The A/V integration wing of Vancouver-based firm Commercial Electronics has been involved in those projects from the planning stages and has now completed installations at new Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Infiniti, and Aston Martin locations. Reflecting the prestige of those brands, the new sound systems deliver true high-fidelity output, helped in large part by Ashly Audio processing, amplification, and user control.
"Good sound is important anywhere, but it is especially important at a car dealership," said Terry Neudorf, pro division manager at Commercial Electronics. "Poor quality sound is distracting and annoying, and although potential customers many not be consciously aware of poor quality sound, it tends to make them edgy, irritated, and motivated to leave. Naturally, that's a terrible dynamic to set in motion at a car dealership. The Dilawri Group fully realizes this and places proper emphasis on getting the sound systems at their dealerships right. They want to show respect for the client the moment they walk into the showroom, and pleasing, high-quality A/V is a critical component of that respect."
With a philosophy that emphasizes precise control, Neudorf designs the dealership sound systems with four or five zones in the showroom alone. Additional zones cover staff rooms, technician rooms, training rooms, boardrooms, fitting rooms, service bay drive-through areas, and also the car servicing bays themselves. Inputs include a standard background music server source, as well as audio feeds from video switcher/scalers or AirMedia systems. Ashly Audio's NE Series multi-channel network amplifiers with the onboard Protea DSP are Neudorf's go-to solution for the dealerships. When pre-amplification output routing or matrixing is needed, the Ashly Pema series of multi-channel network Protea-equipped media amplifiers fits the bill.
"Protea control software is very flexible and powerful and enables our installer to accurately route, tune, and calibrate the audio system," Neudorf said. "In addition to ensuring consistent content volumes, we also provide the system with complete output protection via compression/limiting because sometimes the afterhours cleaning staff likes to crank it up and sometimes the systems stand in for the 'event system' at parties or other showroom happenings.
"The ability to pre-program different scenarios into the system is fantastic, and that kind of functionality is novel and impressive at a car dealership. It speaks to the high value of the system."
(Jim Evans)
