PreSonus StudioLive Series III Ecosystem Brings Clarity of Message to the Activities at Newton High School

As part of the Newton Community School District, Newton High School strives to empower its students with the ability to achieve a lifetime of personal success. Encompassing grades nine to 12 and a student body population of roughly 820, the school offers a wide range of academic and extracurricular activities to help engage its attendees. Recently, the school upgraded the sound reinforcement capabilities in its auditorium using an assortment of loudspeakers and audio mixing products drawn from various catalogs offered by Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based PreSonus Audio Electronics.

Communication Innovators of Pleasant Hill, Iowa, an AV design/build integration firm, was contracted to design and deploy the new sound reinforcement equipment at Newton High School. After consulting with school officials to ascertain their goals and objectives, Jeff Luhr, the company's AV engineer/project manager, penned a system consisting of WorxAudio X2i-P all-in-one compact line arrays, V5T-P ultra-compact line arrays, WorxAudio WaveSeries 12Ai loudspeakers, a TL218SS subwoofer, and a pair of Sceptre S8 studio monitors. He discussed the project.

"The auditorium at Newton High School is a unique space that serves a wide range of student activities," Luhr says. "The main section of the room is a trapezoidal shape that is roughly 60' deep with a width of 60' in the front expanding to 90' wide in the back of the room. That space is separated out into three main seating sections, with two center isles and two isles along the outside walls. The room has two additional circular seating areas located at the rear of the room with a diameter of 40'; one of which rotates to create a separate lecture hall space."

"To address the various uses," he says, "we installed two WorxAudio X2 all-in-one line arrays on each side of the proscenium in order to cover the main section of the floor. We also installed a WorxAudio V5 compact line array element adjacent to the front of the catwalk to cover the first few rows of the house. Two WorxAudio WaveSeries 12Ai loudspeakers were flown in the rear of the house to effectively cover the back two circular seating sections. BSS signal processing was specified in the space, enabling us to mute the rotating room's WaveSeries 12Ai loudspeaker when in lecture room mode. For low frequency support, a single WorxAudio TL218SS subwoofer was flown above the catwalk, which provides low frequency support in the space while still retaining the clean aesthetics of the room."

Augmenting the aforementioned loudspeakers, the Communication Innovators team also deployed two PreSonus Sceptre S8 studio monitors in the production booth for monitoring purposes. Further, there is a single WorxAudio V5M loudspeaker installed on the front most stage batten. This serves as a fixed stage monitor for student choirs and theatrical productions.

For audio mixing, the Communication Innovators team also specified two PreSonus StudioLive Series III mixers. In the sound booth, they placed a StudioLive 32 32-channel digital mixer and USB audio interface. This is augmented by a StudioLive 32R 32-channel rack mixer/stage box along with an NSB 16.8 networked stage box to complete the StudioLive Series III ecosystem.

When queried about those attributes of the PreSonus equipment that proved ideal for this project, Luhr offered the following thoughts, "I love the fact that everything from the loudspeakers to the mixing consoles comes from PreSonus. Together, the versatile mixing capabilities and the clarity, wide dispersion, and clean mounting solutions offered by the company's loudspeakers create a total package that delivers great sound and a rich feature set. There's a tremendous amount of functionality and value in this company's offerings."

With the new equipment fully operational, Luhr reports that his client is very pleased. "We had a few company representatives present for the first several events that took place using the new equipment and it was a very gratifying experience," he says. "You could actually hear the students and faculty alike saying things like, 'it sounds so big and full' plus numerous other positive comments. The PreSonus loudspeakers and mixers create a terrific system that's hard to beat at this price point. In summary, the replacement of the 40-year old horn-based PA system really made a lasting difference in this space."

To learn more about the services of Communication Innovators, visit the company online at www.gotoci.com.