Wall High School is located in Wall Township, a well-established suburban community in Monmouth County, NJ. Wall High is the senior school of Wall Township Public Schools, which also includes a primary school, four elementary schools and an intermediate school, which together educate around 3,650 students a year. 

With an excellent record of team achievements, the school has a strong reputation in various field sports and had been planning to replace their old press box, stadium bleachers and sidewalks for several years.  The sound system was also very old and functioned poorly, so required replacement as part of the overall refurbishment. 

JD Sound & Video had provided the sound for a number of schools locally and this led Tom Ridoux, the school’s athletics director, to call them in for discussion. The brief was for a system that would provide high intelligibility coverage for the home bleachers, field, visitors and concessions areas. Additionally the system was required to provide entertainment quality music.

JD Sound & Video designed a system based around Community’s R SERIES loudspeakers and, following its presentation to the school, was awarded the project. “With considerable experience in R SERIES’ superb sound quality, coverage patterns and all-weather reliability, it was our first choice of loudspeaker system for Wall High School,” explained Joe DiSabatino, president and lead design engineer of JD Sound & Video. “With a range of models providing ideal coverage for each area, the system was complemented with two powerful subwoofers to provide the low frequency impact for entertainment quality music.” 

For coverage of the bleachers, JD Sound & Video mounted two R.35-3896 and two R.5-96MAX loudspeakers on the press box roof. A high output three-way dual 12-inch R2-52Z is also located on the roof to cover the field and visitor stands. Two R.5-96MAX loudspeakers are mounted on poles for the outside ends of the bleachers. An R.5-66MAX loudspeaker is also used for the concessions area. The two IS6-215WR dual 15-inch all-weather subwoofers that provide extended bass and impact are located under the stands. All loudspeakers are powered by QSC PLD series amplifiers with QSC Q-SYS DSP handling signal processing and control. For ease of use, the system is operated from a 7-inch touch screen. Shure wireless mics complete the system and provide operational flexibility.

“The response to the system from the school has been extremely positive,” concluded DiSabatino. “Everyone is impressed with the quality and sound levels from a system that looks so visually compact, especially when viewed from any distance.”