NYC’s Tribeca Grand Hotel Upgrades Sound and Systems with QSC

NYC’s Tribeca Grand Hotel Upgrades Sound and Systems with QSC

The recent installation of a QSC Q-Sys Core 250i processing and management system has significantly improved sound quality and user control to the bar, restaurant, lounge and lobby areas of the boutique Tribeca Grand Hotel.

  • Systems integrator Canal Sound & Light, in consultation with Danny Taylor, a freelance audio contractor and nightclub designer, installed the Q-Sys system along with more than two dozen of QSC AcousticDesign surface- and ceiling-mount loudspeakers powered by QSC CX Series amplifiers.
  • Located in a fashionable lower Manhattan residential neighborhood, the Tribeca Grand has been a major Manhattan nightlife attraction for more than a decade, but their audio system was beginning to show its age, according to Jeffrey Kwan, vice president at Canal Sound & Light. “A lot of newer hotels have popped up since then with better equipment and superior systems. The audio quality of the Tribeca Grand’s previous system was not up to par, and everything was just getting lost in the atrium. Since the hotel is expanding the number of special events that they are booking, everything just needed to be improved,” said Kwan.
  • The hotel’s triangular eight-story atrium houses the Church Lounge, a cozy dining area and cocktail bar featuring regular DJ nights that has become a celebrity hotspot.
  • “The entire atrium and lobby were re-done,” says Kwan, “and we divided everything—the dining room, bar, atrium, lobby and hallway areas—into seven zones.” In addition to the Core 250i, Canal Sound & Light installed an assortment of AcousticDesign loudspeakers including: ten AD-S282H high-output, dual 8-inch, two-way, surface-mount speakers; eight AD-S82H high-output, 8-inch, two-way, surface-mount speakers; five AD-S28TW surface-mount subwoofers (in the atrium); four AD-Ci52T compact, two-way, sealed enclosure ceiling speakers; and a single QSC KW181 18-inch subwoofer. One CX302, five CX902 and four CX1102 two-channel amplifiers drive the installed loudspeakers.
  • Outfitted with a selection of microphone and line I/O and DataPort control and monitoring cards, the Q-Sys Core 250i processor enabled Canal Sound & Light to optimize the system in each zone with custom EQ and other processing. “The DSP capabilities of Q-Sys are amazing. Once you dig into it, you can do so much, and have everything so organized,” says Kwan, who looks forward to using the system’s full potential in the future on more complex projects: “The system is capable of so much more—but it did what we needed to do on this project.”
  • The Q-Sys system also enables Canal Sound & Light to provide the Tribeca Grand’s managers with networked touch screens as well as wireless, remote level control in each zone. “One of the best things about the Q-Sys Core 250i is that it operates over standard-layer 3 Gigabit Ethernet,” said Kwan, whose crew installed the QSC TSC-3 3.5-inch touch screens in the hotel’s bar, lounge and studio buffet/conference room areas.
  • Kwan also designed a custom app using Q-Sys Designer software that enables any hotel manager to walk into a zone and adjust the audio level with a swipe of a finger on a Q-Sys network connected iPhone. "With the previous system, everyone had to just guess if audio levels in different areas of the hotel were correct, because that system was in a fixed location. All the managers hated the controls that they had. But they love the ability that Q-Sys gives them to control their facility wirelessly,” added Kwan.
  • “As installers,” Kwan said, “we love how easy it was to design and scale the system, with the iPhone integration being a key benefit, not to mention the awesome sound quality of the AcousticDesign loudspeakers."

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