It’s often said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes it’s what you don’t notice that makes all the difference. At the Sofitel Saigon Plaza hotel in downtown Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, what guests don’t see is the SpeakerCraft commercial audio solutions that deliver bold audio performance in the facility. According to Ms. Thu Ta, owner of DesignLive Technologies, the local integration firm responsible for designing the audio system, the success of this project came down to deploying cost-effective products that could supply the hotel banquet facilities’ guests with a high-quality audio experience.
“This project was part of a renewal initiative to renovate an old lobby, ballroom, and meeting and conference room facilities,” Ta said. “Tourism is growing in Vietnam, and most 5-star hotels have upgraded their facilities in the past two years as customers are demanding higher quality and more functionality. Sofitel Saigon Plaza now has one of the city’s finest lobbies, ballrooms and meeting room spaces, complete with the nearly invisible audio system we installed using state-of-the-art solutions from SpeakerCraft.”
While much attention is paid to the furnishings and redesign of a hotel’s common spaces, there is usually less said about the technology they choose to include. In this renovation, however, it was clear that the rooms’ electronics were behind the times and needed significant AV improvements to compete with other hotels and meeting spaces.
“Since its opening in 1999 the ballroom didn’t have a house AV system, and the meeting rooms were in a similar state,” Ta said. “The client recognized this and requested the highest performance value sound system possible. Having used the SpeakerCraft PRO Commercial Series successfully in other projects, we knew it offered an outstanding cost-to-performance ratio and had the added benefit of being nearly invisible, which is important for high-end hotel ballrooms and meeting rooms.”
- Currently, guests renting the hotel’s banquet facilities enjoy high-quality audio via the SpeakerCraft PRO Commercial Series solutions, where in-ceiling speakers provide playback and highly intelligible speech reinforcement for the ballroom and meeting rooms. A total of 56 SpeakerCraft PRO Commercial speakers are arranged in more than a dozen independent audio zones covering the hotel’s pre-function area, convertible ballroom, convertible boardroom and individual meeting rooms.
- DesignLive Technologies also upgraded the hotel’s audio distribution system to a fully digital Dante solution via Powersoft Dante amplifiers and Symetrix PRISM DSPs, with RDL’s Dante-enabled wall-plate solutions conveniently installed around the hotel’s facilities as input endpoints. A Fulcrum Acoustic PA system was included to provide live sound reinforcement in tandem with Sennheiser G3 wireless microphones and Yamaha mixers. All of these advanced systems ensure simple, reliable operation for event hosts.
“After this renovation and technology upgrade, it’s safe to say that Sofitel Saigon Plaza has one of the most high-tech, fully-digital audiovisual solutions in South-East Asia, and can now be considered one of the top hotel event spaces in Ho Chi Minh City,” Ta added. “The speakers may not be the most obvious part of this renovation, but that’s the whole point. They are a big upgrade that goes unnoticed, remaining out of view and providing incredible sound quality for all events and functions so guests can focus on having fun or getting business done without worrying about the technology that makes it all possible.”
