Suffolk County Community College Graduates to Better Sound with QSC

Brentwood, NY  (January 10, 2012) – Suffolk County Community College, located on Long Island, NY, has installed a completely new QSC sound system in its 60,000-square-foot field house that includes WideLine™ line array loudspeakers, PowerLight™ Series amplifiers and SC28 processors. The college, part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system, sought to improve quality from  rented sound systems that were unable to overcome the less than ideal acoustics at this sports and exhibition complex here.

“I’ve been a QSC fan forever,” says system designer/installer Dominick Campana, General Manager of Pro Sound Alliance, a division of Live Sound, Inc., based in Troy, NY. “We had a strict deadline to get things completed so I had to go with a system that I felt very comfortable with, and I have been working with QSC for many years.  For the last 15 years they’ve been one of very few companies that have always been extremely consistent in both the quality of their products as well as delivering exactly what they promise.”

Tasked with designing a sound system that could be easily configured for the variety of events typically held at the multi-use facility, Campana and his crew installed a total of 16 WideLine-10 (WL2102-w-WH)  wide dispersion line array speakers, 14 WideLine-8 (WL3082-WH) ultra compact line array modules and two WL212-sw-WH ultra compact subwoofers. Two PL325, six PL340 and five PL380 amplifiers power the system, all optimized by three SC28 processors. The speakers were flown using two AF-2102-LA-WH large array and three AF3082-S-WH small array frames and an EB3082-WH extension bar.

The venue can seat more than 4,000 people for graduation ceremonies and an eight-per-side WideLine-10 system handles the full house. A single, six-module WideLine-8 array provides coverage to the venue’s east side for trade shows while special events, such as conferences and seminars, are handled by just the top four boxes of an eight-module WideLine-8 on the west side. For center court basketball games, the full eight-module WideLine-8 array, with WL212 subs flown behind the mains, delivers powerhouse sound. All the speakers and flying hardware are finished in white to match the aesthetics of the athletic center.

“As far as the system goes, I’m in heaven!” states Neftali Collazo, director, special events and programs, SUNY Suffolk, who worked with the school’s audio expert, Ray Reardon, technical director, Department of Theater Arts, to bring the new system to the field house. “Everything was so perfect. There were no hiccups, no problems at all. Dominick and his crew were phenomenal; I would recommend them to anybody.”

The space was a challenge, acknowledges Campana, since it features reflective, parallel walls, a hardwood floor and a ceiling height of over 40 feet, with a sloping steel roof that also has a shallow curve. But, he says, “The EASE modeling software for the QSC WideLines was extremely accurate and made the installation much easier and more effective than it would have been if starting from scratch. The rigging frame pick point information was also very useful and time saving. It made it really easy to model pick points on the frames and position everything vertically in the venue in the most effective way, and keep it off the walls.”

“As both the designer and the installer,” adds Campana, “I am extremely pleased with the outcome that QSC has helped us achieve. And more importantly, the customer is very pleased and has received compliments from everyone involved.”