The Domaine de Mas de Pierre is a newly refurbished, five-star hotel and resort located in Saint-Paul de Vence, France, on the Mediterranean coast. Set within the heart of a beautiful 20-acre garden, the resort comprises nine authentic, Provencal country houses with 76 suites and a selection of luxurious restaurants, bars, a spa, and several indoor and outdoor meeting spaces.
As part of the resort’s recent renovations, hotel management wanted to upgrade their AV system to a networked, multi-zone installation with local and centralised control to best manage sound for its many different spaces. And because some distance separates the resort’s guesthouses and main buildings, a sound system built upon a blended analogue and digital audio network with standard and Dante-enabled amplifiers from LEA Professional was needed.
The hotel brought in local systems integration firm Inovasystem to design and install the resort’s new audio network and supporting equipment. Inovasystem has provided AV design, installation, and maintenance solutions across the French Riviera for more than 15 years. Many of the region’s top resorts, hotels, and business centres are among Inovasystem’s list of clients. The company turned to the team at Pilotefilms, LEA’s Authorized Distributor in France, who recommended the LEA Professional amplifiers. Philippe Pangallo, a Managing Partner at Inovasystem, was the lead engineer for the Domaine de Mas de Pierre project.
“The most complicated part of this installation was that the existing network and wiring configuration had a mix of VLANs and Wi-Fi networks, as well as CCTV and hard-wire systems,” said Philippe. “So, we needed components that were very installation flexible that we could configure as needed. The LEA amplifiers offered the Dante connectivity as well as a range of analogue options that we needed.”
Philippe explained that a mix of more than 150 Sonance loudspeakers have been installed throughout the resort, covering a diverse range of spaces, including the gastropub restaurant and bar, a grill restaurant, the hotel lobby, spa and pool areas, fitness centres, guest cabins and more.
For system amplification, the team installed a set of 10 multi-channel, LEA Professional Connect Series amplifiers for a total of 48 audio channels. Several of the amplifiers are Dante ready, with some of the amps driving 100V speaker lines, and others powering low impedance speakers. Flexibility was essential for this installation.
The Connect Series from LEA Professional is a commercial-grade audio amplifier family perfectly suited for small to medium-scale installations. Featuring three ways to connect, users can engage the built-in Wi-Fi access point, connect to the venue’s Wi-Fi, or use the FAST Ethernet to connect to any local area network via Cat5 or Cat6 cable.
“The LEA amplifiers have the high-quality sound, the headroom, the connectivity flexibility, and remote monitoring tools we needed to make this a success,” said Philippe. “This resort is only about 5 kilometers from our office, but it’s very convenient for us to monitor the system to assure it is performing as needed. The LEA cloud tools make it possible.”
The Connect Series features cloud connectivity allowing users to harness the power of the cloud for remote control, monitoring, configuration, and more from any personal device. The Connect Series features HiZ and LoZ channel selectable analog inputs, Dante inputs, and external I/O control for remote on/off and fault monitoring.
In total, Inovasystem designed and installed the resort’s complete AV system, including digital signage, televisions, big screens, and the satellite reception and Chromecast systems.
“The customer is delighted with their system, and everything is going well,” added Philippe. “I’m glad that we specified LEA. The amps are performing as planned, and we are very pleased. We look forward to more LEA installations!”
