HUNTINGTON BEACH, CA - NOVEMBER 30, 2001 - Just blocks from the Pacific Ocean
in Huntington Beach, California, Dwyer Middle School has been
open since 1906, when Orange County was still mostly orange groves.
As part of the school’s recent upgrade, the auditorium received
its first ever retrofit of the sound system. With the help of
PTA member, Larry Distler, the school determined that the best
system for the total upgrade was the new EVO Intelligent Loudspeaker
system from JBL Professional.
After evaluating the existing system, a total upgrade was deemed the only option.
Larry Distler had heard of JBL Professional’s new EVO system,
designed for schools, churches and meeting places. EVO’s
total system approach, ease of use and JBL’s reputation were
all appealing to the school. Distler contacted JBL and was referred
to Sterling Ventures of Manhattan Beach, California.
“Dwyer Middle School presented interesting challenges in upgrading the
sound system,” stated Scott Ramsey, President of Sterling
Ventures. “We went down to the school and met with Larry
and the school’s principal Ian Collins. After a site inspection,
we confirmed that the school would be an excellent application
for EVO. We engineered a fairly basic system – there’s
not a lot of engineering that JBL has left to do. We selected
the mounting system and from there installation was ultimately
a snap.”
Ramsey determined
the best place to mount the speakers was on each side of the stage,
about ten feet in the air. Using an optional WM300 bracket, physically
installing the speakers took less than an hour, but getting the
building ready took months.
As with renovations
at many older schools, bringing the internal systems up to current
code standards was the primary challenge. The original sound system
consisted of six small wood cabinets attached to the side walls,
with the wiring inside the walls. Because EVO was to be installed
at the front of the auditorium, it was not even practical to try
to utilize the old wiring. As you can see in the picture, the
old speakers are still in place.
Creative
thinking was used to determine how to route AC power and signal
to the speakers. Since the building’s construction is concrete,
drilling through walls was minimized. The solution was found next
to the ideal mounting point for the speakers – heating ducts.
Huntington Beach school engineers painstakingly routed conduit
through the ducts between the speaker positions and the mixing
location backstage. This work began in June and the auditorium
was finally ready for the speakers in September, shortly after
school started.
“EVO
has been an excellent choice for us, because we obviously needed
an entirely new system. The complete sound system, with the wireless
and wired microphones, mixer, cables and stands and of course
the speakers were all sorely needed by the school,” stated
Duane Cox, the new principal of the school who recently took over
for Collins. “The support from JBL has been outstanding.
We especially like the automatic set up and feedback elimination
that are built into EVO. Those will solve a lot of problems for
us down the road.”
The EVO System
chosen by Dwyer Middle School includes two EVOi.324 powered speakers
mounted on the sides of the stage. Each speaker is plugged into
the adjacent AC outlet and a standard XLR cable runs from the
speaker via conduit to the EVOi.net controller. The controller
is included in the integrated rack with two wireless microphone
receivers and a full featured 16 channel mixer with Lexicon effects.
The EVO System also includes six dynamic microphone, two wireless
microphones, four microphone stands, a dedicated measurement microphone
and all of the cables necessary for a typical installation. This
complete EVO System is complete and easily ordered and is shipped
in just four boxes with complete installation and operation instructions.
EVOi.324 speakers and EVOi.net controllers can also be purchased
separately.
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