Hummingbird Nest Ranch, a new equestrian facility located 35 miles northwest of Los Angeles in Ventura County, went on record this past November as the site of the world's first Soundweb London installation. Two new CobraNet-equipped BSS BLU-80 units are now being utilized by the 140-acre ranch to provide digital signal processing and routing for up to a dozen different speaker zones. One of the DSP units is located in the 17,000-square-foot clubhouse's main audio rack, while the other is housed in a rack on casters designed to roll out to the judge's stand for events held in the Spotted Elk Ring, a 600- x 300-foot International Grand Prix field.
The BSS processor pair collectively interfaces with nine Crown CTs 600 amplifiers, all outfitted with IQ-PIP-USP3/CN cards, which drive approximately 30 JBL Control 30 loudspeakers in the primary and secondary arenas, clubhouse, and VIP and vendor areas.
According to Jeff Griffeth, director of information and technology for Hummingbird Nest, "The routing flexibility of London really appealed to us. Having BLU-80s in both our house and rolling racks allows us to take any number of audio signals-satellite radio feeds, CD players, microphones, you name it-and very easily route them over CobraNet to any or all of our various zones depending on our needs for the day. And the integration between BSS, Crown and CobraNet is extremely smooth. For example, there's a small stage in the vendor area where we occasionally have local performers play, so via the PIP cards, we can route their signals onto CobraNet and broadcast them back to the clubhouse, arena or wherever. It's very cool.
