The Eureka Volunteer Fire and Ambulance Company, which serves the greater Stewartstown, Pennsylvania area, boasts a fine social hall that it rents for meetings, wedding receptions, and other events.
At over 4,000 square-feet, the social hall can comfortably accommodate up to three hundred people but until recently its sound reinforcement system delivered poor coverage with marginal fidelity.
The company hired Stage Masters, a local AV integration firm, to renovate the room’s A/V system. Stage Masters called on Ashly Audio processing, amplification, and user control to deliver a new system that is perfectly tuned, reliable, and easy to use.
The new system is configured to flexibly meet the needs of all potential users and renters.
Shure wireless microphones provide users with a ready and convenient means of amplify voice and are joined by a stereo iPod input, a handful of mic- and line-level input jacks, and the outputs from the video playback system.
Shawn Fife, owner of Stage Masters, selected the Ashly ne24.24M processor based on its flexibility. For example, its I/O count is modular, and he initially outfitted the social hall’s ne24.24M with twelve inputs and four outputs.
“With the Ashly ne24.24M, I can scale the processing to the needs of a particular job,” said Fife. “Moreover, the unit is network ready, right out of the box, which makes it easy to help clients remotely.”
The Ashly ne24.24M’s modularity was especially useful in this instance, because the officials requested additional output channels after the system was already installed.
“I gave them Shure headset microphones for use on bingo nights, among other things,” said Fife. “After they used the system a few times, they changed their minds and wanted to give the caller a monitor channel to listen for bingo calls.
“Since we were already using all four of the installed output channels, they would have been out of luck were it not for the ne24.24M’s modularity. We were able to meet their request at little expense simply by adding another output card together with a small powered monitor at the caller’s position.”
The original four outputs from the Ashly ne24.24M feed four zones: the entrance hall, the kitchen, main hall left, and main hall right. Because the room is always oriented the same way for video presentations, it was possible to enhance the experience with stereo.
A new BenQ SH910 projector gives the room’s users crisp video presentations. Powered by an Ashly ne4250.70 amplifier, Pure Resonance SD4 Lay-In 2×2 drop ceiling speakers give the system impressive punch and clarity with no hot spots.
“For the power that they deliver, the Ashly amplifiers are extremely cost-effective,” said Fife. Although he hasn’t yet hooked into them as he has the ne24.24M, the Ashly ne4250.70 is also network-ready right out of the box.
User control of the system is simple and intuitive. An Ashly WR-5 push-button wall remote placed at the front of the room provides volume control of an adjacent microphone jack and computer input, as well as volume control of the system’s four wireless microphones.
A second Ashly WR-5 located in the kitchen provides volume control of two adjacent microphone jacks, as well as an adjacent iPod jack.
