From its original location in London, Madame Tussauds has expanded to New York, Washington DC and now Singapore, bringing its trademark displays of waxworks depicting film stars, historical scenes and world leaders to a new audience.
The audio installation at Madame Tussauds Singapore was handled by Electronics & Engineering (E&E), which won an open tender for the project from Sweett Group representing Merlin Entertainment. Over the course of several months, E&E devised a high-quality audio distribution system including microphones, speakers, amplifiers, players and show control equipment based on the original design of Thöne und Partner Germany.
Fully-featured DSP was integral to such a complex system – and this called on a SymNet Radius 12x8-centric audio processing and distribution infrastructure: ‘The primary requirement of the DSP installation was for traditional analogue audio distribution based on earlier projects,’ says E&E Senior Account Manager, Freddie Soh. ‘However, subsequent to that, E&E made the recommendation of a networkable audio distribution infrastructure underpinned by Audinate’s Dante media networking technology. We knew that it would really add value to the project, and the client agreed to go ahead with this proposal.’
A long-time Symetrix system user – having deployed its DSPs on such landmark projects as the Singapore Sports Hub – the US-based processing specialist was E&E’s first choice. Twelve mic/line inputs, eight line outputs and, critically, support for Dante networking are among the features of the SymNet Radius 12x8 open architecture Dante-scalable DSP, two units of which were specified for the project. E&E also deployed four SymNet xIn 12 audio input expanders.
The project saw E&E install audio products from EAW, Shure and Ashly Audio, along with visual systems from Panasonic and Samsung.
Regarding the Symetrix components, Koch says: ‘The introduction of Dante to this project really sets the Museum up for the long-term future, so the originally specified SymNet Radius 12x8s with the add on flexibility Dante offers were a great choice. The feedback from the completed installation has been excellent and the client is very happy.’
‘The recent Singapore Sports Hub project illustrated how E&E is consistently making the most of SymNet’s Dante networking capabilities,’ says Symetrix APAC Regional Sales Manager, Hock Thang. ‘Now they have done it again with this impressive installation at Madame Tussauds Singapore, where the Symetrix DSPs have helped to deliver a world-class audio infrastructure.’
