ELKHART, Indiana – Located at Florida’s Pensacola Christian College, the Dale Horton Auditorium (DHA) recently underwent a complete audio system upgrade featuring HARMAN’s Crown CTs series amplifiers with PIP-BLU programmable input processor cards. The DHA, one of the largest performing arts venues in the Southeast, has a seating capacity of 3,500 and features a stunning interior that artfully blends angular and curved surfaces, fabric and wood and multi-level seating and houses a full working stage and orchestra pit.
“The Dale Horton Auditorium is an absolute gem – with one glaring exception,” said John Fuqua, vice president of Pensacola commercial audio and lighting contractor All Pro Sound. “The sound system was the original one that was installed when the Dale Horton Auditorium was built in 1986. It needed to be completely replaced.”
The facility needed a system that was versatile and could accommodate its wide variety of activities including theatrical and musical productions as well as the college’s own productions, lectures, and worship services. The college uses the DHA continuously for all types of events.
When it came to specifying the amplifiers Fuqua’s team knew they didn’t simply need raw power – they needed flexibility and control. “Crown CTs Series amplifiers with BLU-Link cards were ideal for this application.” Crown CTs amps feature programmable input processor cards that provide BLU-Link functionality. In addition to multiple digital audio bus channels to and from the amplifier, the PIP-BLU card offers an RJ-45 Ethernet jack for remote configuration, control and monitoring and analog input and output connectors.
Twenty Crown CTs 3000, 10 CTs 1200 and seven CTs 600 amplifiers, all with PIP-BLU cards are installed in the auditorium. The amps operate in conjunction with two BSS BLU-160 signal processors with digital audio bus, two BLUCARD-IN input cards, six BLUCARD-OUT output cards and two BLU-BOB2 break-out-boxes.
“The Crown CTs Series amplifiers with BLU-Link cards have remote monitoring and control capability, so we can operate, control power sequencing and configure them from a central location,” Fuqua noted. “We’re using the BSS Audio Soundweb London platform because we already have it deployed in several other areas on campus including the Crowne Centre auditorium, which is another large facility. Using BSS throughout Pensacola Christian College ensures compatibility and familiarity with the equipment and programming by everyone who uses it.” In addition to the Crown and BSS components, a Soundcraft Vi6 digital mixing console is used in the Dale Horton Auditorium for front of house mixing.
“The Crown amplifiers and BSS components work flawlessly together. Actually, the biggest challenge in the DHA installation was the fact that it was labor intensive – we had to completely replace the existing 26-year-old system and put in a new one that was ready to go in the space of five weeks. The result was worth it – the new system is far superior in overall sound quality and speech intelligibility, and the amps are much more adaptable to whatever kind of program they want to hold in the DHA, from a single lecturer to a complete theatrical production,” added Fuqua.
HARMAN (www.harman.com) designs, manufactures and markets a wide range of audio and infotainment solutions for the automotive, consumer and professional markets — supported by 15 leading brands, including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon® and Mark Levinson®. The Company is admired by audiophiles across multiple generations and supports leading professional entertainers and the venues where they perform. More than 25 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and infotainment systems. HARMAN has a workforce of about 13,900 people across the Americas, Europe and Asia, and reported net sales of $4.4 billion for year ended June 30, 2012.