The bar for the recent audio processing installation at Marriott’s prestigious Edition Hotel, located in the heart of New York City’s Flatiron district, was undoubtedly set relatively high. Not only did it need to cater to regular DJ sets, it had to accommodate a variety of background music and announcement applications – all with flawless reliability and consistent sound quality.

NYC’s Marriott Edition Hotel is one of the latest projects created by legendary US entrepreneur Ian Schrager, who originally rose to fame as co-owner and co-founder of iconic club Studio 54 in the late 1970s. To take care of the audio solution, Schrager’s director of development, Michael Overington, enlisted the services of Ernie Lake’s specialist AV firm, EL Media Group.

“We knew exactly what was needed from the start. Working in cooperation with Schrager’s designers and the head of branding, Ben Pundole, we were asked to put together a system able to handle a DJ and other general audio duties, which could perform well and at different levels. Quality and even sound dispersion were an absolute must,” says Lake. “The client also requested remote access for volume and source.”

As a long-time Symetrix system user – “we’ve been specifying their processors for many years now and love their products” – it was a fairly easy decision to select two SymNet Radius 12×8 open architecture Dante-scalable DSPs. These were augmented by two SymNet xOut 12 I/O expansion units, with a handful of ARC-2e control panels also installed to provide the necessary remote control capabilities.