The University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) recently outfitted its new Hospitality Hall with complete sound reinforcement systems by Harman Professional Solutions.
Located less than two miles away from the Las Vegas strip, UNLV is a research-level university that provides higher learning to 30,000 students across 350 undergraduate and graduate degrees. The school’s William F. Harrah College of Hospitality offers a renowned degree in hospitality management that ranks among the top hospitality programmes in the US.
UNLV recently opened Hospitality Hall, a $50 million building on campus, to provide hospitality students with a world-class learning facility. Hospitality Hall contains offices, meeting rooms, classrooms, an executive learning kitchen, an interactive learning studio, an auditorium and more. In order to ensure premium audio quality during lectures, learning activities and student presentations, the UNLV technical department outfitted 17 classrooms, meeting rooms and learning labs with JBL Professional speakers and Crown amplification.
“We’ve been blown away by the amount of positive feedback we’ve received about the Harman audio systems in the new Hospitality Hall building,” said Frank D. Alaimo, AV systems specialist, University of Nevada Las Vegas. “We’ve been relying on JBL speakers and Crown amps in other buildings on campus for years – the systems are flexible, easy to use and they sound great. The university has an excellent relationship with the local Harman team, and they help us stay up to date with the latest audio technology.”
Alaimo and his team selected a range of JBL Professional speakers to create customised audio systems for each of the facility’s learning environments. JBL Control 26CT ceiling speakers are installed in the interactive learning studio, the executive boardroom, three conference rooms and the executive learning kitchen. Nine Control 47C/T extended range ceiling speakers and four Control 40CS/T in-ceiling subwoofers provide superior speech intelligibility and extra wide 120° coverage for events in Hospitality Hall’s auditorium. Two CBT70J-1 line array columns are joined by two CBT70JE-1 extensions to deliver additional high impact reinforcement for media playback in the auditorium. The CBT Series speakers installed in the auditorium are driven by Crown DriveCore Install Series power amplifiers.
The limited ceiling space in the 10 classrooms made it difficult to install regular ceiling speakers overhead. Alaimo and his team overcame the space restrictions by utilising new JBL LCT 81C/T lay-in ceiling tile speakers, which feature a low profile depth of only 4in. The Harman installation at UNLV’s Hospitality Hall marks one of the first major deployments of LCT 81C/T speakers.
“This was the first time we used the new JBL LCT 81C/T speakers, and we were extremely impressed with the level of sound quality in such a compact design,” explained Alaimo. “Most of the classrooms had limited overhead space with HVAC units and pipes in the way. The LCT 81C/T’s are compact and convenient—they enabled us to fit speakers in these really tight spaces with no problems, and they aesthetically blend in with the ceiling perfectly. With a lay-in ceiling tile speaker, you might expect a small compromise in performance, but the LCT 81C/T sounds solid from top to bottom and delivers great coverage. As a result, the ceiling speakers allow students in the back of the room to hear every detail as well as students in the front.”
