Located in Sandown, Johannesburg, the South Africa branch of furniture fittings specialist Blum recently approached Audiosure with a view to enhancing its retail space with a new audio system – the brief was for background music and advanced A/V connectivity.
Founded in Austria during the 1950s, Blum is now a global leader in its field with an network tha spans 120 markets worldwide, and manufacturing plants and sales offices providing a range of services for cabinet makers, the furniture industry, and hardware distributors.
For the Sandown location, the Audiosure team installed a zoned Optimal Audio system to meet the brief. The ability to switch between various sources and zones where customers browse was an essential requirement, as was support for visual playback to the staff or clients and wireless microphone across all or selected spaces. Ease of use was very important, as was the need for an aesthetically pleasing appearance in a high-end environment.
Audiosure’s John Greaves designed the system to be deployed as seamlessly as possible and controlled from a smartphone or tablet. An Optimal Audio Zone 4 controller with DSP and WebApp provides the control, which includes third-party loudspeakers in some zones, and Optimal Audio Cuboid 8 and Sub 10 units (powered by SmartAmp 30) to support presentations and events in the main area.
‘We kept the system small, efficient, and simple to use, with the Zone 4 allowing everything to be controlled by the client through WebApp via a phone or tablet,’ Greaves says. ‘The controls in front of the operator are exactly the ones they need – nothing more, nothing less. The Cuboid 8s also allowed us to gain a great level for presentations and video playback. Optimal Audio proved to be the perfect fit for this installation, delivering excellent results for a very satisfied customer.’
More: www.optimal-audio.co.uk
