New EAW NTL720 PA System at Minnesota High SchoolIn Minnesota's city of Norwood- Young America, in Carver County, its largest high school, Norwood-Young America High School, needed to have the sound in its auditorium enhanced to enable it to handle lectures with highly intelligible audio, as well as theatrical productions and concerts with full-bandwidth stereo sound. The school installed an EAW NTL720 compact, self-powered, three-way line array loudspeaker system. The system consists of six NTL720 modules arrayed in a single center cluster. They are flanked on either side by two EAW AX364 three-way full-range installation loudspeakers as the left-right stereo pair. Two EAW SB1001 subwoofers that are floor-mounted on casters and can be wheeled out as needed complete the full-range system, which was installed by Video Services, Inc. (VSI), a technology solutions contractor based in Mankato, Minnesota. And all loudspeakers are controlled via DSP processing from an EAW UX8800 digital signal processor. Hopkins, Minnesota-based Bormann Marketing, EAW's central and upper midwest manufacturer's representative, sold the system and worked closely with VSI during the installation. "This was the largest school auditorium we have done to date, and we knew it needed to be a high-end installation," notes Mike Kimes, project manager for VSI on the installation. "It's exciting to have done a project of this caliber, and the equipment that we were going to use had to be top-flight." The consultant on the job had already specified EAW's NTL720 as the main speaker enclosure, and Kimes says he could not have been happier. "I've been an EAW fan since forever," he says. "The installation went very smoothly - we used the EAW FB172 Flybar for the center cluster hang and that really facilitated the installation. The UX8800 handles the speaker processing well, and the system has great performance and no surprises - just what you want to have." Kimes says the center cluster is tuned to provide full-range coverage of the auditorium from the main seating area all the way into the upper balcony. A Biamp Nexia system is installed upstream of the UX8800 and is used as a preprogrammed switcher to allow high school staff to easily reconfigure the system between lecture and theatrical/music applications. "They can wheel the subwoofers out as needed, and the whole system is incredibly easy to operate and still offers top performance in any mode," says Kimes. "I'm a live-sound mixer on the weekends and the way this system sounds for music, I'd be happy taking it out on any concert tour. It's that good. It really raises the bar for what can be done in a high school auditorium. I'd like to see other high schools make this kind of investment in their future." 
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