New Road Cricket Ground

The 4,500 capacity New Road cricket ground in Worcestershire, England has sat upon the banks of the River Severn since 1896. Frequently referred to as one of the world’s most beautiful cricket grounds, the sporting venue is home to Worcestershire County Cricket Club (WCCC) – one of 18 first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales.

The system includes 51 Renkus-Heinz UBX4s, 20 UBX8s, eight Audac HS208T, and 15 Audac WX502O to cover 31 separate zones, including all the seating areas as well as the bars, food areas, car parks, practice nets and entrance areas.

The system is powered by eight Powersoft UNICA-2K8 amplifiers and controlled by two Symetrix Radius NX 12X8s and one Symetrix T-10 Glass. The T-10 Glass allows independent volume control per zone and can trigger messages and announcements. Renkus-Heinz’s Passive UniBeam™ technology ensures even audio coverage with minimal visual impact.

Every zone required an acoustic model to meet both the club’s and the England & Wales Cricket Board’s specifications. Hadleigh Technical Support (HTS) referred to architectural drawings of different areas, which allowed them to achieve even coverage and SPL.

One of the EBC specifications for cricket-ground performance was redundancy, so a redundant network system was added to ensure continued operation in case of technical issues. WCCC wanted the ability to independently control each of the 31 zones depending on the requirements of the event. This led to HTS installing a total of 94 loudspeakers across the cricket ground.

“Renkus-Heinz’s Passive UniBeam™ technology was a big reason why we opted for the UBX Series,” explains CUK’s Mark Bromfield. “It offers loudspeakers with asymmetrical dispersion and pan and tilt brackets – which was ideal for WCCC. This allowed us to mount the loudspeakers at the rear of the seating area to achieve even coverage from the seats right to the front row.”

Renkus-Heinz’s UBX Series offers revolutionary beam-steering technology in a passive column. Utilizing state-of-the-art neodymium 3” full-range drivers, the models deliver targeted, high-quality sound in an incredibly small footprint. The narrow cabinet, combined with Passive UniBeam™ coverage, allows for surface mounting via the included wall-mount bracket, resulting in the least possible aesthetic intrusion. Passive UniBeam™ technology addresses each transducer with specially designed all-pass filter networks, gain shading, and additional frequency filtering. This generates an asymmetrical vertical dispersion with constant directivity, ensuring front-to-back coverage with minimal side-lobe artifacts.

Finally, the fact that the loudspeakers are IP66-rated weather resistant and utilize 100V tappings simplified installation. Strategic speaker positioning ensured consistent SPL throughout the ground.

The installation successfully enhanced audio clarity and ensured effective coverage across New Road’s diverse zones. The Renkus-Heinz system’s sleek, unobtrusive design blends seamlessly with the surroundings while delivering exceptional sound quality.

The integration of zone control ensures tailored sound management for various events, and the redundant network provides reliability. This system not only meets ECB specifications but has also revitalized the iconic cricket ground with superior audio performance.