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Beyond the challenge of acoustics that is typically presented by gymnasiums, there is also the challenge of making a sound system usable in various situations. The situation most experience are basketball games and other similar sporting events. Many schools also use the gymnasium for assemblies, awards presentations,
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 You can see one of the speakers of the south bleacher speaker cluster in the upper left quadrant of this picture. This gym, like most, is highly reverberant. PMC used a combination of single point source design with speaker proximity to lessen the sound degrading effect of reverberation. The more sources of sound, the more reverberant fields are generated, making speech less intelligible. By clustering the speakers, fewer reverberant fields are generated.
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 The center speaker is powered by one side of a Peavey GPS900 power amplifier, providing 200 watts of power. More watts are required for the outside speakers because they are projecting sound a further distance than the center speaker. The secret to obtaining good dispersion throughout the bleachers is proper projection with proper powering of the speakers.
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Here you see the back side of the north side cluster of 3 Impulse 100 speakers. The speaker you see the front of, is a Peavey Impulse 1012 cabinet powered with a GPS900 power amplifier in bridged position. This provides the Impulse 1012 cabinet with 660 watts. We used the 1012 cabinet to focus sound toward the south bleachers, but focused at the basketball court. This allows for sound to be controlled on the main portion of the gym floor. For sporting events, this feature will be used for music during warm ups. The volume for this speaker can be completely controlled from the portable mixer rack. Source can be sent only to this speaker, or a combination of this speaker, and the bleacher clusters. Because Vandercook also has presentations that require seating on the gym floor, and seating in the south bleachers, PMC designed the system so the north bleacher speakers can be turned off, using the speaker for the floor and the south bleacher speakers. The persons speaking will do so from the position where the north bleachers would be if extended. This allows those listening to have the sound arrive to them from the direction the person is speaking. |
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Installing a sound system in a short period of time requires a great deal of cooperation from the school staff. Loal Hemminger, pictured here, was instrumental in providing access, information, and assistance whenever and wherever needed to facilitate a quick installation. |
 The first announcer to use the new system was JV Volleyball coach Tammie Sumeral who called a volleyball match in December. You can see the portable mixer rack to her left. The rack sits next to the announcer, if desired, so the announcer can control the volume of microphones and music sources. The announcer can also control the floor speaker volume independantly of the speakers for the bleachers. |
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Our thanks to the staff at Vandercook Lake High School, in particular Principal Tony Hollow and Superintendant Ron Bennett, for trusting Playford Music Co. to design and facilitate the installation of their new gymnasium sound system.
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graduations, and other functions. Vandercook Lake had a variety of needs that the new sound system needed to address.
The next two photos show the cluster of 3 Peavey Impulse 100 speakers for the south bleachers.
