Located in the heart of Central Florida, Lake-Sumter State College (LSSC) serves 8,600 students annually and a 25:1 student-to-faculty ratio. The fast-growing LSSC is experiencing growing pains in its classrooms and campus facilities, and to meet the new demands, the college recently upgraded the audio system in The Everett A. Kelly Convocation Center with amplifiers from LEA Professional.
The multipurpose gymnasium is home to LSSC’s NJCAA volleyball program. With seating for up to 1100 spectators, the convocation center also hosts local high school basketball games and tournaments. Outside of athletics, the facility can be transformed to hold elegant events such as award ceremonies, banquets, and special events. A key event each semester is Commencement. Sound intelligibility was not adequate for many of the activities taking place in the gym, so staff reached out to Daniel Hunt, director of business development of JSC Systems, to design and deploy an AV system with better intelligibility.
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“Like many gyms, LSSCs had lengthy reverberation. The spoken word accompanying games and other activities sounded muffled at best, so we knew we had to implement a system with better directivity,” said Hunt. “The old system was also underpowered, and we knew a perfect way to correct that particular issue was to deploy amps from LEA.”
The system utilized Crestron DSPs—one courtside to interface with event mics and another in the sound booth rack. LED displays adorn the walls which also double as digital scoreboards. Danley Sound Labs subwoofers were flown in the center of the gym, and multipurpose horns were mounted around the court. Hunt's teams also installed acoustic treatments to further reduce reverberation.
Hunt deployed several Connect Series 704 amplifiers to power the subwoofers and horns installed around the gymnasium. The IoT-enabled four-channel 704 provides 700 watts per channel, supports Hi-Z (70V or 100V) and Lo-Z selectable by channel, and features Smart Power Bridge technology. With three ways to connect, the school can engage the built-in Wi-Fi access point, connect to the center’s Wi-Fi, or connect to the local area network via Cat5 or Cat6 cable.
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The Connect Series features LEA Cloud, which enables AV teams to remotely control and monitor the amplifiers regardless of the location or time of day. Whether from within the gymnasium or elsewhere, controlling the Connect Series amplifiers from afar helps teams work more efficiently.
“Taming the reverberation in a gym isn’t easy—the high ceilings, hard bleachers, and parquet floors combined with down-firing loudspeakers is a testament to JSC’s capabilities,” said Brian Pickowitz, VP of marketing for LEA Professional. “We’re very pleased to have played a role in elevating the audio experience at LSSC.”
