St Columba’s School Sound System

Work will be commencing next week. The St Columba’s school sound system installation will be completed within the school’s half term, ensuring that an effective sound system will welcome the pupils back into school after their short holiday.

There are 4 main areas (zones) requiring a sound system feed to supply messages and audio tones denoting the changing of lesson periods; the sports hall, the theatre, the John Paul building and the main building.

The sports hall, theatre and the John Paul building all have stand-alone sound systems. These systems are fed from the main building amplifier for general information but also have local dedicated feeds for microphones / CD players / tuners etc. As it currently stands,  these zones are all working and complete, with no complaints.

The main building system is a mixture of varying ceiling and cabinet speaker designs. Many are not working and some have local volume controls which are broken or too stiff to move. The volumes throughout this zone vary and many are quiet probably due to voltage tapping.

Old Barn Audio will therefore be installing 46 cabinet speakers and 23 ceiling speakers plus a new power amplifier and a UHF paddle aerial into the main building alone.

The existing amplifier driving the main building system is under-powered, due to numerous additions over time and will need to be changed.  Where necessary we will use existing cabling, but some cables will need to be added or re-routed. Our recommendation was to retain all existing working ceiling speakers as they sound fine and are mounted into the ceiling tiles. If systems still work and will complement our sound and audio installation, then we would never quote for replacement as standard. It is also unlikely that replacements would aesthetically marry or match the existing hole cuttings, so we will always recycle where we can, unless instructed otherwise by our customers.

The UHF radio microphone receiver is situated in the IT dept. The hand held microphone transmitter is used in the playground, so on occasions the range is compromised causing the signal to drop out. The receiver is dual diversity so has 2 aerials. The solution would be to drill a hole through the wall and mount a paddle aerial on the outside wall, which would increase the outdoor range dramatically to around 60 metres. The indoor reception would not be affected by this.

Once all work has been carried out, The St Columba’s school sound system will be an exceptional system for their needs. School sound systems are always more effective when they are installed during school holidays.

If you are looking for a new and effective working school sound system, then please contact Old Barn Audio on 01892 752246 or send us an enquiry and we will be back in touch as soon as possible.