Wagner College's Seahawks Retake the Field with Community R-Series

Founded in Rochester in 1883, Wagner College moved to its current location in 1918. Since then, the original 38-acre campus has grown to 105 acres overlooking New York Harbor and the surrounding city.

The school's athletics department boasts several NCAA teams, with the Seahawks football team among the most prestigious in the Northeast Conference. The team's home field recently underwent a modern renovation, including a new sound system installed by Farmingdale-based Advance Sound. Advance Sound's Thomas De Pace explains the challenges in creating the system design.

"They wanted more than just a new football field," says De Pace. "They wanted to reinvent their team's whole atmosphere. Obviously, speech intelligibility is always important, but the school also has a very rich student culture, with several dance teams who perform at the games. They needed something that was good for spoken word, but delivered great full-range musicality too."

The system is centered on a pair of Community Pro R.25 all-weather systems, with low frequency reinforcement via an R2SUB subwoofer. The loudspeakers are mounted onto the scoreboard using custom brackets created by Advance Sound. Crown CDI-Series amplifiers power the system. An Ashly NE2424m processor provides DSP that also enables them to supply audio feed to the local TV station. A Middle Atlantic UPS2000R power backup unit assures that, in the event of a power outage, the R.25 loudspeakers will remain functional for emergency announcements.

De Pace points out that the R-Series' tight focus also helps the school to be a better neighbor. "There's a large apartment complex about 35 yards away from the field," he says. "The R.5's coverage pattern enabled us to direct the sound onto the stands and the field, without blasting the neighbors."