Winner of the AA's prestigious Hotel of the Year 2002 award, Pennyhill Park is currently constructing a lavishly appointed spa and health centre. Adam Bloch of Installation Technologies has designed an entertainment system which delivers multi-channel choice to every fitness room and treatment suite, giving guests the ability to pick their own music, ambience and volume preferences using the Jellyfish interface.
The heart of the network is two BSS Soundweb 9088ii DSP engines, with four BSS 9008 networked signal processors or slave units, each providing eight analogue outs, thereby increasing the ratio of outputs to inputs. "This may seem like an extravagant approach," says Bloch, "but the Jellyfish is such a flexible device, it can offer a great deal of control via a simple user interface."
Installation Technologies was chosen for the Pennyhill Park project on the strength of their track record in installing integrated systems in health clubs. One of their biggest customers is Fitness First plc, the largest health club operator in Europe. Installation Technologies have equipped all their UK facilities and many on the continent. "We've been using the 'Webs and Jellies combination for the last two years in the health clubs, and it really does provide all the flexibility we need. We can monitor the system remotely, which keeps the customer's maintenance costs down, we can restrict staff interference with the key controls, the systems are really intuitive and actually very sexy!"
(Ruth Rossington)
