A 110-year-old classic, the Whitemarsh Valley Country Club’s course is sited on 125 verdant acres a half hour north of Philadelphia. The most recent renovation of its main clubhouse building included an all-new IP-networked AV system.
“The big challenge was that Whitemarsh Valley Country Club has 8 rooms spread across 20,000 square feet, and we needed to take audio from any of those locations and distribute it to anywhere in the building,” comments JD Sound & Video President and Lead Design Engineer Joe DiSabatino, who designed the new system. “Audio is the big thing for them; they need to get background music or audio from any space not only to the main rooms but to the patios for outdoor events, as well as to the hallways and stairs.”
“AV over IP makes sense for this system,” asserts DiSabatino. “Doing it analog would have required a lot of audio cable to be run, soldered, and so on. With audio over IP, we do it with a CAT6 cable that anyone can terminate. And I don’t have to worry about someone making a mistake soldering a plate: You terminate the cable, you test it, and you know it’s good. Attero Tech offers a lot of options, so if at some point the client wants to change the I/O, that’s easy to do by swapping the Attero Tech plate for a different model. If the client needs two more XLR inputs to expand the unAX2IO+ wall plates in the ballroom, we can do that, too, with the unXP2I expansion plate.”
The audio network is managed by a QSC Q-SYS Core 110F DSP. Three of the four main indoor event spaces are equipped with Attero Tech AES67 networked audio wall plates. “The client was pretty much set on going with Q-SYS, and Attero Tech and Q-SYS play well with each other,” DiSabatino observes, “so that worked out great.” Virtually all indoor spaces are equipped with Community D-series ceiling speakers, although the Whitemarsh Ballroom has a combination of 12 Community D10s and 4 QSC AD-C820R ceiling speakers. The outdoor patios feature QSC surface-mount speakers. All are fed by the Q-SYS network.
The elegant first-floor Thomas Grille restaurant seats up to 200 guests and features a mahogany bar, as well as an outdoor patio. Here, an Attero Tech unA6IO wall plate provides AES67 network access, including two XLR audio inputs with switchable mic/line gain and phantom power and a software-selectable choice of stereo unbalanced RCA or 3.5 mm jacks. The unA6IO also provides a 3.5 mm stereo front-facing output, as well as two side-facing balanced outputs on a depluggable connector, all with software-controlled volume. The club staff can select the audio stream and set levels using a QSC TSC-7W wall-mount touch screen controller.
The lobby elevator or grand staircase take you up to the second floor, where the Whitemarsh Ballroom hosts up to 350 guests for wedding receptions and other major events. “I installed multiple Attero Tech plates with two XLR ins and outs in the ballroom, so bands have a choice of spots where they can plug in,” explains DiSabatino.
Indeed, the Whitemarsh Ballroom is well equipped with two Attero Tech unA6IO plates and two Attero Tech unAX2IO+ AES67 networked audio wall plates. The unAX2IO+ provides two XLR audio inputs and two XLR outputs, as well as a side-facing pair of balanced line inputs that can accommodate an expansion plate. Like the unA6IO, it offers software-controlled audio flow assignment, input gain, and phantom power over the AES67 network.
Adjacent to the Whitemarsh Ballroom is the intimate Bloomfield Room, which seats up to 90 guests for smaller-scale events and for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres before dinner events in the ballroom. DiSabatino supplied this lovely, relaxing space with a pair of Attero Tech unA6IO audio wall panels, along with a QSC touch screen.
“In all three of these rooms, I chose Attero Tech audio panels because they integrate well with Q-SYS and AES67, and they provide the features and the quality the client wants and deserves,” DiSabatino declares.
