Berkeley Preparatory School, a pre-K to grade 12 day school in Tampa that has theater productions, chapel services, daily staff meetings in its auditorium and more, recently implemented 40 channels of Sennheiser’s EW-DX wireless system, replacing its long-used Sennheiser G3 wireless.
The school’s productions technical director, Christopher Cook, is a long-time Sennheiser user, dating back to his time touring with musicians more than 20 years ago. “I started working in audio in 2000, and when you go on tour, people are picky with what brand they use,” he says. “Through traveling and using different wireless systems and microphones, I found that I always got more gain out of Sennheiser versus other wireless brands. I fell in love with Sennheiser early and kept with it.”
Cook adds that the school needed a fully networked approach that could be managed offsite, explaining, “Our campus is 80 acres, so I’m not able to walk from room to room – I have to hop on the golf cart. Now I just go on computer, pop on Control Cockpit and make sure everything is good. We are networking all audio consoles.”
Sennheiser EW-DX can be managed via Control Cockpit so Cook can oversee, coordinate and troubleshoot wireless operations from his laptop. As Berkeley Prep’s wireless setup spans three black box theaters across the elementary, middle and upper school divisions, a main stage 820-seat theater, a recital space and a new chapel, being able to manage all of these spaces and more from a centralized hub was a key consideration in their wireless audio decision.
He worked closely with Berkeley Prep’s partners at Beamworks to plan, purchase and rollout the EW-DX system across campus, with operations manager Drew McMullian providing hands-on support to the installation process. “Getting everything connected and networked has been incredible,” McMullian says. “They built a beautiful new chapel recently, and the AV room is up a spiral staircase, so it is not accessible if you need to get there quickly. Being able to control the wireless from the Control Cockpit software is a necessity for Christopher. All of this, with the flexibility to use any Neumann or Sennheiser capsules to outfit the church choir, made this a spot-on setup for Berkeley Prep.”
Situated near downtown, the school is a few blocks from Tampa International Airport and there are a dozen digital TV transmitters in the surrounding area that add an additional layer of complexity. “Frequency coordination can be hinky,” Cook says. “I’ve had bad experiences in the past and have had to learn what high traffic times are at the airport. For instance, in the past I couldn’t do outdoor rehearsals around 2 pm without getting squashed by air traffic.”
McMullan adds, “In this area, anything from 500 to 540 MHz band completely disappeared.” Beamworks has been equipping the local Tampa market with wireless systems since the late 1990s, and he has almost two decades of first-hand experience with the crowded RF environment and how to navigate it, “EW-DX can find nooks and crannies that work whereas regular bands don’t even function.”
