The Client:

Nirvana Spa is an award-winning day spa and members club based in Berkshire and following several developments over the years, the spa is now the largest in the UK.

System Requirements:

As part of this major expansion programme, specialist integrators Midland Communications were approached by Nirvana Spa who required a brand new background music and PA system installing. Due to the size of the establishment, they required a system which would allow background music to be played into 8 different zones throughout the spa as well as the ability to page a message to any one of the zones via a zone desk paging microphone.

The Solution:

Following a detailed site survey of the Spa facilities, Midland Communications worked in partnership with CIE’s specialist AV system design team to specify and deliver a fully-integrated background music and publics address system which combined conventional analogue audio sources with the latest audio-over-ip sound distribution technology.

CIE’s specification team designed a system based on the 2N NetSpeaker audio-over-ip range, which allows for background music and voice signals to be transmitted over standard Cat5e network infrastructure, a solution which not only negates the need for additional audio cables to be installed throughout the building, but also allows for site wide zone control and digital audio matrixing.
Nirvana – the end client – insisted on the use of standard analogue sources (ie. CD player, MP3 player, etc) to be used on the system and, therefore, the final solution used 2N’s Net Audio Encoder, an analogue audio to digital converter, to allow the 4 audio sources to be distributed over the IP system. Each of the audio signals is then converted back to analogue at the amplifier/speaker end of the system for inputting into standard analogue amplifiers.

As the Spa facility required 8 separate audio zones, CIE supplied 2 Inter-M DPA-300Q 4-channel amplifiers, allowing different audio signals to each zone, plus differing level control per channel.
The IP audio system also includes the 2N NetMic – an IP connected zone paging microphone, which allows control of the 8-zone system and live paging throughout the complex, as well as a digital recording and playback facility, giving Nirvana Spa the ability to pre-record a series of promotional and emergency messages for repeat use.

The final audio system rack was designed and built by CIE’s in-house technical services team and delivered directly to site, allowing integrators Midland Communications to effectively ‘plug-and-play’ the system upon completion of the IP settings.