INTELLIGENT A/V SYSTEMS KEEP SUN VALLEY CONVENTION CENTER
REMOTE, BUT NOT FAR AWAY

—Signal processing handled by six Yamaha DME32 Digital Mixing Engines—

BUENA PARK, CA (March 5, 2004)—When Sun Valley, Idaho - one of America's best-known luxury resorts, but one of its most remote as well - renovated its 12,000-square-foot convention center, the management wanted assurances that the new sound system would be reliable, even though expert support was hours away. With the help of Yamaha DME32 Digital Mixing Engines, Salt Lake City (UT)-based Poll Sound was able to make that a guarantee.

Signal processing at Sun Valley is handled by a total of six Yamaha DME32 Digital Mixing Engines, four for the Limelight Ballroom salons (pictured) and two for the Continental Ballroom.

"Management was not only concerned about system reliability, but also about maintenance and service," explains Poll Sound systems designer Chris Timothy. "Salt Lake City is 235 miles from Sun Valley, and a six-hour drive."

Poll Sound's solution was to specify the most reliable products for key functions and, most importantly, to build as much intelligence into the A/V system as possible. Principal products included Yamaha DME32 Digital Mixing Engines, QSC audio amplifiers with a QSControl system, Extron video routers and switches, Sanyo projectors, Stewart video screens, AMX system control and a total of 112 Tannoy CMS8 Dual Concentric ceiling monitors.

Sun Valley offers skiing, golf and a variety of year-round recreation options along with fine dining and entertainment in nearly one million acres of mountain ambiance, with more than 500 guest rooms. Since it opened in 1936, the resort's relatively remote location has always been part of its appeal.

The convention center includes the renovated 8,470 square foot Limelight Ballroom, which can be divided into three separate meeting salons, all breaking out into the newly remodeled Sun Valley Inn. The 65' x 55' Continental Ballroom is contiguous to, but separate from, the divisible Limelight. Fourteen additional meeting rooms in a variety of configurations are located within the 4,000-acre resort.

Principal audio products include Yamaha DME32 Digital Mixing Engines, QSC amps with a QSControl system and 112 Tannoy CMS8 Dual Concentric ceiling monitors.

The meeting spaces are tied together via extensive telecommunications and A/V backbone cabling systems that allow telephone, data, video and audio distribution (as well as high-speed Internet access) via fiber optic cabling and wireless Ethernet network.

The intelligence designed into the convention center's nine-zone audio system is based on QSC amplifiers and a QSControl system: eight QSC CX602V 70v Power Amplifier (440 watts per channel) and a CM16a Amplifier Monitor & Control System for the Limelight combinable salons, and three QSC amps and a Monitor & Control System for the Continental Ballroom.

The QSControl system (a PC running QSControl software linked to a CM16a Amp Monitor) allows remote diagnostics and management of the QSC amplifiers, the Tannoy CMS8 ceiling monitors, and other audio devices over an Ethernet network. Timothy used the QSControl application to customize the system to his specifications, writing routines that check for a variety of problems and potential problems. If anything in the audio chain falls out of tolerance, the system emails Timothy at his Poll Sound office.

"No doubt, every convention center could use this sort of intelligent monitoring," Timothy explains. "But because of Sun Valley's location, it was critical here. They didn't just want something fixed when it was broken, and have to wait at least 24 hours for repair. They wanted to find problems and fix them before they brought the show down."

Signal processing is handled by a total of six Yamaha DME32 Digital Mixing Engines—four for the Limelight salons and two for the Continental Ballroom. Up to four DME processing units (expandable to 32-inputs and 32-outputs) can be cascaded to create a system with 128 inputs and 128 outputs, which is how Timothy employed the four DME32's: two for the Limelight system and two for the Continental. "The Yamaha DME is super reliable," he says, "and its 24-bit, 96kHz A-to-D and D-to-A converters offer great audio quality." DSP components of the DME include mixing consoles, parametric and graphic EQs, dynamics processors (compressor, noise gate, expander, compander, and ducker), delays, crossovers, automatic mic mixers, matrix mixers and 10 multi-effects processors.

"The DME32's open architecture allowed me to design a system in the software," he adds, "simply by drawing a line from the output of one component to the input of another. Once the DME32 is programmed and configured, it doesn't require a dedicated (and vulnerable) computer to run the audio system, and that fit into the requirement for total reliability. The client controls all the functions of the DME32 from the AMX touch screen without getting into the software at all."

Similarly, the video system is monitored through the AMX control system to smart projectors from Sanyo. Lights, HVAC, room combining (for the Limelight space), as well as audio and video control, are accessed via AMX touchpanels. A/V patch panels in both the Limelight and Continental provide mic, line, video, audio, network, computer inputs and outputs, for piping to and from both spaces, plus CAT5 tie-line connection for broadcast over the network to any other meeting space within the resort.

The pervasive theme of systems reliability plays straight through to the choice of ceiling monitors: 32 Tannoy CMS8's for the Continental and 77 CMS8's for the Limelight. The Tannoy point-source, Dual Concentric drive unit—the same drive unit used in Tannoy reference-quality studio monitors—uses no electronic crossover, thereby eliminating the most common source of failure in installed loudspeakers. "Eight-inch speakers may be a bit of overkill for these spaces [with 12-foot ceilings]," notes Timothy, "but I wanted to get extra tolerance into the system so it could be driven very hard without the worry of blowing anything."

Timothy also cites intelligibility, dynamic range, and frequency response (47Hz - 20kHz) as reasons for choosing the Tannoy units. "Sun Valley not only knew what they wanted from their sound system," he says, "but they knew what they didn't want." At the beginning of the project, management took him to a rather opulently designed convention space in Salt Lake City so he could listen to its decidedly under-performing sound system with sub-standard voice intelligibility.

The décor in the ballroom spaces—hand-woven European carpets, fabric wall coverings, and elegant woodwork—conceals the technology beneath. "Sun Valley is acutely sensitive to the look and feel of the meeting spaces, which dictated another systems design goal for Poll Sound," says Timothy. "They didn't want their clients turning to third party companies who would bring in ugly speakers on stands. The ceiling monitors sound so good that the installed system can provide for 90 percent of their major clients needs."

"Our networked systems and technology allow us to maintain our existing convention business," says Jack Sibbach, Director of Marketing for Sun Valley Resort, "and also allow us to introduce Sun Valley to new meeting planners looking for a destination resort in the western U.S. that is truly state-of-the-art."

Recently instituted non-stop daily flights from Los Angeles, Oakland, and Seattle put Sun Valley even closer to its major west coast markets. Systems intelligence puts Poll Sound close to its client.

For more information on the DME32 Digital Mixing Engine, write Yamaha Corporation of America, Commercial Audio Systems Division, P.O. Box 6600, Buena Park, CA 90622; telephone (714) 522-9011; e-mail infostation@yamaha.com or visit www.yamaha.com/proaudio.