Kudadoo isn’t just a luxury hotel; it’s a private, adults-only, tropical island resort. Part of the Republic of the Maldives in the south-eastern Indian Ocean, Kudadoo offers 15 private over-water bungalows with a spa, bar, restaurant, infinity pool, game room, and much more, it’s also 100% solar powered.
Want 24-hour access to a butler? You get that too, along with just about anything else your heart desires.
Naturally, nothing less than a first-rate sound system would do for such a high-end, luxury resort. For this reason, Kudadoo Maldives private island’s management asked the top-flight team at Pulse Middle East, Dubai, to design and build a sound system that would give them complete flexibility to play background music, and live music from various sources around the island resort, yet be simple enough to operate without a technician on-site.
Led by Managing Director and Audio Engineer Joe Chidiac, the Pulse Middle East team designed a Dante audio network for Kudadoo managed by a Symetrix Radius 12 by eight EX DSP. The system serves the bar, restaurant, pool area, spa, salt room, games room, and restrooms.
“This installation was very special since the location is extremely particular and breathtaking,” said Joe. “The main difficulties at Kudadoo were the logistics, the hotel being on an island in the Maldives, and the timeline. The system was installed and integrated over three days, after the initial visit and overseas prep. Due to the surrounding water body, many measures had to be taken in order to complete everything on time and have a lasting result.”
The team installed 34 Turbosound, TCI52-TR loudspeakers, six Turbosound TCS32C-T-WH ceiling loudspeakers, two Turbosound IP2000 powered loudspeakers and 12, TCS110B 10-inch subwoofers, describing them as ‘the highest quality wall-mounted loudspeakers on the market.’ Weather-resistant and built for harsh conditions, these compact subwoofers and ceiling loudspeakers delivered a versatile and robust sound system for the resort.
“Designing a user-friendly interface that could be operated by anyone, while still giving options for different sources and volumes in each zone, was a challenge,” explained Pulse Head of Audio, Andy Morris. “One way we got around this was to use logic automation within the Symetrix Radius EX so that certain events, such as a band starting to play from a certain Dante adapter, would cause the background music to automatically fade out in the concerned zones, gradually fading up again when live input is no longer detected.”
In addition to portable devices, audio sources for Kudadoo’s network include a Pioneer DJM-900 DJ mixer with CDJ-2000s, connected with an AVIO adapter; a Midas M32 console with DN32-Dante card; and several TV receivers plugged directly into the Radius 12×8 EX.
The Pulse Middle East team installed CAT6 cable throughout the facility, routing input from the portable devices via Dante connection points to the Symetrix Radius DSP and from the Radius to the amplifiers. Symetrix ARC-3 wall panels enable simple user control of volume, mute, and source selection.
The Radius 12×8 EX DSP provides 64 by 64 Dante 1000 Base-T networking, along with 12 switchable analogue microphone/line inputs and eight analogue balanced line outputs. That’s plenty of I/O for the Kudadoo audio network, but more can be added with option cards should that be required in the future. A second Dante port enables daisy-chaining multiple units and redundant Dante network audio implementation. Delivering studio-grade sound, and programmed using Symetrix’ Composer open-architecture software for Windows, the Radius 12×8 EX can run hundreds of audio processing and control modules for a wide variety of applications.
“The Symetrix Radius makes it easy to manage the Dante network, and it’s extremely reliable,” enthused Andy. “We also like the way Symetrix Composer software makes it easy to integrate our Powersoft amplifiers. Having all the routing set up in Composer instead of using an additional piece of software like Dante Controller saves a lot of time and confusion. All the routings are there in Composer, clear to see and easy to restore should any issues arise.”
“The people at Kudadoo are very satisfied with their new sound system,” confirmed Joe. “Pulse Middle East is proud to have been a part of this luxurious masterpiece. However, similar to all other projects that we’ve handled, our job isn’t over once the project is completed. We continue to stand behind Kudadoo and the rest of our clients with the most reliable post-sales support system in the region, ready to solve any issues or concerns, whenever needed. This is one of the ways we forge trust between our clients and build iconic projects that have a lasting impact.”
