Carnival Cruise Line’s Carnival Conquest, which cruises to the Bahamas, Bermuda, and the Caribbean, recently upgraded its sound reinforcement capabilities for its poolside LED screen.
After carefully considering options from several well-known loudspeaker manufacturers, the company ultimately selected loudspeakers from the WR Series catalog of Valencia, Spain-based D.A.S. Audio.
North Miami, FL headquartered Control AV was contracted to design and deploy the new sound reinforcement setup for the ship’s outdoor theater. Ultimately, the firm installed sixteen D.A.S. WR-320FXW installation line arrays and four WR-S218FXW subwoofers.
Amir El Yordi, president of Control AV discusses the job and his reasons for selecting D.A.S. Audio equipment.
“Carlos Morales, our company’s technical director, and Carlos Obando, Control AV’s project manager, were the two lead people on this project, together with their Carnival counterparts; Timothy McCormick, Entertainment Technical project manager, and Jeff Irving, manager-Entertainment Technical Operations-Audio,” El Yordi explains.
“The ship’s outdoor screen features a large LED video wall and the new loudspeakers are integrated into the sides of the screen. Being an outdoor venue, it was crucial for the new sound system to be weatherized so as to minimize vulnerability to moisture typically encountered by any ocean-going vessel. Equally important, we needed a system able to project over a large area that was also capable of maintaining a high level of speech intelligibility and music reproduction characteristics while ‘competing’ with surrounding sounds and, of course, the water.”
Visually, the D.A.S. Audio loudspeakers blend into the screen’s overall visual aesthetic. The screen has a white frame that surrounds the top and sides of the LED video wall. On both the left and right sides of the display, the Control AV installation team positioned eight D.A.S. WR-320FXW installation line arrays in a vertical cluster.
For low-frequency support, these two loudspeaker clusters are augmented with two WR-S218FXW subwoofers—vertically positioned underneath each cluster of eight line array loudspeakers. Both the line arrays and the subwoofers were factory painted white to blend into the overall design of the screen area. The D.A.S. Audio WR Series loudspeakers are specifically designed and engineered for weather resistance and extended durability in extreme environments.
When queried about those aspects of the D.A.S. Audio WR Series loudspeakers that made them so well-suited for installation aboard the Carnival Quest, El Yordi offered the following thoughts. “The Entertainment Department at Carnival was looking for an outdoor line array system capable of surviving the marine environment. With the various conditions equipment is exposed to on the open sea, this is a very difficult task for even most outdoor products the market today. The D.A.S. WR Series is particularly well-suited to survive the extreme wear common to this environment. Equally important, this system is loud and clear, with enough dispersion to cover the space evenly. The system delivers clear, natural quality speech that is necessary to be used in a seaside (outdoor) movie style screen.”
For installations of this complexity, it’s not the least bit uncommon for integrators to seek the advice and recommendations of the equipment manufacturers. In this regard, El Yordi rates D.A.S. Audio’s support services best in class. “D.A.S. is a top tier manufacturer with excellent support services,” he says. “When we had questions, we were able to get the information we required in timely fashion. The company is very responsive to its customers.”
The installation of the ship’s new loudspeaker system took place during late October and early November of 2017. The equipment was immediately placed into service thereafter and, since that time, has generated numerous compliments. “After more than two months, the system is proving itself well-suited for the sometimes-challenging shipboard conditions,” El Yordi reports. “Audio quality is terrific and there hasn’t been even the slightest visible or perceived degradation of its performance from the environment. Our client is very pleased.”
