Assembly Hall gets new speakers

The IU men’s basketball team is currently ranked No. 1 in the country and off to a promising start.

It’s only fitting that Assembly Hall would make improvements to match.

The arena recently replaced its original sound system from 1971 with new speakers, amplifiers and signal-processing units, a collaborative effort by Sweetwater Sound Inc. and All Pro Sound.

Sweetwater, a Fort Wayne-based company, has history with IU. The company makes annual donations to IU and frequently sells sound equipment to the Jacobs School of Music, Sweetwater Director of Program Development Christopher Guerin said.

Sweetwater also sponsors the school’s computer music lecture series.

“With Fort Wayne, Ind., being the home of Sweetwater, I felt a particularly strong desire to see the sound system in this incredible sports facility be installed by an Indiana company,” Sweetwater founder and president Chuck Surack said in a press release.

Guerin said technology has made major advances since the hall’s last system was installed.

“It’s all very state-of-the-art equipment, very cutting edge,” he said. “Assembly Hall was able to take a big step forward.”

He said the audio should be much clearer and sound should carry consistently throughout the hall. Whether fans have floor seats or are stuck in the nosebleed zone, they should be able to hear everything the same, he said.

Though such a project would normally take several months, Sweetwater and All Pro Sound’s crews completed the installation in about 30 days, working at night to fit the team’s practice schedule.

The system has been in place since the season began, but there have been some kinks. This past Saturday, when Jacobs School professor Tim Noble went to sing the National Anthem before IU played Coppin State, the microphone gave out. The sound returned with a loud blast, and then went out again. Noble abandoned the microphone and opted to sing without equipment, encouraging the audience to sing along.

Guerin said such problems are to be expected, and said he would bet the issue has already been addressed.

“For anything like this, you have a shakedown period,” Guerin said. “It’s a very complicated system ... it’s not surprising that there’s been a glitch already.”

Still, he is optimistic about the system’s future in Assembly Hall.

“Bottom line, you want a better experience for everyone in attendance,” he said. “The sound is just as important to that as anything else.”