The Solar Decathlon competition is hosted every year by the US Department of Energy's Office of Energy, Efficiency and Renewable Energy. It's a highly prestigious event, attracting competition entries from academic institutions all over the world - the USA, Canada, Germany and Spain. Teams must design a solar house, with every last watt of electricity used by the house being generated by the solar panels on the roof. The houses are displayed to the public on the National Mall in Washington DC and the winning house will tour the United States.
That winning house was designed and built by a team from the Technische Universität of Darmstadt in Germany. It placed an emphasis on German products and technologies, and involved extensive collaboration between the team and prominent German companies. For the state-of-the-art multimedia entertainment system, the Solar Decathlon team turned to Sonus for advice, and their recommendation paired together the invisible in-wall Sonus Intara P loudspeaker panels with three tiny Ti-Line 2101 power amplifiers, and Vieta's compact Do-80S subwoofer.
The Ti Line from Vieta is a new, compact, remote-controllable amplifier system, designed for low to medium power use in fixed installations. The small, modular Amplifier Blocks are to DIN rail size and fixing standards, making them extremely easy to install, especially in places where space is at a premium. The Ti 2101 gives 2 x 50W(RMS) into 8 ohms, with 2 x 100W impulse power. EQ and level can be set on the amplifier blocks themselves or controlled remotely, either by a PC using a network connection with an IP address, by infrared remote control or by simple wall-mounted control boxes.
Martin Greis of Sonus explained why he recommended Spanish pro-audio equipment for the German eco-house. "I specified the Ti Line for this installation because of its ultra-compact size. It is superbly energy-efficient and so there is a very low heat dissipation. Combining this with our Intara P speakers, and Vieta's diminiutive Do-80S subwoofer, gave the home great audio but the architects did not have to worry about the equipment getting in the way of the house's superb aesthetic presentation."
The Intara P in-wall speaker panels are completely invisible, made from a dedicated 'transmission' material developed by a large building materials company from Germany.
"The panels do sound very good," continues Greis. "They are big enough to provide exceptional bottom end and have powerful first-grade exciters. The systems feature onboard passive protection. We do add dedicated DSP channels with limiting and proper EQ. We always specify double star wiring and call it Sonus 3-way protection technology - a real plus for invisible speakers that cannot be serviced any more after the install."
(Jim Evans)
