March 11, 2020

Camp Finds High Quality Audio and Flexibility in d&b audiotechnik System

Westboro, WI – Since 1958, Camp Forest Springs, has served thousands of people of all ages and undergone multiple expansions and renovations. Sven Pro designed and installed a multifunctional and flexible d&b audiotechnik sound system for the camp’s main multipurpose room. 


Camp Forest Springs hosts a wide variety of groups that rent the camp as well as camp-sponsored activities year-round. In the same way, the camp’s multipurpose room is used for a wide variety of activities ranging from open gym, concerts and in-the-round musical theatre productions. Sven Pro, headquartered in Milwaukee, WI, was tasked with designing and implementing a sound system that can be used in two different configurations, auditorium style facing the stage, and black box theater-style in-the-round. 


The only system that fit the requirement was d&b audiotechnik’s T10 speakers. The T10 is a passive 2-way loudspeaker housing two 6.5" drivers positioned in a dipolar arrangement and a 1.4" HF compression driver and a passive crossover network. The T10 can be used both as a line array and as a high directivity point source loudspeaker. The HF driver is fitted to a unique waveguide horn producing vertical line source directivity with a 90° horizontal pattern that is maintained down to approximately 600 Hz. An acoustic lens placed in front of the horn widens horizontal dispersion to 105°, rotation of the horn by 90° relative to this produces an accurate point source dispersion, transforming a vertically oriented T10 into a stand-alone full range loudspeaker with 90° horizontal and 35° vertical directivity pattern. Twelve T10 speakers were specified and these can be configured with six per side in stereo line arrays for auditorium-style seating or as twelve separate point source speakers for in-the-round seating. Neutrik Speakon receptacle boxes in the rafters provide connection points for the exact location for each speaker configuration. Two additional T10 speakers in point source configuration are located in a balcony for additional fill.  


In addition to the T10 speakers, Sven Pro specified two d&b audiotechnik VG-SUB. The V-GSUB is an actively driven high performance cardioid subwoofer powered by a single amplifier channel. It houses two long excursion neodymium drivers, an 18“ driver in a bass-reflex design facing to the front and a 12“ driver in a two chamber bandpass design radiating to the rear. The cardioid dispersion pattern resulting from this arrangement avoids unwanted energy behind the system that reduces the excitation of the reverberant field at low frequencies and provides the greatest accuracy of low frequency reproduction. The multipurpose room also is used as a gym and as such has more reverberant properties. The cardioid pattern helps control bass forward, toward the audience.  


All the speakers are powered by several 30D and 10D amplifiers. These provide product-specific DSP and protection for the system. Dual sixteen-band EQ and delay settings allow for system tuning to the room’s acoustics using the amplifiers and no external DSP unit. 


Other equipment in the design included an Allen & Heath GLD 80 mixer and digital snake, Sennheiser wireless microphones, video equipment from Atlona, NEC, Chief and Da-Lite and rack equipment from Middle Atlantic.