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Harman and Sound Division for Baglioni
Famed Italian hoteliers, the Baglioni Group have created an exclusive London location as their UK flagship. Harman Pro UK and authorised installers, The Sound Division Group collaborated to design and specify the premier sound system at their recently launched luxury 5-Star Baglioni Hotel in Kensington. The hotel’s Brunello club and bar area, used for private parties and functions and as a members club, is London’s chic new evening haunt for those in the know.
Fully aware that superior audio is a major contributor to the ambience of bar and club areas, the Baglioni Group wanted the very best quality in keeping with their brand identity. Following recommendations from high profile clients at top West End nightspots, Islington-based Sound Division specified Harman Pro products to Baglioni.
Managing director David Graham of Sound Division is a strong advocate of the JBL brand: “Primarily because of the breadth and flexibility of their range, and its uniform quality and power,” he explains. Turning to JBL’s Control Contractor series to handle Brunello’s requirements for background music, DJ evenings and occasional live situations, Graham complemented the JBL system with Crown and BSS products from the Harman brand portfolio for a fully integrated system solution.
Designing the system with input and advice from Harman Pro UK’s Andy Duffield, Sound Division created a distributed JBL speaker system based around Control 28Fs and Control 29AVs and JBL SB-210 subs. Chosen for their aesthetics as well as their sound quality, the ergonomic shape and size of the Control Series enclosures blend unobtrusively into the Brunello’s plush, tactile interior design, featuring silky break-up gauzes dividing it into a multitude of intimate areas with sumptuous velvet lounge chairs and sofas. Completing the installation is a state of the art DJ booth fitted to high industry standards and features.
The room needs both low and high levels of sound, so the Control 28s are ceiling mounted and used discreetly around the room, while the Control 29s are placed to boost sound levels in the dance floor area. Plenty of headroom has been left to pump up the volume if desired, and subs are concentrated in the dance floor area to fatten the sound.
The system is driven by Crown’s innovative new XS series amplifiers, chosen for their robustness and continuity as an installation product. The Xs Series carries the Crown reputation for high quality and standard at an affordable outlay. Housed in neat 2U chasses, the product combines classic and popular design principles with new features. Brunello selected the 2-channel XS500 and XS700 models.
The system front end features a BSS 9088 Soundweb digital processor, used for EQ and processing. “The new Soundweb DSP engine is excellent and provides even higher audio performance. The latest generation of 24-bit converters are used in the machine to give a dynamic range of better than 107 dB, which is great for rooms like this,” explains David Graham of his preference for Soundweb as a standard for installation projects. Sound Division also supplied two Soundweb ‘Shrimp’ remote control panels.
The system has been tuned and optimised to sound good across a wide range of musical styles, and to need minimum user intervention.
22nd November 2004
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