Hummingbird Nest Ranch, a new equestrian facility located 35 miles northwest of Los Angeles in Ventura County, is reportedly the world’s first Soundweb London installation.
Installed in November, two new CobraNet™-equipped BSS BLU-80 units are now being utilized by the 140-acre ranch to provide digital signal processing and routing for up to a dozen different speaker zones. One of the DSP units is located in the 17,000-square-foot clubhouse’s main audio rack, while the other is housed in a rack on casters designed to roll out for positioning during events.
The BSS processor pair collectively interfaces with nine Crown CTs 600 amplifiers, all outfitted with IQ-PIP-USP3/CN cards, which drive approximately 30 JBL Control 30 loudspeakers in the primary and secondary arenas, clubhouse and VIP and vendor areas.
According to Jeff Griffeth, director of information and technology for Hummingbird Nest, “The routing flexibility of London really appealed to us. Having BLU-80s in both our house and rolling racks allows us to take any number of audio signals—satellite radio feeds, CD players, microphones, you name it—and very easily route them over CobraNet to any or all of our various zones depending on our needs for the day. And the integration between BSS, Crown and CobraNet is extremely smooth. For example, there’s a small stage in the vendor area where we occasionally have local performers play, so via the PIP cards, we can route their signals onto CobraNet and broadcast them back to the clubhouse, arena or wherever. It’s very cool.
“The scalability of London is great, too. As we expand our facilities, our audio system can painlessly grow along with it. And by the same token, when we host smaller events here at the ranch, we can simply turn off zones we don’t need and scale back the audio accordingly,” he continues.
Hummingbird Nest put the Soundweb London through its paces immediately, hosting the ninth-annual FEI Children’s International Jumping Final, which brought more than 10,000 people to the equestrian facility over two days in late November. “Many people, including VIPs and dignitaries, complimented us on the intelligibility of the new sound system,” says Griffeth. “Even several of the FEI officials told me that they’ve grown accustomed to dealing with crackling P.A.s and horn speakers, so our new Harman system truly delighted them, and we’re pretty impressed with it, too.”
For more information, please go to to www.bss.co.uk.
