The school's athletics department boasts several NCAA teams, with the Seahawks football team among the most prestigious in the Northeast Conference. The team's home field recently underwent a modern renovation, including a new sound system installed by Farmingdale-based Advance Sound. Advance Sound's Thomas De Pace explains the challenges in creating the system design.
"They wanted more than just a new football field," says De Pace. "They wanted to reinvent their team's whole atmosphere. Obviously, speech intelligibility is always important, but the school also has a very rich student culture, with several dance teams who perform at the games. They needed something that was good for spoken word, but delivered great full-range musicality too."
The system is centred around a pair of Community R2-52Z all-weather systems, with low frequency reinforcement via an R2SUB subwoofer. The loudspeakers are mounted onto the scoreboard using custom brackets created by Advance Sound. Crown CDI-Series amplifiers power the system. An Ashly NE2424m processor provides DSP that also enables them to supply audio feed to the local TV station. A Middle Atlantic UPS2000R power backup unit assures that, in the event of a power outage, the R2 loudspeakers will remain functional for emergency announcements.
De Pace points out that the R-Series' tight focus also helps the school to be a better neighbour. "There's a large apartment complex about 35 yards away from the field," he says. "The R2-52Z coverage pattern enabled us to direct the sound onto the stands and the field, without blasting the neighbours."
(Jim Evans)
