Maintaining a suitable balance between its tradition and the requirements of a modern audience, the All England Club In London is constantly searching out new equipment and technologies to support the annual Wimbledon tennis tournament.
Having renewed its cable infrastructure in 2013, the club called in systems contractor RG Jones Sound Engineering to handle the relocation of the Broadcast Centre equipment room.
RG Jones Sales & Installation Director Jon Berry was quick to identify Crown DriveCore Install (DCi) Network amplifiers and BSS Audio Blu-160 signal processors as able to use its existing Soundweb London audio DSP system, which operates across the site in locations including the Centre Court clubhouse, the North courts, the Gate 3 turnstiles building and other areas.
RG Jones installed 24 Crown DCi 4|300N and DCi 4|600N four-channel amplifiers in the new PA room, as well as two BSS Audio Blu-160 processors. All Crown and BSS Audio equipment was supplied by UK distributor, Sound Technology. Crown’s DCi Network amplifiers use exclusive DriveCore amplifier technology, which enables powerful, energy-efficient operation from an amplifier just two rack spaces high. The amplifiers are compatible with Harman’s HiQnet Audio Architect system set-up and control software.
The amplifiers receive audio from the BSS Blu-160 processors via Blu link, a low-latency 256-channel fault-tolerant bus, which provides the required channel count and a cost-effective hardware solution that can be implemented over long distances.
‘Having to implement such a major overhaul of the system proved to be a blessing in disguise, as the relocation of the PA room confirmed our belief that network-compatible amplifiers were the way forward,’ Berry says. ‘The ability to network the amplifiers alongside the existing Soundweb London system has proven extremely useful. Having in-depth, instantaneous monitoring of the amplifiers gives us a degree of control that was unavailable before.’
Before beginning work on site, RG Jones conducted rigorous testing at their workshop to check that the amplifiers would integrate with the existing system: ‘While conducting these evaluations we realized that the depth and functionality of the amps’ DSP features were a major advantage in tailoring their performance to the speakers, the system and the venue,’ Berry reports.
For Berry and his team, the acid test was going from the workbench to configuring the installation for the Centre Court clubhouse. ‘The set-up and commissioning of the clubhouse system was the most complex part of the install, and in fact we found the process to be intuitive, easier than we thought it would be – and extremely effective. The flexibility, control capabilities and the sound quality are far better than we could have hoped for and we will certainly be specifying the Crown DCi amps and BSS Audio components for future projects.’
More: www.rgjones.co.uk
