Audio System for new Dance Studio

[Arkaka]

Good morning to everyone.

I am currently building a new dance school, which will have three separate dance rooms. The larger room will be 10 X 12 meters, and the two smaller ones will be 6 X 9 meters each. The two smaller ones will be able to operate as one room, since they will be divided by foldable acoustic panels. The room walls are all straight surfaces, and one wall in each room will have mirrors. The ceiling is false gypsum tiles.

What kind of audio system setup do you recommend? I have gotten several quotations from audio professionals, but all with different recommendations. One audio professional told me that for the large room 120m, placing 4 Speakers in the corners of the room would create noise, as there would be delay from one side to the other.

I am really out of my depth here, and I would appreciate any recommendations you may have.

Many thanks.

 

[agarwalro]

Welcome to the forum.

What's your budget?
Where are you located?

I'm only proposing this as food for thought.

To maximize floor space, consider in-ceiling speakers hooked up to a distribution amp. Arrange them 3x4 in the big room and 2x2 in the smaller rooms.

 

[Arkaka]

Hi Agarwalro,

Many thanks for your reply.

My budget is around 3000 - 3500 euros; i'm located in Cyprus, EU.

I received a quotation for 20 ceiling speakers, 3 Denon amps for each room.

However every other professional told me to stay away from ceiling speakers; they work well as background music, but would do so well in teaching dance classes, e.g hip hop. Not sure if this is solid advice though.

 

[everettT]

What will your sources of music be? Maybe look at pro audio Sound reinforcement speakers like these

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00N2AZRNU/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1505995868&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=jbl+eon612&dpPl=1&dpID=41KioA0C1UL&ref=plSrch

 

[Arkaka]

Hi Everettt,

I may install a cd/mp3 players, but i think the most convenient for the instructors would be to have everything on an iPad/Tablet and play from there.

 

[TLS Guy]

Good morning to everyone.

I am currently building a new dance school, which will have three separate dance rooms. The larger room will be 10 X 12 meters, and the two smaller ones will be 6 X 9 meters each. The two smaller ones will be able to operate as one room, since they will be divided by foldable acoustic panels. The room walls are all straight surfaces, and one wall in each room will have mirrors. The ceiling is false gypsum tiles.

What kind of audio system setup do you recommend? I have gotten several quotations from audio professionals, but all with different recommendations. One audio professional told me that for the large room 120m, placing 4 Speakers in the corners of the room would create noise, as there would be delay from one side to the other.

I am really out of my depth here, and I would appreciate any recommendations you may have.

Many thanks.

This is a home AV forum. Your project is beyond the scope of most members here. I do have a little experience of this sort of thing.

The professional who told you not to place four speakers in that room is absolutely correct. Also the one that told you not to use ceiling speakers is also correct.

What is required for your purposes is a good solid two speaker sound stage in each room across the shorter dimension. For dance you need a good defined bass, so good subs will be required.

In rooms that size microphones, which should be radio and include body mics for the instructors should be planned for.

Now I suspect you need to be able to play three different programs. Also the room that can be one or two needs to be able to be divided.

You will need a good set of speakers for each space plus subs. You are going to need a mix system that can be easily divided.

These days I would recommend a computer based system here that can make the required changes quickly through the software.

You absolutely are going to need good professionals to design and build this system and support you through training.

For speakers I would look first at pro offerings from JBL. A lot will depend on which country you are in.

Lastly you will have sticker shock. A system that will meet your needs will be very expensive and must be built from professional and not domestic equipment.

There will be a significant learning curve for you and your staff.

Your first step will be finding a competent professional. That will not be easy as most are incompetent.

Get references and visit installations they have done. Good luck.

 

[Arkaka]

This is a home AV forum. Your project is beyond the scope of most members here. I do have a little experience of this sort of thing.

The professional who told you not to place four speakers in that room is absolutely correct. Also the one that told you not to use ceiling speakers is also correct.

What is required for your purposes is a good solid two speaker sound stage in each room across the shorter dimension. For dance you need a good defined bass, so good subs will be required.

In rooms that size microphones, which should be radio and include body mics for the instructors should be planned for.

Now I suspect you need to be able to play three different programs. Also the room that can be one or two needs to be able to be divided.

You will need a good set of speakers for each space plus subs. You are going to need a mix system that can be easily divided.

These days I would recommend a computer based system here that can make the required changes quickly through the software.

You absolutely are going to need good professionals to design and build this system and support you through training.

For speakers I would look first at pro offerings from JBL. A lot will depend on which country you are in.

Lastly you will have sticker shock. A system that will meet your needs will be very expensive and must be built from professional and not domestic equipment.

There will be a significant learning curve for you and your staff.

Your first step will be finding a competent professional. That will not be easy as most are incompetent.

Get references and visit installations they have done. Good luck.

Many thanks for taking the time to reply

I do understand that a professional will need to design this, and the reason i'm asking questions is not to design myself, but to be able to see through the BS from some professionals.

Just for me to understand, is there an easy explanation why ceiling speakers won't do?

 

[TLS Guy]

Many thanks for taking the time to reply

I do understand that a professional will need to design this, and the reason i'm asking questions is not to design myself, but to be able to see through the BS from some professionals.

Just for me to understand, is there an easy explanation why ceiling speakers won't do?

Yes, ceiling speakers are just for background. They have no bass worth talking about, which is essential for a dance studio. If you could turn them up you would have a real mess, as each speaker would seriously interfere with the other.

Having good professional sound is going to be essential for the success of your business.

After all the music is at least 50% of dance. Getting this right is just as important as all the mirrors and other accessories.

What is required is a good speaker system with two main speakers that can deliver good quality sound in each space. Active speakers with separate amplification for the top and bottom ends is strongly recommended. You will also need subs for dance with their own amplification.

If you are going to use iPads etc then the pro may well suggest Abelton Live. You want to allow for a large flexibility of source including thumb drives. What will be required is a software play back program that can play from a variety of media. You need a mix system and software controlled these days. This way you can mix in the instructors voices with the program and select quickly which room or rooms you want the program to play.

In this latter regard, I would recommend products from RME. Their Total Mix is highly intuitive flexible and easy to learn. It is also very high quality.

Funnily enough the digital audio workstation I have just built could run your project just fine.

 

[highfigh]

It's possible to achieve the goals, but the system does need some equipment that will allow this. The one dimension I don't see is the height and it's one of the more important factors.

You want the speakers to be as close to the people as possible, to prevent the need for excessive SPL and the associated echo that would result. You also need to use more speakers and since this place is used for getting people pumped up to dance & move around, sound quality isn't as important as it would be in a theater or someplace that hosts speaking engagements, although speech intelligibility is still important. That's why many speakers and lower SPL are important.

In-ceiling speakers can work for a place like this, but you'll need to use some kind of subwoofer(s) to handle the bass frequencies- whether the sub(s) are on a wall-mounted bracket or in the ceiling, they need to cover some bass, but it's not important to go much below 40Hz and you'd be better off with good mid-bass rather than worrying about the lowest octave. Also, you don't need stereo separation, you need coverage, so plan on operating this system in monoaural.

Power amps and small mixers can be fairly inexpensive, but I don't know all of the products that are available in your part of the World, so I'll mention some brands and details that worked for me last year when I installed equipment for an exercise/fitness facility that has a main room (about 40' x 60', 14' high) and a yoga studio (22'x 35', 14' high). We haven't done anything about outdoor speakers at this point, but I suspect it will happen at some point.

-Sources- Bluetooth receiver for smart phones/tablets
-Cable with 3.5mm plugs for same, if they don't have Bluetooth
-Wireless Mic (the owner had a Radio Shack setup that didn't work at the previous place, but it has worked well at the new one- I suspect it was made by Audio-Technica or Sampson)
-RCA input from other mixer outputs, in case they want the same program material playing in all areas
-One additional channel open, for future use

Speakers-
-One pair of Polk Atrium 6 indoor/outdoor speakers in the yoga studio
-4 pairs of Proficient 8" in-ceiling speakers in the main room, which has three I-beams for support, creating four sections in the ceiling
-One JBL Control Sub200 subwoofer in the main room

Power amplifiers- one Behringer A500, bridged, for the subwoofer
Dayton Audio 12 channel x 45W amplifier for the in-ceiling speakers (using one channel per speaker and each pair of two channels bridged for the Polk speakers)

Audio Processors-
-Rolls mixers (one for the main room, one for the yoga studio), 5 channel with two mic inputs
-Art Audio Head Amp, used to allow the mixer output to be sent to four pairs of amplifier channels, in case the level needs to be adjusted in the four zones of the Main room
-Behringer EFB-1500 equalizer/crossover- since the rooms are in mono, one channel was used for each, adjusted for the needs of each room The High Pass and Low Pass settings allow for higher output without problems with bass frequency handling with small woofers and the Low pass only feeds the JBL subwoofer.

I had a tight budget, so I found equipment that was pre-owned, but I knew its history (I had installed it all for other people and both bars had closed or changed hands, so I knew it was available. The speakers, mixers, Bluetooth receivers and Head Amp were new). I was pleasantly surprised by the Proficient speakers- I had heard them in the displays at my suppliers, but hadn't used them before- the sound was more full than I expected. They don't handle strong bass, but they do well with the bass removed (below 45-60Hz). I set the crossover higher because there's no reason to try to make them do something they can't.

This place rocks. I don't listen to Rap or Hip Hop, but I know how to make a system perform for that and when I initially turned the amp on for the sub as the owner's father played some of his music, he just started to laugh- it really does a great job, even when people are working out, outdoors.

It's more important to limit the signal to the speakers, use one moderate-output channel for each speaker and set the levels appropriately than to use one extremely high powered amplifier for each zone/room. That's a much more expensive method and it will cause more problems than it solves. High volume levels causes echo, low volume is much more manageable. You won't have people being blasted by one big box firing over their heads, just so the people in the middle can feel the music. With more speakers, the room will have no dead spots.

 

[jinjuku]

Many thanks for taking the time to reply

I do understand that a professional will need to design this, and the reason i'm asking questions is not to design myself, but to be able to see through the BS from some professionals.

Just for me to understand, is there an easy explanation why ceiling speakers won't do?

I've done plenty of installed sound. If you need to see if you are getting bad advice from your local installers then you can rest easy knowing they are telling what correctly needs to be done.

I'm not going to go into why you shouldn't do in ceiling speaker if you are looking for a high energy dance experience for your clients but suffice it to say: Don't do in ceiling speakers.

 

[highfigh]

Yes, ceiling speakers are just for background. They have no bass worth talking about, which is essential for a dance studio. If you could turn them up you would have a real mess, as each speaker would seriously interfere with the other.

Having good professional sound is going to be essential for the success of your business.

After all the music is at least 50% of dance. Getting this right is just as important as all the mirrors and other accessories.

What is required is a good speaker system with two main speakers that can deliver good quality sound in each space. Active speakers with separate amplification for the top and bottom ends is strongly recommended. You will also need subs for dance with their own amplification.

If you are going to use iPads etc then the pro may well suggest Abelton Live. You want to allow for a large flexibility of source including thumb drives. What will be required is a software play back program that can play from a variety of media. You need a mix system and software controlled these days. This way you can mix in the instructors voices with the program and select quickly which room or rooms you want the program to play.

In this latter regard, I would recommend products from RME. Their Total Mix is highly intuitive flexible and easy to learn. It is also very high quality.

Funnily enough the digital audio workstation I have just built could run your project just fine.

SIB-KIS

I think you're trying to guild a lily and using thumb drives/Ableton, etc is great, but someone has to load the music, operate the system and manage the catalog- fitness instructors don't necessarily know how to do this, nor do they want to. It's far easier to let people bring their smart phones and play their music, regardless of how bad it sounds. Once the bad-sounding music has been played, it's likely that the comments will make the person improve it in whatever ways they're willing to. It's mice to have great sound, but with all of the sounds in a fitness/dance studio, many details will be obscured. Also, two speakers are less likely to provide even coverage in that room, even if the reflections happen to reinforce the weaker areas. Far better to use more speakers for better coverage and at least one sub for the low end, IMO. If the facility has someone who will be tasked with operating the system, a software-based system might be best, but not on a limited budget.

 

[highfigh]

I would get a list of places where these contractors have worked, so you can get an idea of the quality of their work, designs, etc. Talk to the people who work there and ask if they have any problems in operating the system- maybe they can give you a bit of a tour of its capabilities.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Good morning to everyone.

I am currently building a new dance school, ...

I am curious if this is mostly for beginner students, adults, or all ages all levels?
Will you be having dance competitions of the level to be broadcasted where sound quality may matter?
You will not be holding a "Dancing with the Stars" type of classes, right?

I just don't see why ceiling speakers, better quality, will not do . After all, this is not for serious listening as in a home environment. And, stereo sound is not really needed for a dance class to learn to dance, in my opinion.