The new Moyer Student Union is being built in two stages, the first of which opened this autumn. The new 135,000 sq.ft space is bigger and better, offering a dining court, a TV lounge, office space for student advocacy and interest groups, more and expanded spaces for studying and socialising, a 300-seat movie theatre, and a powerful sound system utilising several models of Community Professional loudspeakers.
The main areas and food court are served by a music and paging system based around Community's I/O5, a compact 5-inch two-way indoor/outdoor system offering a 90 x 50 degree dispersion pattern that was ideally suited for the task.
"The original specification for the job had called for in-ceiling speakers," recalls Robert Sims of Las Vegas-based Communication Electronic Systems, the firm that handled system design and installation for the job. "But when we got to the site and discovered that most of the ceiling was a metal grid, I knew we'd have to rethink the speakers, since any type of in-ceiling speakers would have created far too much vibration and interfered with the building's aesthetics. I remembered how impressed we were with the I/O5 demo we'd heard, and it fitted the project budget nicely, so I suggested them as an alternative, and the folks at UNLV readily agreed."
Based on the I/O series' extra-wide coverage pattern, Sims and the CES crew opted to place the speakers on the sidewalls above the grid of the long and relatively narrow space to further avoid excessive vibration. "I expected the speakers to sound good, but I was rather surprised at how broad the coverage is," Sims added. "We've got the speakers moderately spaced throughout the corridors, with only one speaker every six to ten feet on alternating sides, but the sound is clean and consistent, with no drop outs or hot spots. We've got a considerable amount of processing and zoning capability in the system, but the speakers sound really impressive, even with everything running flat and unprocessed."
CES also installed a complete A/V system in the Student Union's movie theatre, with HD projection on a 20 x 11 foot screen and audio comprising of Community Professional's SLS960 and SBS25 full-range horn-loaded loudspeaker systems. "We time-aligned the subs to the main speakers and EQ'ed a bit to help compensate for the somewhat flat contour of the room, and that was it in terms of installation," Sims remarks. "It was absolutely painless."
"We installed the entire low-voltage package for the building - audio and video, access control, fire alarm systems, wireless, telephone and data infrastructure," Sims adds. The system also includes Crestron control in the theatre and conference rooms, and BSS London DSP with custom wireless controls throughout the building.
Phase two of the new Moyer Student Union is slated to open next autumn, along with demolition of the old Student Union.
(Chris Henry)
