Fight City Gym, Balham London – 4-Zone Gym PA System
The latest branch of Fight City boxing gyms, opening in Balham, London, was partway through construction, and the team at Audio Installations were contacted to provide a suitable sound system.
Boxing Gym PA System
The requirements included zoned volume and playback control for four separate areas of the gym, including the basement office, and to be a system capable of playing beat heavy music at reasonable volumes all day without any issues of distortion.
Though not a huge space compared to some gyms, the decision to go for multi-zone control was partly decided out of consideration for the building’s wall sharing neighbours, so as the volume could be set lower where needed to help avoid any excessive noise pollution.
Wall Speaker System
The choice was made to go for wall mounted speakers, as their horizontal throw rather than a down firing unit would give the best coverage, along with the obvious benefits of superior bass response that a wall speaker provides over a ceiling speaker being better suited to this environment.
A real favourite of ours for its superb audio performance, the Amate B6 wall speaker has a full range output that is bordering on hi-fi, they are that good. Capable of producing surprisingly powerful bass from its custom 6.5” woofer, with a crystal clear top end courtesy of a titanium tweeter unit, the B6 ticked every box for the Gym’s desired sound capabilities.
The stylish and understated design of the Amate speakers fits perfectly in any professional setting, and they are built to last, so make a sensible choice when investing in any commercial audio system, especially when it’s being used for more than just a background music.
4 Zone Audio Installation
Part of the brief was for the basement office, and indeed any of the 4 zones, to be able to playback an independent music source. This would allow the office for example, to listen to the radio, while the Gym floor has music from a different device, be that a CD player or the audio from a smartphone or tablet
We used a Monacor matrix amplifier, running 100V line for the simplest wiring and reliability, with 5 assignable inputs and features such as microphone talkover for either zonal or system wide announcements. This high performance matrix amp has four outputs, each with volume control, and is simple push button operation, avoiding unnecessary complexity.
A powerful PA amplifier, the Monacor offers 120W at 100V to each of its outputs, which allowed the twelve Amate B6 speakers to be set to their 40W mode with plenty of amp headroom, letting the system run cool even at higher volume, which is ideal for commercial installs where they are pretty much on all day everyday.
Installation was made simple as can be due to the gym already having ceiling mounted wiring trays for its lighting and network cables, so our team located the Amate speakers onto the central columns and into corner areas to ensure there were no audio dead spots or unwanted reverb effects occurring.
Gym Sound System
The Amate speakers provide full angle adjustment from their built in wall bracket, so fitment at different heights isn’t an issue, nor is having them upright or sideways fixed, with even the badge turning in order to keep their pro appearance
A relatively simple installation, but designed and specified to sound like a much larger sound system to give it a real depth and focus. The cabling and wall fixtures were put in to our teams usual high standards, with the amplifier mounted in a convenient spot for quick volume adjustments by staff when needed.
The 4 zone arrangement allows for great flexibility within the gym, and the multi input amplifier has plenty of options for additional audio inputs from TV’s if required. Our team gave the system a complete run up with eq and tone settings for optimum balance, and the install was then signed over to the site manager, as the gym itself was still under construction.
Once the gym opened a few weeks later, the owner contacted us to express how impressed all the staff were with the performance and sound quality of the system, and how easy to use it was.
The Equipment Supplied:
- 1 x Monacor PA-12040 4-Zone Matrix Amplifier
- 12 x Amate B6/T Wall Mount Speakers
Plus all required Speaker Cable and Audio Interconnects.