Around 14.5km southwest of Kuala Lumpur, the luxurious Sunway Resort Hotel & Spa is part of a huge complex along the Malaysia’s Sunway Lagoon. To improve the ability of its Grand Lagoon Ballroom accommodates up to 2,000 guests for events such as gala dinners, weddings and product launches, the room was recently refitted with a Renkus-Heinz sound system.
The ballroom can be divided into three separate areas, the centre of which includes an extendable stage. The new sound system needed to serve each of the three sub-ballrooms individually, and operate as a single, integrated system when the rooms were united. For system designer and distributor Mercoms Systems, the solution was Renkus-Heinz’s CFX-series speakers.
‘The ceiling is at least 7m,’ says Keith Tan of Mercoms Systems. ‘The walls are mostly made of wood frames with some soft cloth-wrapped padding in the middle and glass mirrors at the top, and the floor is carpeted. So, although the ballroom has some glass surfaces, it also has absorptive surfaces and there are no pillars. But the depth of the ballroom was a challenge. It was vital to be able to throw clear sound all the way to the rear while achieving relatively even coverage. That made the CFX series an obvious choice.’
For Ballroom 2 (with the stage), Tan flew a LR pair of arrays, each with four CFX-101LA modular point-source arrays and two CFX15S subwoofers. CFX101LA cabinets can be arrayed to provide a 90° x 60° coverage pattern, delivering up to 9dB more output and tighter vertical pattern control than a conventional single cabinet. It delivers the performance and pattern control of a line array with the clarity of a point-source system. Choosing the CFX-101LA enabled Tan to cover the room with a third to half the number of cabinets required with traditional line arrays.
The CFX15S is a passive subwoofer with a powerful 15-inch driver that delivers outstanding sub-bass performance from 40Hz–100Hz and delivers up to 128dB peak SPL.
When partitioned, each of the two smaller, adjacent ballrooms are served by LR arrays of four CFX-101LA full-range systems and one CFX-15S. All of the speakers are flown from the ceiling. A Biamp Tesira server provides speaker management, including crossover settings and EQ, and combines the systems when the partitions are open.
‘The Grand Ballroom hosts a wide variety of functions, and it is a prestigious venue, so the flexibility and quality of the audio system are crucial,’ Tan explains. ‘With CFX-101LAs and CFX-15Ss in all three sub-ballrooms, the system sounds consistently great with the partitions in place and when opened up into a single space. It perfectly complements the layout of the ballroom. System installer Mega Teknik Jaya did an excellent job, and the Sunway Resort team is delighted with their new Renkus-Heinz system. Now their Grand Lagoon Ballroom truly has a system that’s worthy of it.’
