RK Sound selected Allen & Heath's iDR fixed installation/live sound system, specifying an iDR-8 digital processing unit and the expansion units iDR-In and iDR-Out, providing a 16x16 matrix. The system can be set up, managed and controlled by PC and includes sophisticated digital processing features such as paging, delays, EQ, gates, compressors, limiters and remote pre-amp control.
Eight Shure MX412D/N microphones feed the iDR on the cashiers' side, which drives eight Work Studio 3 loudspeakers on the customers' side, with amplification from a Cloud CX-A850; similarly, eight Beyer MPC 65 half-cardioid microphones on the customers' side, feed eight Canford diecast powered speakers on the cashiers' side.
"When tickets go on sale for a big match and on match days, the ticket office is a bustling noisy environment and it is essential for the sales staff and customers to be able to communicate clearly and quickly," commented RK Sound's Jon Raper. "Our brief was to supply a system that was rugged and reliable, which would provide increased gain levels and clarity of sound. No mixing was to be involved but comprehensive signal processing was critical, with requirements for subtle gating, compression, equalization and limiting on each circuit. The iDR-8 provided all these at a modest price and could be expanded with iDR-in and iDR-out units to give us 16 inputs - enough for a two-way conversation at all eight ticket office windows."
To help control of the system, each cashier microphone has an on/off switch with an LED indicator, plus a powered loudspeaker with on/off switch. This way, unused windows can be "shut down" when not required. Raper concluded: "Microphone and loudspeaker positions are always important in a system like this but what made the difference between success and failure with the Tottenham installation was the signal processing ability of the Allen & Heath iDR-8 digital processor. It was simple to configure, provided easy adjustment, and gave us all the signal processing we needed in one compact box."
(Sarah Rushton-Read)
