But five years after Hampshire played their first county match at the Rose Bowl, there were signs that the public address system was leaving a lot to be desired - particularly in terms of speech intelligibility and even distribution. This is vital, not only for voice evacuation purposes, but for spectators to keep up with the commentaries from the scorer's boxes.
Rose Bowl plc, the owner of Hampshire Cricket, turned to locally-based installation and hire specialists, BCS Audio for a solution. Their director Dave Shepherd had provided Rose Bowl with pyro and fireworks for special events in the past - and he also knew he could take care of most of the ground's audio needs from the catalogue of Fuzion plc.
"We have generally tended to use Nexo speakers, and Australian Monitor for the 100V line work," he said. But it was only when Fuzion's technical sales manager, Jez Hunter, introduced him to the new Radia Pro ribbon drivers, which Fuzon distribute, that the jigsaw was complete.
Hunter set up a site demo whereupon the decision became axiomatic. The old mast-mounted horn systems were removed to be replaced by Radia Pro 1.9ME's - one mounted high on each of the 20 posts, which are spaced at 25m intervals around the ground's perimeter. However, on either side of the pavilion, a pair of Radia 1.9ME's are contra-angled to achieve the critical coverage.
And that is the secret of the Radia 1.9ME. The sound will fire exactly where the long rectangular boxes are pointed, with no spill. They have a lower operating frequency range than conventional loudspeakers - rolling off at 150Hz - and offer incredible linearity with lower distortion.
The 1.9ME is the largest in a family of ribbon drivers from the American manufacturers and five of the shorter 1.3ME's are sited on the roof by the VIP box.
The proprietary planar design offers significant advantages over conventional systems and the result is a sturdy transducer for professional use that works as a line source radiator. They offer a wide dispersion of 120° in the horizontal plane but vertical dispersion is limited to a 10° angle (5° above top loudspeaker end line and 5° below bottom loudspeaker end line).
Dave Shepherd says: "The dispersion is very controlled so they fire down only on the required seats. There's an immediate drop-off in level as you move away. In fact they are unbelievably good, with all the properties of a line array, providing massive coverage over huge distances."
Cost advantages were also created by running the system 100V line while Fuzion plc themselves fabricated special weatherised enclosures, using a galvanised, powder-coated box "that fits like a glove" according to Hunter. The transformers have also been custom made specifically for this project.
Finally, with Speakon connectors easily accessible via a trap at the bottom of the pole, the 1.9ME's are quickly unboltable and demountable using key clamps. "We can clear the whole pitch in around three hours," says Shepherd.
With an atrium/foyer, six separate conference rooms and two function rooms inside the pavilion, Shepherd has designed the entire real estate into a 17-zone system, dividing the pitch into four (North, South, East and West), which can be independently adjusted depending on wind variables.
The public address is under the management of three Symetrix SymNet DSP devices, which are line-configured, giving a combined 24 inputs and 24 outputs; any live EQ/p
