HIMEJI CITY, JAPAN – JULY 2011: When it comes time for the sixty pint-sized pupils of Sugoh Nursery School in Himeji City, Japan to put on a show for their parents and caregivers, every budding voice gets heard. It’s not that they project especially well or even that the acoustics of the school’s modest movable stage are so divine. Rather, Sugoh Nursery School has a truly professional-grade sound reinforcement system centered on a cost-effective Ashly pêma integrated processor and amplifier. The system puts the polish on the students’ hard work and allows audience members to truly appreciate their efforts and accomplishments. That gets back to the students, of course, who are inspired to rise to even greater works. The stage and its sound reinforcement system are part of Sugoh’s brand new state-of-the-art building, which replaces its former residence of 34 years. “The old building had a sound reinforcement system too, but its speech intelligibility was very poor,” said pro audio veteran Masaki Morimoto, president of Tokyo’s A/V design and installation firm M&N. “Everyone at the school was excited to get a new stage with new sound reinforcement that would really convey the excitement and effort of the students.” Sugoh’s new system begins with two wired microphones, four wireless microphones, and inputs for two auxiliary sources. The Ashly pêma 4125 provides almost everything else – microphone preamplification, matrix mixing, equalization, dynamics, and four amplifier channels at 125-watts each. A pair of One Systems 108IM loudspeakers provide the lion’s share of coverage, with six Tannoy CMS 601 & CMS 501 in-ceiling loudspeakers filling in the rest. “The Ashly pêma is a cost-efficient solution that is very easy to work with for both the installer and the end user,” said Morimoto. “Designing a system that was user-friendly was paramount, as the teachers cannot be expected to properly control a complicated interface.” Rather than build something complicated, Morimoto used a simple Ashly RD-8C remote control, which provides eight faders with mutes and a master volume fader. With it, the teachers can adjust the volumes of the microphones and input sources without training and without risk of fouling up other aspects of the system, such as equalization or dynamics. The tremendous success of this sort of sound reinforcement system is earning M&N a wealth of new jobs in a similar vein. “We installed Ashly systems in ten schools last year, and we already have thirteen similar requests for nursery schools in the coming year,” said Morimoto. “Most systems will use the Ashly pêma, but a few larger systems will require Ashly’s modular ne24.24M processor with dedicated Ashly amplifiers.” In addition, M&N is populating the churches, auditoriums, and ballrooms in and around Tokyo with reliable, easy-to-use Ashly processors and amplifiers. ABOUT ASHLY AUDIO With a greater than thirty-seven year history, Ashly Audio Inc. is recognized as a world leader in the design and manufacturing of quality signal processing equipment and power amplification for use in the commercial sound contracting and professional audio markets. www.ashly.com