Ringwood School seeks to raise the aspirations of young people of all abilities by providing them with a high quality, personalised learning experience designed to help each individual achieve their potential. Located in the English county of Hampshire, the school has a particularly strong reputation in the performing arts, and has recently completed building The Barn, a new, 600-capacity venue equipped with an all-NEXO sound system designed and installed by Poole-based audio-visual technology and production services specialists Pulse PA Ltd.

“We came to the project early so were able to advise on acoustic treatments at the building design stage” reports Pulse MD and founder Ralph Walsh. “Our sister-company installed the infrastructure for sound, lighting, data and video projection, and flexibility of use was the guiding principle of our design. There’s more than 5 miles of cable in the building and the tech can be reconfigured quickly and easily to handle any type of a production from a music concert or drama to a cinema event.”

Flexibility was also a key consideration in the choice of sound system which comprises hangs of 4 x NEXO GEO M10 line array elements left and right on a truss above the stage, with a centre cluster of 3 x GEO M6 focused primarily on vocal sounds covering the tiered seating. NEXO ID24s cover the very back of the room as delays, and NEXO ePS point source boxes are installed L+R to the centre and rear of the space, to suit surround sound productions and cinema. Low frequency extension comes from NEXO L18 subs on the floor.

“Other tenders had proved too expensive and were unable to provide the flexibility needed, but the NEXO system we proposed hit the perfect balance of performance and cost. And the power to size ratio of the NEXO boxes is unbeatable. NEXO seems to get as much output from one driver as other manufacturers get from a pair. The left and right clusters add less than 100Kg to each corner the truss, yet the system provides excellent coverage of what is a particularly wide space.”

Just 2 x NEXO NXAMPMk2 4-channel powered controllers provide amplification and processing for the main system and ID24 rear wall delays, with an additional NEXO DTDAMP powering the ePS surround speakers. Perhaps unusually, the GEO M elements are the touring versions of the speakers rather than the install variants. Ralph explains why.

“The school teaches BTEC Production Arts in addition to performance. Students can easily lower the truss at the push of a button and change the rigging angles of the clusters along with the NXAMP DSP pre-sets for standing events.”

In addition to equipping the school with a purpose-designed venue for education in the performing arts, the new building at Ringwood also provides the wider community with a world-class theatre facility for their own theatre productions, and events promoted by the school.

“I mixed a concert at The Barn just last week and, after the show, someone from the audience made a point of telling me that it was best sound they’d ever heard – no distortion, crystal clear and with an amazing vocal sound” says Ralph in conclusion. “The NEXO system truly does fill the room with beautiful audio.”

Find out more here:

nexo-sa.com