An upgrade to the sound system at Notts County’s Meadow Lane football stadium has followed several years of ‘challenges’ presented by an aging PA. ‘There were a variety of comments from fans,’ says Martin Baker, Finance Consultant at Premier League Notts County. ‘Some said the sound wasn’t clear, others thought it was sometimes too loud and disappeared. It was just inconsistent, and we felt that it was difficult to engage properly with fans.’
The club opted to invest in a top-of-the-line solution to improve the matchday experience, while also meeting all the life safety requirements of the 18,816-capacity ground. To achieve these goals, Notts County turned to Electro-Voice, Dynacord and Bosch equipment.
As the oldest professional football club in the world and a founder member of the football league, Notts County has the kind of history that generates a large and dedicated fan base. While established in 1862, the club has been playing its home games at Meadow Lane since 1910, with the current all-seat stadium built in the early 1990s. When these stands were completed, the club purchased a second-hand sound system from another club and, while this initially worked, by the end of the 2022-23 season the age of the solution meant that it was no longer fit for purpose.
Having already added large screens to the stadium, Notts Country could see the extra value that A/V solutions would bring – combining these screens with improved sound to do everything from helping build the atmosphere before a game to showing on-pitch interviews at half time and after the match.
The club sought the help of local systems integrator UK Audio Engineering to design the new system. In turn, the installer called on the Electro-Voice and Dynacord UK office to ensure the system gave the fans the experience they wanted. ‘We worked with the UK Audio Engineering team to design the system from the ground up,’ explains Arthur Achard, Electro-Voice and Dynacord Senior Sales Manager. ‘There were no drawings available for the stadium, so we measured all the stands, the step count and the height of the roof. From this we could design acoustically what would fit best into the space we had.’
The design called on 40 EVH1152D 15-inch two-way coaxial loudspeakers supplemented by 18 EVF2151D subwoofers to provide a PA that could be compliant with safety requirements while also working for entertainment. These are driven by five IPX10:8 and one IPX5:4 fixed-installation amplifiers with processing and control via a pair of MXE5 Matrix Mix Engines. ‘The MXE5 allows us to recall presets for different matchday situations while the pro-sound solution is connected to the life-safety system via GPIO ports,’ adds E-V/Dynacord Sales Manager, Richard Leadbitter. ‘There’s a lot of processing there that allows us to tune the system.’
The loudspeakers at Meadow Lane are all controlled and monitored via SoniCue Sound System Software. ‘We worked with the end-user to give them a custom GUI for control,’ notes Leadbitter. ‘This gives them the control that they want, delivered in an easy-to-understand way.’
The second aspect of the sound system was to ensure that all required safety standards were met. To achieve this, UK Audio Engineering recmmended a Bosch Praesensa system that could directly connect into the pro system.
‘Praesensa takes care of all of the public address and any life-safety critical communications that need to be made,’ Achard explains.
Reflecting on the result, Jordan Alderton, Director of UK Audio Engineering, is pleased: ‘The sound quality is unrivalled in this league and you would have to go to the Premier League level to find something similar. We are very satisfied with how it has come together.’
‘We’re very happy,’ Baker adds. ‘I think the matchday experience will be a lot more enjoyable for all our spectators.’
