While the Gwynedd-Mercy Academy – a Roman Catholic elementary (K-8) school in Springhouse, Pennsylvania – has won awards, the sound system in its extensive gym has been unsatisfactory for a while.

Designed to support physical education classes and sports events, drama and musical performances, worship services and other school activities, the gymnasium has a theatrical stage and versatile activity and seating space. The school’s activities had outgrown the capabilities of the system, however, and its coverage and sound quality were poor.

To compensate, users would turn up the volume causing feedback and intensifying reverberation. Because of these issues, the school often rented a sound system. The scheduling and cost of these rentals complicated event planning.

In mid-2013, school principal, Sister Anne Crampsie, asked music teacher Sal Scinto to research and propose a new sound system. Through a referral from another school, Scinto contacted Tony Albano of Naaman’s A/V who proposed a versatile new sound system using Community Veris2 and R-Series loudspeakers. The system uses two rows of R.5 loudspeakers distributed over the bleachers and the gym floor and a pair of V2-35 three-way loudspeakers above the stage opening for front fill. A V2-215S subwoofer can be quickly connected to the system for musical events.

For theatrical and musical performances, Albano provided a Soundcraft digital mixer and Shure wireless microphones. He added a Community dSPEC processor for system equalisation and configuration. For less complex events, users can bypass the digital mixer and operate the system from simple controls in the equipment rack. In addition, the system can be subdivided. For sports and other events that do not use the stage, the front loudspeakers and subwoofer are turned off. For on-screen presentations and similar events, the distributed loudspeakers are turned off and the system uses only the front loudspeakers and sub.

Because of this versatility, Scinto says Gwynedd-Mercy Academy no longer needs to rent a system for theatrical or musical performances and everyone’s expectations were met: ‘The sound quality is excellent, and the response from the speakers is very full and clear.’

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