Kearsney College, a prestigious 92-year-old Christian values-based school in Valley of a Thousand Hills, KZN, recently upgraded their 600-seater performance venue’s audio and lighting systems. Commissioning Niklas Fairclough through his company Northwind, it was he who handled the acoustic, electro-acoustic design, lighting and installation to their existing performance space. Kearsney College is hailed for its art, culture and sports programs and in particular its celebrated choir so a high quality, precise and great sounding system was of paramount importance. The Kearsney College choir is a twelve-time gold medal winner at the World Choir Games, starting in 2000.

Fairclough, a recording studio owner, audio engineer and consultant, has an impressive track record of designing and contracting performance venues all over the globe – including a recent installation at the CTMI Church in Trianon, Mauritius – so his expertise were exactly the ticket the college needed to bring their upgrade to fruition. The client brief at Kearsney College was to create a multi-purpose venue to handle rock gigs, drama and musicals.

Audio

EAW was Northwind’s go-to choice for the performance halls audio system installation and Surgesound, due to their superb hands on approach, technical knowledge and great systems support, were naturally the preferred supplier.

For starters, sixteen EAW NTL720s – eight per side – were selected for the main hangs. These are self-powered, tri-amplified, three-way sealed line source boxes with dual six-inch low frequency drivers, dual six-inch mid frequency drivers, and six one-inch HF domes. They offer 110 degrees of horizontal dispersion and 12 degrees vertical. Frequency response comes in at 17Hz – 20kHz with a maximum calculated output of 128dB SPL peak and 122dB SPL long term. The NTL720s were chosen for their notable high-fidelity and solid sound pressure level performance.

Of course there are a fair amount of challenges that come with any installation.
Fairclough comments: “The system was to be installed whilst the hall was still being used for scheduled events. Extensive steelwork had to be installed to support the hangs and steelwork up in closed off ceiling voids made orientation a challenge.’
Low end duties are handled by two EAW SB1001s per side; dual-18 inch vented sub bass enclosures in “clam-shell’ configuration. Their frequency response is 20Hz – 160Hz (-10dB) and their maximum calculated output is 135dB SPL peak and 129dB SPL long term.

The amplification and processing for the NTL720s are all housed on-board. Each enclosure totals 1 500 watts broken down into 3 x 500w for the low, mid and high frequency drivers.

“NT’ in an EAW product model name alludes to the fact that the loudspeaker carries on-board amplification and UX processing. The NT design overcomes the problems of transient smearing and honk due to internal reflections within the horn and phase plug. EAW implemented their Focusing technology, which is specialised DSP that employs exact, complex filter responses required to eliminate smear and honk, resulting in a smooth frequency response, true transient performance, and a lack of colouration. Using the EAW Pilot software, Greybox and Focusing settings can be sent directly to the NTL720s, which are all networked via RT45 connections.

In terms of the Kearsney installation, the UX DSP along with EAW’s Focusing technology allowed for accurate control of the venue coverage pattern and level control for all 16 NTL720s. The result is a consistent coverage from the front seating area, extending to the rear and balcony areas.

For the subwoofers, a single Lab.Gruppen PLM14000 amplifier with on-board Lake processing was employed. The PLM14000 is a two-input, two-output amplifier that offers 7000w per channel at 2Ohms or 4350w per channel at 4Ohms. The on-board Lake processing offers parameters for gain, delay, cross-over slope, EQ and limiting, utilising exclusive lake processing algorithms.

Of course, Van Damme cabling, another of Surgesound’s products was used extensively throughout the installation. Tourcat CAT 5E flexible stranded conductor cabling was used for the active NTL720 DSP system and the Lab.Gruppen PLM14000 and Tour Grade 4 x 2.5mm speaker cable was utilised for the Subwoofers.

For microphone and instrument cables, Tour Grade Classic XKE and Pro Grade XKE cable was used, respectively. Finally, for the active on-stage monitors Ambicore Power and Signal Multicore 10A cable was installed.

When asked about how the particular brands he installed made the job easier, Fairclough had this to say: “There is a great, articulate “studio-esque’-type sound from the EAW NTL720s. It’s like sitting in front of large Genelecs! Secondly, the Lab.Gruppens are industry standards. They provide superb sound and awesome reliability. I am proud of the fact that the school has a far reaching vision that encompasses a no-compromise approach to its projects. This allowed us to spec and design this particular phase with the right equipment to handle a brief that was multipurpose.’

For on-stage monitoring, six active Mackie/EAW HD1221 wedges were selected. These monitors are installed with transducers designed by EAW and are custom tuned by them. They are 1200W a piece, powered by on-board class-D power amplifiers, and include a 12′ neodymium woofer and a 1.75′ compression driver.

Finally, a Midas Pro2c was installed as the FOH console.

Lighting

A hybrid lighting system was installed with an aim to provide a good backbone for expansion in the future. A Martin M1 control desk was the hub of the lighting rig combined with a Martin DMX 5.5 RDM Splitter and an Electon dimmer were the go-to choices. The M1 features a high resolution folding touchscreen, digital LCD buttons, multiple wing attachment options, and support for four DMX universes with up to 8 192 parameters and 1000 cuelists. With the DMX 5.5 RDM Splitter, data integrity is maintained over long DMX runs while boosting the weak DMX signals to their original output level.

Comprehensively, the following lighting products were installed and supplied by Johannesburg-based company, Electrosonic:

• Martin M1 control desk.
• Martin DMX 5.5 RDM splitter
• Electron dimmer
• 9 of Martin Mac Aura
• 4 of Martin Mac 350
• Robert Juliat Cricket 1000W
• follow spot
• 8 of Versalight LED RGB
• 12 of Par 64
• 4 of Versalight LED Amber/White H/Power Par 64.
• Jem Compact Hazer Pro

The wrap

When working with the right gear installed by the right team, an effective client-pleasing system can be achieved. Kearsney College is an institution with a noble air about it and given its 92-year history, it clearly has had a long-term vision for the future. Part of that long-term vision is the need for a quality audio and lighting system to service its performance hall and it’s world-class choir, which, from the looks of it, has been meritoriously achieved by Northwind and I’m sure given the flexibility and high quality of both the audio and lighting systems, they will be enjoying their future events immensely for years to come.