The National Aquarium is located in Qawra, a town on the northeast of the island where tourism is the dominant industry. Opened earlier this year, the 20,000m2 complex includes the aquarium building, a franchised Café del Mar, restaurant, retail outlet, car park and public areas. Fgura-based Futuretech is one of the island's leading A/V installers and chose Denon Professional equipment to deliver the high quality audio that the project required.
The aquarium is divided into four themed zones, each of which has its own Denon DN-F300 solid state audio player delivering a unique soundtrack from SD card. The units ability to loop the playback and also play sound immediately from power up means that it is a true 'set and forget' solution. Changing the soundtrack for any zone is simply a case of inserting a new SD card.
In the restaurant, shop and on the upper floor, background music comes from two DN-700H Network Audio Players and a DN-500C CD/iPod player. Shared across all zones, feeds can be played in all or any combination of them. Amplification for the first floor is courtesy of a DN-A100P stereo unit. A childrens play area also features playback using DN-700H and DN-500C units, with a further DN-A100P power amplifier.
The adjacent Café del Mar franchise features panoramic sea views. Designed for patrons to enjoy good food and drink while admiring the vista, a relaxing soundtrack is an essential part of the experience. Coming courtesy of Café del Mar's infamous specialism in ambient and chill out music, it's delivered by a further DN-700H Network Audio Player and a DN-C615 CD player.
"The National Aquarium is a very prestigious project for Malta. Everything has been designed to give visitors a very high quality experience and the soundtrack to each zone has to match that," says Futuretech managing director Stefan Farrugia. "We chose Denon products because we know that they will deliver the required audio quality, as well as being very flexible and reliable in use."
(Jim Evans)
