Derby County FC now has the loudest and best sounding stadium in the UK, following the installation of QSC processors and amplifiers, according to the football club.
Roland Hemming, principal consultant at RH Consulting, explained the process and thinking behind the installation: “The system at Derby County had been in place for around 11 years, but under the new ownership of Mel Morris, upgrading the audio system was one of a number of projects that he was very keen to invest in.
“Ultimately, Mel’s brief was that he wanted the best sounding stadium around – a high quality audio experience.
“Richard Northwood was the lead on the project, he designed it and worked very closely with d&b on the electroacoustic design. RH Consulting is an approved Q-SYS programmer, so we knew what we were doing.”
[Q-SYS Core 1100 processors] were put in as the foundation stone for many years of change and development to come
Roland Hemming, RH Consulting
Along with replacing the bowl loudspeaker system and the electronics in the back-of-the-house areas, the team at RH Consulting also installed new amplifiers driven by Q-SYS, with the system using a combination of QSC amplifiers and d&b loudspeakers in the bowl. All of the Q-SYS equipment was supplied by Shure Distribution UK.
Atypically, Derby County has its own contractors who worked with RH Consulting on the installation, which helped keep the costs below what one would normally associate with a high-end QSC/d&b stadium project. However, including Q-SYS Core 1100 processors was always part of the plan, as Hemming explained: “We chose the Q-SYS platform because we know that this system will grow. Derby County has plans for other parts of the site, and we can continue to build on those Core 1100 processors as we’re not using all of their capabilities by any stretch at the moment. They were put in as the foundation stone for many years of change and development to come.”
Along with the Q-SYS processors there are also several small Q-SYS touchscreens situated around the stadium for control and paging, with full monitoring. In the event of an emergency, regulations stipulate that everything must be working correctly, and the touchscreens fulfil that part of the brief.
“We like working with QSC because projects like Derby County need custom scripting,” explained Hemming. “We need to communicate with third-party equipment, with full monitoring and control of the d&b amplifiers which are up in the roof in air conditioned cabinets as well as talking to the network switches site wide because we have to monitor those as well.
“That’s why Q-SYS is so good, because if you want to control something, you can write a plugin for it. We know Q-SYS, we know what it does and we know how to use it. We knew from the outset that it was going to be more than capable of doing the job. We have a great relationship with Shure Distribution UK and QSC, which has led to successful integration of Q-SYS.”
So, does the stadium now live up to the claim of being the loudest in the UK?
“The local paper said it was the loudest and it may be, but it’s certainly the best sounding,” concluded Hemming. “For a 30,000-seat stadium, the performance is incredible.”
