS 7827 and BS EN 60849. It also had to be able to relay information and safety messages from the Police Matchday Commander to the crowd of up to 22,000 football fans. Both of these required the use of loudspeakers capable of precisely delivering highly intelligible speech at high levels to all spectator zones, with minimal spill to the surrounding commercial and residential areas.
The final requirement for the sound system was that it should be able to be used as a DJ driven matchday entertainment system, capable of quality high-level music playback to help add to the exciting matchday atmosphere.
To meet these requirements a system was designed from scratch, based around Community's powerful, full-range weather resistant R-Series loudspeakers, powered by Crown CTS2000 amplifiers and controlled by a pair of BSS Soundweb London units connected on a fibre network. The loudspeaker system was designed by audio consultant Steve Jones, with support and acoustic modelling by Community's Technical Applications Group (TAG).
A total of 22 Community R1s and 25 Community R.5s provide the level and coverage required for the Dolman, Attyeo and Williams stands; the Wedlock Stand will soon be subject to redevelopment and will receive a new audio system as part of the process. In addition a pair of Community RSH462 Focussed Array voice range horns were installed to provide coverage on the playing surface.
(Jim Evans)
