Multi-room 100V line install project

[TomHoward]

Afternoon all

 

Just to set the scene - I'm a theatre technician at an academic venue, and they've asked me to look into spec'ing a multi-room background music and paging system for the sports centre, that we could have our maintenance team install in-house, to compete with a fully installed quote. I have experience in single-room installations and in some multi-zone setups but I'm just looking for some input in terms of signal path and specific equipment recommendations, to see what others might spec in this situation.

 

What we've got is a sports centre, which has four fitness rooms - two are in the main building, and two are in an outlying building, approx 20m from the main building. Initially the system will provide BGM and paging to the local two rooms, with the capacity to expand to the other two in the near future. (They're looking to run CCTV from the outlying building, so we will wait until that install to run the cabling.)

 

The thought is that all of the sources are at a reception area in the main building.

 

Source is initially something like two CD players and two radio tuners, along with a paging mic if possible.

 

Each of the four rooms would ideally have it's own level control (most likely controlled at reception, there doesn't need to be local control) although a local mute control (if it could be done easily - say a straight switch on a 100V line system?) would be advantageous in the outlying fitness suites - as otherwise someone would have to go back to reception to mute?

 

What I'm thinking is that there are two ways of doing this - run 100V line from each of the four rooms back to a rack of 100V line amps behind reception (I'm thinking something like Adastra?), and have some kind of routing behind reception, or run signal to each of the rooms and keep the amplification and source selection distributed? The distributed amplification means local level control, as well as the possibility of local source, if a fitness trainer brings an iPod or their own CD etc.

 

I'm not sure of any products for the switching of sources - I'm guessing I'd need some kind of four-in-four-out matrix switcher, and the paging - if the amps were all behind reception I could build a unit with relays that switches between source and paging mic - or buy amplifiers with specific paging features?

 

Any thoughts on this welcome. I haven't drawn up a solid plan yet as I was only asked to look at this today.

[MarkPAman]

It's a long time since I did anything big with 100V systems & I guess they don't use as many relays as they once did! So this advice may be a bit out of date, as clever digital stuff was only just starting to happen when I got out of the install business .

 

First, put all the amps & control stuff in one place.

 

A system such as you describe could probably be put together using off the shelf items from TOA (and others), but could get complicated. It really depends on how sophisticated you want to make it:

 

You've got 4 music sources there - do you want to be able to freely route each one to each area, or will they be assigned permanently? Playing the same music to all areas would simplify things considerably, but unless it really is only background music is probably not what you want.

 

Do you want the paging to go to different zones while music is uninterrupted in the others, or is it to be just a "Call All" system?

 

Do you want music to fade out when paging, or just cut out?

 

I suggest that it you want some of the cleverer stuff above (and other things I've forgotten about) then get the manufacturer to put a rack together for you, then just attach your cables to the back. I've done this many times with large systems in sports stadia & airports etc.

 

For local control, I'd put in volume switches rather than just on/off - they don't cost much & are nicer. But, if you want the paging to work with volume turned down then you need to run a three wire system.

[TomHoward]

I'm thinking off the shelf bits, unless I can't find a reasonably priced switch / source routing unit, in which case I might build an idiot-friendly four-way rotary switch unit just to switch mono sources to each area. Each source would be routable to each area as opposed to fixed.

 

For the paging, I'd probably just make it mute the area - I was thinking a unit with Room 1, 2, 3, 4 and all - no point going into the complexity of making it routable beyond one or all. I was thinking that if I set the amp levels and build a paging / switch unit (unless I can find a cheap one that fits the bill) I'd build one with rotary switches, non-latching push switches for the paging and relays (unless I can just route the audio through a push switch and do away with the relay)..

 

I'm not expecting local control to be something that we go for, given the complexities involved with paging.

[MarkPAman]

4 of these would do most of the hard work for you. If the mic input has remote switching (can't tell from a quick look), then just add this microphone and the job's done!

[TomHoward]

There's a M-9000 that TOA make that would seem to do it all as well, although I'm not sure of the total cost once you've added up all the input/output modules. There's also a couple of Phonic mixers that seem appropriate, like the ZX4, which has switchable three-source inputs, and trim control, for each of four outputs, and paging - although that doesn't allow for routable paging, it'd just be to all.

 

I think I'll draw up a couple of options and see what each comes out at total cost - I hadn't thought of racking up multiple lower-cost amps. Personally I've used the Adastra amps in the past and found them to be pretty good for the price point.

 

Re speakers - I'm thinking of either something like the Adastra / SKY 5" & horn variants, as it's only for BGM and they're around £50/pair, or alternatively something like Control 5 with an external tap. I reckon 100V might be the way to go given the distances involved, but I may be wrong?

[Andrew C]

Canford Audio sell a variety of bits, you could price you from them and be fairly sure you were safe. I speced an Oxmoor system some years back that sounds quite like what you are aiming at. Never implemented, so I don't know how it would have worked in practice.

[Jivemaster]

Start to work out exactly what you want to achieve! Some fitness places are nightclub loud, some have radio2 or Heart on in the background. If you are going to have visiting tutors with sound and radio mic then you will need some "in room" machinery, otherwise the more that can be in a locked rack in reception the better.

 

100v line gives you one range of speakers -usually not cheap and usually not bassy. 8 ohm gives you easier access to speakers and you can use 5a twin over reasonable distances -I used to use a 50m speaker lead for one regular job -lossy but it was the only way and it did work.

[TomHoward]

Isn't going to be nightclub loud. I could use 8ohm and run 2.5mm twin over the 30/40m to the furthest units?

 

I'm drawing up a current first proposal, as I think the best way to approach this is going to be listing a variety of specs and price points, and being as frank as possible about the cheap ones.

[TomHoward]

Isn't going to be nightclub loud. I could use 8ohm and run 2.5mm twin over the 30/40m to the furthest units?

 

I'm drawing up a current first proposal, as I think the best way to approach this is going to be listing a variety of specs and price points, and being as frank as possible about the cheap ones.

 

A concurrent post has been automatically merged from this point on.

 

So here's my first proposal, which is absolute bottom dollar. Based on 4x Adastra 50W amps and a ZX4, which limits inputs.

 

http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/7038/cheapv1.jpg

 

Things I'm wondering about-

 

I've spec'd the Pulse CDP50, in another thread Paul recommended the DVD player version, which is £30 cheaper - are there any disadvantages of the DVD player? I'm hoping the CD has a repeat function which remembers it's state between power cycles, does the DVD have a repeat function at all?

 

Does anyone know a cheap rackmount radio tuner? Pulse don't seem to make one, I could rack up a hifi unit if need be, but I'd need to look into that. Alternatively could bring forward a Freeview/Freesat installation which is planned and use that for radio tuner.

[dbuckley]

I'd suggest you look at Cloud stuff.

 

I use a Cloud 4 x 50w amp at home (though not with 100V, but that's an option; its an older model but very like the 46/50) and it has several input sources and mic routing in the box, and you can add VCAs and control panels to it by using add-in modules.

[TomHoward]

How much worse off would I be running 8ohm instead? Some of those distances seem long to me.

 

Does anyone know of any 100V line speakers that don't sound shocking - if I was to spec a Cloud 4x200W quad amp (at considerable cost increase), what would be a decent spec'd speaker to match?

 

A concurrent post has been automatically merged from this point on.

 

Cloud 46/50 with remote source selects looks good, I think I'd have to spec some JBL control series speakers to match it - this is going to end up a lot more than the Adastra BGM system, but then it won't be rubbish.

 

I'm looking at:

 

Cloud 46/50 with 100V line module (CLX4160) - around £800 inc module

4x RSL-6, or 3x RSL-6 and an LM-1 for the instructor room - allowing local input & mic (not that I expect the mic would be used, but the input would) - alternative would be to run a signal cable into a spare audio input all the way to the outlying instructor room, but that might be a bit noisy.)

PM1 1 zone or PM4 4 zone paging mic, depending on requirements.

[TomHoward]

Cloud proposal with pricing:

 

http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/8981/cloudv4.jpg

 

Price of the 46/50 actually is only £10 more than Phonic mixer and Adastra amps. I'd be interested in any recommendations for speakers between the 5" Adastras and the JBL 25AVs.

 

Also recommendations for a rackmount radio tuner, or should I rack a hifi tuner?

[Andrew C]

I've used four Control 5s (100V) in a gym. Not too shabby, still running 15 years or so later!

[TomHoward]

There's the Control 23s as well as the Control 25s, which are a 3" driver instead of 5". Also, I noticed (I asked our supplier for a recommendation on 100V speakers) that I've been offered the 25AV as opposed to the 25T - both with 100V transformers, but the AV is sheilded as opposed to the T - although that doesn't seem to be the only difference on the specs. Might look further into whether the Ts are cheaper and still suitable.

[J Pearce]

We've recently had some APART Mask 6s installed, ours are 8ohm but they're available as 100Vs. Our 8 ohms sound very good for the money.