So...I have a bit of a different situation than I normally have. Long story short Im doing a indoor pool PA install. Unfortunately there is no place out of the environment to put my rack. I was hoping someone around here may have a place I could even start to look for some type of outdoor rated amp set up..hopefully rack-mounted and not just a boat marine grade stereo head. Any one ever do a natatoriumbuild?
Pools are a nasty enviroment for anything metal or electronic. Hoffman makes NEMA type 4 water and moisture resistant rack enclosures with gasketed doors. They can even be purchased with thermal management (HVAC) that does not exchange air into the enclosure. An oversized enclosure may offer enough heat dissipation so that mechanical cooling isn't needed.
I would look into using DSP based auto-mixing and remote controls so that there isn't audio on pots and switches that will fail quickly.
I would also bathe every electro-mechanical connection with Caig Shield-S. Basically do everything you can to keep humidity and clorine gas from taking its inevitable toll on the equipment.
As for speakers, Technomad seem to specialize in weatherproof. If all you are doing is paging and announcements, then stick with horns and drivers. For that, it is hard to beat EV CDP-848 horns, and they'll last forever.
I second the Hoffman enclosures, but be aware that a direct exposure rated enclosure with ventilation is going to be expensive. And I agree that Technomad is also common for speakers in such applications along with One Systems.
You did not mention the use of the system. I have worked on recreational pools where the audio is simply background music and maybe general paging. I have also designed systems for competition natatoriums used for events including synchronized swimming where in addition to intelligible announcements in a difficult acoustical environment it is also necessary to provide high quality music to the audience and underwater reproduction (along with underwater cameras). The competition swimming and diving venue for the 1996 Olympics had essentially an arena style system based around products donated by JBL. The variations in use and performance can significantly affect the speakers, controls, inputs and other aspects of the system. I have to admit that I have never placed the system processing and amplification in the natatorium itself, we always found some more controlled environment for it.
maybe not standard or even a good idea. but I saw a pool that had (probably by a local parent/similar thing) converted pelican cases to house all the gear. They were bolted with their bottom to the wall to make a rack with everything inside. Speakers were just wall hung general PA speakers. From what I saw everything looked in good shape so for whatever it's worth I guess that worked. Twas a surprising sight.
The subsurface aural equipment is already in place. And I already have a boat load of community outdoor speakers that im going to use for the install. I am thinking that perhaps this pelican idea may have potential however..
I appreciate all the insight guys!
I'm also thinking that a) the case is not meant to be hung from a wall so you'd have to have a substructure inside the case to hold the equipment and mount that to the structure through the case, sealing any related penetrations, b) I don't see how it provides protection during use or any ventilation and c) how you addresspower. With any enclosure or case you'd have to open the cover to access any equipment or controls, meaning you'd ideally want to remote any controls and keep it closed to minimize the equipment being exposed to the room during use. And with a Pelican case cover closed it seems like there would be no airflow possible.
Just based on experience, I find it difficult to believe they can't find any place with a more controlled environment to locate at least some of the electronics.
true about the drilling through it, though the holes they added to put the bolts in didn't seem to leak too much to the environment. I believe they left it open during use so it would still be exposed to the air and moisture for that time. As speculated they did build some mounting system for the inside, it was a really weird set up, and like I said probably not that great in the long term but it was what somebody with no or little knowledge of stuff who threw it together.
