One of the meeting rooms shown prior to an event at San Diego’s Hyatt Grand Manchester The Manchester Grand Hyatt is Southern California’s largest hotel. Its two towers, one 34 floors and one 40 floors, are the seventh and third tallest buildings in San Diego, and most of its 1,600 rooms offer spectacular views of the city, the Pacific Ocean, or both. The quality and quantity of the Manchester Grand Hyatt’s fabulous accommodations paired with Southern California’s famously clement weather guarantees that its 125,000 square feet of flexible ballrooms and breakout rooms (40+) remain booked without pause. However, that tight schedule, while a blessing in every other respect, became the principle challenge in an extensive renovation of the hotel’s AV system. Due to their ease of programming, cost effectiveness, and complete flexibility when expanding via Dante, San Diego-based Audio Associates chose a number of Symetrix SymNet Radius 12x8 open architecture networked DSPs and affordable SymNet xIn 12 and SymNet xOut 12 I/O expanders as the audio heart of Manchester Grand Hyatt’s new AV system.
“This is a large, multi-phase project,” explained Eric Evans, sales engineer at Audio Associates. “Most of the system is up and running, but as the work expands to other floors and other areas, we will be installing more SymNet Radius 12x8 DSPs and further SymNet xIn 12 and SymNet xOut 12 expanders.” Because the hotel is so fully booked, Audio Associates has to run double- and sometimes triple-time to get the work done. The previous sound setup involved behemoth analog systems with large racks of switches to deliver the necessary room combining functionality. “The bid provided lots of options for replacement systems,” Evans continued. “I got prices for a number of possible product choices, but nothing was coming close to the cost-effectiveness that SymNet Radius 12x8 could offer. And because the job was evolving and changing, the fact that we could network via Dante and add inputs and outputs at will with the SymNet xIn 12 and SymNet xOut 12 I/O expanders made Symetrix the best solution.”
An external view of the Hyatt Grand Manchester’s two towers overlooking San Diego’s waterfront bay. The meeting and ballroom spaces are spread out across three floors. Some of the original analog mixers were repurposed for budgetary reasons, but everything else has been replaced or is slated for replacement. In total, four SymNet Radius 12x8 DSPs, eight units of SymNet xIn 12, and seven units of SymNet xOut 12 now artfully provide input processing, loudspeaker conditioning and, critically, room combining functionality in a fraction of the space used by the old analog setup. “Programming the Symetrix system was easy, which was very important given the time constraints we were working with,” said Evans. “And once we had the system in place, the hotel requested tweaks which were remarkably quick and easy to implement.”
A contracted AV company resides in-house to handle all of the Manchester Grand Hyatt’s event production. “They love the new system because it’s so much easier using Crestron control to make adjustments,” said Evans. “Before, they had to run back to the equipment room every time. They’re excited to have the entire system completed as now they also have comprehensive Symetrix ARC-WEB iPad control. Going forward, we’ll be using Symetrix SymNet Dante-scalable DSPs for conference centres and the like because they have the performance, flexibility, programmability, and price-point that we need.”
