The installation took advantage of the power and flexibility of the DP6i to upgrade the club's existing sound system, simultaneously enhancing the experience for club-goers at Tao and offering significant cost savings to the club's owners. The installation was completed in January.
The Tao Nightclub is part of the 42,000-square-foot Tao entertainment and dining complex in the Venetian Hotel. Designed to look like an opulent Asian temple, the $22 million club features some of the world's leading DJs, high-tech visual effects and amazing views. A club at this level demands that its sound system be at the absolute razor's edge of performance. As one of the Venetian Hotel's audio vendors, the FBP Group, which in only six months has become one of the region's leading sound system design and install companies, brought an astute mix of technology and expertise to the mandate to take the Tao Nightclub's sound system one step further.
"The goal was to reuse the existing main components of the system, including the speakers and the amplifiers, yet do an upgrade that would considerably enhance the system's performance and do so as cost-effectively as possible," explains Bob Athey, co-owner, with partner Frank Heinrich, of the FBP Group. "The original system was installed only a year and a half ago, but in the world of high-end clubs, competition can make things change very quickly. We needed to choose and install only critical pieces of equipment to do the job."
A key piece of that strategy is the XTA DP6i speaker management system. The FBP Group looked to the DP6i's superior algorithms, ease of programming, flexible configurability and overall reliability to upgrade speaker performance for EQ, time alignment and other requirements. The two DP6i units not only boosted the sound system's performance but also cut down almost completely on repair calls, says Athey, whose company handles the hotel's audio system maintenance.
"The XTA units are great systems for this type of application, as well as for new system design and installation," he says. "They help guarantee great sound."The unit has two inputs and six outputs, both of which have an 8-band parametric equalizer, base delay, and gain control. All outputs feature crossover filters, 5-band parametric equalizer, high and low shelving filters, limiter, and delay. Full metering is provided for inputs and outputs, with a mute button for instant system control in emergencies. Up to 32 DP6i's can be controlled from a single PC with XTA's proven AudioCore Windows control software, with the ability for further units to shadow those 32 ID numbers for an unlimited number of system outputs.
(Chris Henry)
