Simonds Stadium installs first AVB enabled BSS Soundweb in Australia

Simonds Stadium, home of the Geelong Cats, has become the biggest and most successful multi-purpose venue in regional Victoria. The third stage of the Simonds Stadium’s redevelopment was recently completed with the addition of a new Southern Grandstand, increasing capacity to over 35,000.

Total Events Co were called in to design, supply and install the PA system for the new grandstand choosing JBL AWC all-weather speakers for the Grandstand, JBL Control 25AVspeakers for the walkways and JBL ceiling speakers into the functions spaces.

“We installed fourteen JBL AWC129 speakers and sixteen JBL AWC82 speakers for the seating bowl and under balcony fills,” remarked Bill Busbridge, managing director of Total Events Co. “We chose them as they are robust, high powered and totally suitable for the application. They also fitted in well with the architects aesthetic requirements.”

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Since the installation, Bill reports that “the JBL speakers have been great and the only complaints have been that they are too loud and that’s an easy fix!”

Simonds Stadium is the first venue in Australia to benefit from BSS Soundweb London BLU-805 AVB (IEEE Audio Video Bridging) system. The BLU-805 AVB combines the proven and respected Soundweb London platform with the industry-supported AVB transport. The BLU-805 allows 64 incoming AVB channels and 64 outgoing AVB channels at 48kHz or 32 incoming AVB channels and 32 outgoing AVB channels at 96kHz. Configuration, control and monitoring are provided by HiQnet™ London Architect. The audio is fed from the BSS Soundweb boxes via BLU-Link to the Crown CTS amplifiers in various rack rooms which drive the speaker system.

“The main audio feed is derived from the existing system control which is about 300 metres away from the new racks, so we used AVB to link from that system via fibre through to the new zone,” explained Bill. “The BLU-805 picked up its feeds nicely. The BLU-805 also controls three function spaces and it certainly made our job a lot easier. I’ve been back a couple of times to tweak the system and it is really simple to patch back in and make changes on the fly.”

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Bill was particularly impressed by the support he received during the design and implementation of the system by Jands, describing it as “awesome”.

“Jands bought David Bradshaw to the stadium during the implementation to assist with the set up and programming,” commented Bill. “David also did the basic set up and programming of units before they were dispatched from the Sydney warehouse to us. They arrived pre-configured and it was almost plug’n’play at our end.”