Chadron State College’s Community Systems Music to Fans’ Ears

Chadron
State College’s athletic facilities have been given a long-anticipated update,
with new sound systems installed at the school’s Softball Field and Don Beebe
Stadium at Elliot Field. Rapid City, SD-based Haggerty’s Audio Video designed
and installed the systems, both centered on Community Professional R-Series
loudspeakers.

As
Haggerty’s Steve Foudray explains, the facilities had been sorely in need of
audio improvements.

“The
stadium had several issues, each reinforcing the other,” he says.
“The system itself was underpowered — just a few old horns and a single
100 Watt amp — so it was low fidelity and distorted to begin with. The horns
were also mounted on the scoreboards at one end of the field, so there was a
time delay between the announcer and the horns. And the horns were directly
across from the large gymnasium building, so there was an echo problem as
well.”

Dale Grant,
Chadron State’s vice president for
administration, confirms that the old systems left the college wanting.

“I
don’t think anyone who has been to a football game at Elliott Field would argue
that we needed to do something different there,” he said.

The
Haggerty’s team of Foudray, Mike Moore, and Dan Haggerty replaced the
40-year-old horns with four Community R.5 full-range two-way loudspeakers
covering the bleacher seating, and a pair of R1-94 long-throw systems for the
end zones.

“We
created a vertical array with four R.5 subwoofers and an R.5HP on a custom
bracket,” says Foudray “It keeps the SPL of the bleachers under
control, and fills the entire field.”

The systems
are powered by Electrovoice CPS Series amplifiers, with Rane DSP providing
system processing.

At the
school’s softball field, three R.5COAX two-way systems are driven by a Crown
XTI 1000. Both systems were designed using EASE and tuned using Smaart.

Foudray
reports the school is thrilled with the improvements, having long been lacking a
good sound system.

“They’ve
never even bothered with music, since it sounded so bad,” he says.
“But we’ve used theR-Series on dozens of projects, and there’s
nothing better, particularly for outdoor use. I’m really impressed with the
R.5-Sub. It’s a powerhouse.