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The Buzz: Installation Spotlight: Fox and Hound, Wichita, Kan.

Food, Sports, AV

The Buzz: Installation Spotlight:
Fox and Hound, Wichita, Kan.

Feb 1, 2007 12:01 PM,
By Liz Horsley

Food, Sports, AV

On game day, sports fans can usually find the matchup they want to watch at a Fox and Hound restaurant. Known as Bailey’s Pub and Grille in some areas, the restaurants owned by the Fox and Hound Restaurant Group are set up to have multiple rooms with separate audio and video running in each area. Of the 90 restaurants the group operates across the country, most are designed with a main foyer and bar area at the entrance, with two separate entertainment rooms on either side. Each side room usually has pool tables and a seating area, as well as multiple audiovisual displays.

“Often, if you’re in a larger metropolitan area, you’ll have an alumni group of both teams, so we can’t just do game sound for the entire restaurant and have it set up for just one of the teams,” says Greg Waldo, senior director of construction for Fox and Hound Restaurant Group. “We try to provide one area for one team and another area for another team. All the focus for that day becomes on game sound.”

Each room is set up to have separate audio, with anywhere from 30 to 50 speakers throughout the restaurant. For the audio system, they run inputs through AutoPatch CP-10 and 1YDM routers, into Biamp Nexia CS and SP digital processing systems, and then into QSC CX1202V amplifiers.

“We usually have 8,000W to 10,000W of amplification per store,” says Jason Taylor, project manager for the Fox and Hound AV installations through Multi-Media Masters, based in Nashville, Tenn. “We stick with AutoPatch because they have a great policy on their equipment.” That policy: If something goes wrong with the products, AutoPatch will fix it within 24 hours.

Taylor normally installs ElectroVoice EVID C8.2LP in-ceiling speakers in the bar area of the restaurants, which typically have a drop ceiling. Everywhere else, he installs Tannoy i6AW external speakers.

“We pick amplifiers that really can handle the 10,000W and the amount of speakers we have,” Taylor says. “The speaker quality out of Tannoy is just amazing. It sounds really good — we tune the rooms, we balance the rooms, and we get a good, clear, crisp sound through it.”

Fox and Hound equips each room with game footage on projectors and high-definition televisions. Taylor installs the same manufacturers and equipment in most of the restaurants, which average approximately 9,600 square feet. If a restaurant needs a bigger system, Taylor changes out the switcher for a larger one and add more displays, but mostly the installations stay the same from one facility to the next.

Taylor worked on the most recent Fox and Hound install in September 2006 for a new restaurant in Charlotte, N.C. The job began by placing a high-definition satellite antenna and a high-definition local antenna on top of the building, Taylor says. Then the team runs that down to the rack system and usually inputs 12 Spaun USA SEW121F HD satellite receivers and three Sony DVP-NC85H DVD players, which are then run into high-definition AutoPatch CP-10 and 1YDM routers. The size of the router is usually around the range of 16×28 to 16×40, depending on the restaurant.

“From there, we route them out to the displays themselves, to the projectors,” Taylor says. “Most stores these days have from 10 to 15 projectors. They have two 19in. high-definition flatpanel displays in the restrooms, and the rest would be high-definition televisions. That can range anywhere from 25 to 30 displays.” The Charlotte, N.C., install, for example, included four Sony 34in. HD CRT televisions, three Westinghouse LTV-19w6 19in. LCD televisions, six Insignia 30in. HD televisions, and 10 Mitsubishi XD490U projectors.

When he first started the installations with Fox and Hound more than 10 years ago, Taylor went through the trials of finding the right manufacturers and equipment that could hold up to the specific demands of the restaurants.

“If you’ve got seven stores, and you go to put in [a system] that’s going to run 16-18 hours a day, you don’t know what kind of equipment will last that long in a smoke-filled bar environment,” he says. Now, Taylor usually sticks with the same tried-and-true manufacturers for each installation, while naturally keeping pace with technological changes.

“They’re constantly trying to get new technology in the stores and stay above the rest of their competition,” he says. “You see a trend [at Fox and Hound] going away from TVs to projectors now, and soon away from projectors to LCD panels and maybe plasma displays, so they’re staying ahead of the game.”

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