Lutheran Senior Life is a leading name in later-life and healthcare community provision, and operates a number of properties throughout the state of Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh-based integration firm ASCC’s Pro A/V arm has implemented Symetrix processors to provide suitably flexible audio in a number of Lutheran Senior Life properties, and in its latest project has installed Symetrix Radius and Solus DSPs at the Passavant Retire Community complex in Zelienople.
In a move designed to better serve its residents, Passavant recently completed work on a new site, the Abundant Life Center. The ambitious facility hosts a chapel, fitness centre, restaurant, conference area, retail outlets, independent living and personal care apartments, nursing beds and more.
To deliver anywhere-to-anywhere source routing and intuitive local control at the Abundant Life Center, ASCC made extensive use of Symetrix technology. A SymNet Radius 12×8 DSP resides at the heart of the system, and an xIn 12 and an xOut 12 connect to it via Dante, bringing the main system I/O count to 24×20. One Symetrix SymNet Solus 8 open architecture DSP each resides in the chapel and in the conference complex, and although those systems usually operate autonomously ASCC’s Ken Coey and Ryan Hesske designed the system so that users could still tap or send signals to or from anywhere else in the system via analogue feeds and interactive preset changes.
In addition, seven Symetrix ARC-2e wall mounted remote controls, spread across the zones, permit easy source selection, volume adjustment and preset changes. Paging centres located at the main reception desk, fitness centre reception desk and media area use a Symetrix ARC-SW4e paired with an ARC-EX4e wall panel remote to allow intuitive paging to any zone in the building.
With regard to the five principal areas that comprise the Abundant Life Center, Coey - who is pro A/V design specialist at ASCC - says that “it made sense to tie all the systems together. That way, in addition to being able to page specific areas or across the entire system, they could send programme input sources from anywhere to anywhere else. It’s very flexible, and yet with the ARC controllers still very easy for them to operate.”
A long-time user of Symetrix systems, Coey remarks that he has “always been impressed with the quality, functionality, reliability and ease-of-use of their products. Moreover, they sound great and we’re able to programme the user interfaces so that staff can use them intuitively.”
Inputs to the system include seven Tascam CD-200i CD players with integrated iPod dock, a Tascam TU-690 AM/FM radio, an Antex XM-100 Satellite radio, three Audix ADX-12 gooseneck paging microphones, 15 Sennheiser Evolution Wireless systems, three Sennheiser SKM-Series wireless microphones, four Galaxy Audio HSE-UBG-SENN headworn microphones and a PreSonus StudioLive 16.0.2 digital mixer.
11 QSC ISA-, CX- and RMX-Series amplifiers power a large collection of QSC AD-series surface-mounted loudspeakers and Quam System ACT-Series lay-in loudspeakers, as well as a handful of EV ZX1-SUB subwoofers and SoundTube RS400i pendant loudspeakers. Furman sequencers condition the system, while Listen Technologies provides assisted listening.