A high-achieving UK secondary school that promotes creativity and academic scholarship, Harris Academy in St Johns Wood, London, recently called in Excite AV Ltd to upgrade its audio system – a project that involved the installation of more than 100 loudspeakers and a new cabling infrastructure to provide an automatically timed class bell system and music at class change-over time.

A specialist in audiovisual design and integration, Excite AV conducted a site survey before devising a design proposal for the project that would deliver on the brief, in a very time pressured environment.

‘Working alongside the academic calendar meant this was very much a time critical project,’ says Excite AV Director, Gareth Thomas.

‘Within two weeks of the survey and proposal we were on to installation during the half-term holiday, having the new system up and running before the students returned. We used a team of five expert engineers to install and deliver on the project.

‘A lot of enthusiasm and close working with the school maintenance team was key to success, with our team working flat-out to complete the installation and programming by the start of term. The whole project went smoothly and we are proud that the client is thrilled with the outcome.’

The equipment is installed in eight zones throughout the school, and includes 52 pairs of Ecler IC6 two-way ceiling speakers for the indoor spaces, partnered with three pairs of Ecler eMOTUS5OD outdoor loudspeakers for the playground areas, powered by an Ecler eHSA4-150 amplifier.

The back-end uses an Ecler Duo Net Media Player, which has been programmed to control the bell system throughout the school. For paging and routing, there is a Cloud PM1 paging mic and CX261 mixer.

‘Having worked with Excite AV on multiple projects across education, corporate and hospitality, Ecler was the stand out choice for this project, with the high-spec quality and ease of set-up, which was critical given the time constraints of the installation,’ says Audiologic Senior Technical Manager, Ben Spurgeon.

‘From the moment we made contact, nothing was too much trouble for Gareth and the Excite team,’ adds Harris Academy Principal, Rob Hitch. ‘They took the time to really consider what we wanted from the system and were responsive to our needs. The installation was swift and unobtrusive, and the team created excellent training videos to help us understand all aspects of the system. The new music for transitions and bell audio sound fantastic. I can’t recommend the Excite team enough.’

More: www.audiologic.uk