University of Iowa

Ensuring Targeted Sound

The University of Iowa Hawkeyes football team plays all of its home games in the 70,500-seat Kinnick Stadium, located on the west side of campus. It is adjacent to residences on one side and to campus buildings on the other side, one of which is the University Hospital.

Although it’s fair to say that almost all Iowans stand behind the Hawkeyes (there is no pro team in the state), it’s also true that Iowans recovering in the hospital deserve peace and quiet, even on game day. When school officials became disenchanted with the lo-fi sound and poor coverage of Kinnick Stadium’s old sound reinforcement system, they worried that elevating it to modern standards would only increase game day complaints from the hospital.

Those worries have been allayed—Kinnick Stadium’s new high-powered Danley Sound Labs system delivers reference monitor quality audio while keeping sound energy in the bowl. The new audio system provides Danley’s famous pattern control, rich low-end, airy high-end speech intelligibility, and prevents appreciable spillover into the adjacent neighborhood and hospital. In addition, the install was a number of world-wide firsts – the first to use the Danley J5-4015 (Caleb) and the first to use Danley’s Direct modeling software.