The 15,500-seat multipurpose indoor Carver-Hawkeye Arena located in Iowa City is home to the University of Iowa’s Hawkeyes basketball team – along with the its wrestling, women’s basketball and volleyball teams. Since its opening in 1983, the sound system at the arena had remained unchanged until 2016…

Recognising the need to upgrade, Sound Concepts – the venue’s technology rep company and systems operator – knew that the school would expect similar longevity from its replacement. Part of the solution was the choice of a DiGiCo S21 digital console, with a DiGiCo Purple Box Madi/optical converter and D-Rack, both housed in a single case.

The S21 has now been installed by A/V systems integrator Parsons Audio, with Sound Concepts President Marvin Smejkal noting  that the budget for the renovation was cut substantially from initial estimates. That made the choice of the S21 still more critical to the success of the project. ‘Nothing comes close to what the S21 can offer at that price point,’ he explains. ‘I knew I wanted a DiGiCo console for this project’

Sound Concepts has specified or installed S21s for numerous other projects, including the University of Iowa’s Kinnick Stadium and the Paramount Theatre in Cedar Rapids, as well as several in the company’s rental inventory. Smejkal cites the inclusion of the Purple Box fibre interfaces as important because the project required the use of existing limited cable conduit between the FOH position, the racks and the arena floor. ‘We needed to use fibre because of the limited amount of conduit and the long length of the cable runs,’ he says. ‘The S21 package addressed that.’

The Purple Box Madi/optical converter brought the new system even more signal-transport flexibility. Smejkal enumerates a few of the S21’s capabilities, such as its 40 Flexi Input channels, 10x8 full processing matrix, 16 assignable graphic equalisers, and Dante connectivity (which allowed the S21 to interface with the Q-Sys network connecting the PA system’s amplifiers at the Carver-Hawkeye Arena), concluding, ‘So much of what the S21 can do – and that’s a lot – is included in the price. For a situation like this, with a limited budget but high expectations, the DiGiCo S21 is the only real solution.’