Across college athletics, universities are striving to create the ultimate experience for its alumni, student athletes, and fans. Recently, NC State Athletics made improvements to Carter-Finley Stadium to make game day even more exciting. This new installation includes one of the largest Danley Sound Labs’ audio systems distributed in a stadium to date.
“In this particular stadium, it’s a big, loud, and rowdy environment,” said Scott Carneval, owner of Precision Audio. “At Carter-Finley, we looked specifically at what was installed prior and worked to ensure that every product selected improved the experience at every position.”
The new system includes a variety of Danley loudspeakers and subwoofers including 4 J8-94 loudspeakers that cover the majority of the stadium, 3 SH46 loudspeakers as downfills, 1 J6-42 loudspeaker for coverage on the field, and 8 BC415 subwoofers to provide low frequencies throughout the stadium. Around the remainder of the stadium are 16 Danley OS12CX loudspeakers for coverage on the concourse as well as 32 Go2-8CX loudspeakers for under-balcony fills and 11 OS80 loudspeakers at the entrance gates.
At the heart of the system is an Allen & Heath AHM-64 audio matrix processor fitted with a Dante card. 4 Allen & Heath DT168 Dante expanders are used in the control room, the players’ entrance tunnel, the club level of the stadium, and for portable use throughout the stadium. Two DT164w Dante interfaces are used for remaining inputs on the field and on the concourse. Allen & Heath DX012 96kHz expanders are used in the amp racks in the facility. All audio in the stadium is mixed using an Allen & Heath DM0 dLive MixRack also outfitted with a Dante card and controlled by a dLive C3500 Control Surface. An Allen & Heath CC-10 touch panel is also used for audio control in each region of the stadium and CC-10 touch panels are also installed in the Stadium’s suites for custom control within each suite.
“Having AHM partner up with Danley has been one of the most fun relationships to develop,” said Samantha Potter, manager of installation and commercial audio at Allen & Heath. “Getting to step into the stadium and knowing our technologies are working together to create such an experience is very exciting.”
“Allen & Heath has the same mindset that Danley does,” said Scott Howard, territory sales manager for Danley Sound Labs. “They like to provide high quality audio products to do the job that’s needed and meet the customer’s need.”
Designing the ideal sound system for any sports facility requires an understanding of not just the facility, but the needs of the university. Precision Audio has done this very well leading projects across NC State Athletics including installations in the University’s baseball, soccer, and track facilities among others.
“We want to create the best fan experience that we can. We have to make sure we have the right thing for us at NC State,” said Athletic Director Boo Corrigan. “Doing our research and understanding what’s the right thing for us to maximize our fan experience has been our focus.”
The new audio system does just that. Coaches, players, and fans all agree that the new sound system has created this elevated experience.
“What we had in the past was old and not as loud,” said Brock McKirgan, director of football operations at NC State University. “The fans feel it. With this, the fans really feed off the energy and the bass from the sound system.”
“It’s changed the game in a lot of ways for the fans and for the players,” said NC State head coach Dave Doernen. “That’s helped us a lot. For us, it’s the twelfth man. When the crowd’s engaged, that’s hard on the other team.”