Professional standard reinforcement for Japanese nursery
Published: ASIA
JAPAN: The kind of sound reinforcement system more usually found in a corporate installation has been supplied to a Japanese nursery school for its students to use during term-time productions. The design incorporates One Systems loudspeakers, Tannoy in-ceiling speakers and an Ashly Audio pêma integrated processor and amplifier.
Located in Himeji City, Sugoh Nursery School installed the professional-grade system following a move from its home of 34 years into a new building described as state-of-the-art. While the nursery’s previous address also boasted a sound reinforcement system for use during school shows, it was described as betraying ‘very poor’ speech intelligibility by Masaki Morimoto, president of Tokyo-based A/V design and installation company M&N, who handled systems integration for the new site.
The completed nursery now boasts an audio design comprising a pair of One Systems 108IM loudspeakers for front of house sound, supported by six Tannoy CMS 601 and CMS 501 ceiling speakers. The nursery also has the option of using two wired and four wireless microphones, plus inputs for two auxiliary sources. The Ashly pêma 4125 provides microphone preamplification, matrix mixing, equalisation, dynamics, and four amplifier channels at 125W each.
Meanwhile, M&N was keen to ensure that the system was simple to use. ‘Designing a system that was user-friendly was paramount, as the teachers cannot be expected to properly control a complicated interface,’ explained Mr Morimoto. As a solution, the company used an Ashly RD-8C remote control, providing eight faders with mutes and a master volume fader.
Mr Morimoto added that the installation of this kind of system is fast becoming the norm in schools such as Sugoh Nursery. ‘We installed Ashly systems in 10 schools last year, and we already have 13 similar requests for nursery schools in the coming year,’ he explained.