Ecler speakers ensure missing the bell is a thing of the past

A secondary school in south London has installed more than 100 Ecler speakers and a new cabling infrastructure to create an automatically timed bell system and music at class changeover time.

Following a survey of the Harris Academy site in South Norwood, system integrator Excite AV proposed a design for the project that would deliver on the brief and meet the tight deadline imposed by the school’s term times.

The equipment, which was provided by distributor Audiologic, was installed in eight zones throughout the school. The kit included 52 pairs of Ecler IC6 two-way ceiling speakers for the indoor areas, and three pairs of Ecler eMOTUS5OD outdoor loudspeakers for the playgrounds, powered by an Ecler eHSA4-150 amplifier.

The system’s back-end is powered by an Ecler Duo Net Media Player, which has been programmed to control the automatic bell system throughout the school. For paging and routing, a Cloud PM1 paging mic and CX261 mixer have been utilised.

Ben Spurgeon, Audiologic’s senior technical manager, says: “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.”

Gareth Thomas, director at Excite AV, said: “Working alongside the academic calendar meant this was very much a time-critical project. Within two weeks of the site 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.”

Harris Academy’s principal, Rob Hitch, says: “The installation was swift and unobtrusive, and the Excite AV team created excellent training videos to help us understand all aspects of the system. The new music for transitions and bell audio sound fantastic.”