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Back in 2018 South Korean construction company Hoban Co. began moves to take over Resom Resort from its creditors at a cost of $224 million after being named as the preferred bidder.Resom owns three resorts in Chungcheong Province in Korea—including Splas Resom, a membership spa resort and Forest Resom, situated in a dense tree forest, which seeks to provide healing through nature and water.

A tender was issued for refurbishment of the existing Splas facility—as well as the construction of a new building—and Martin Audio distributor, Sama Sound, partnered with its dealer, Asea Sound, to submit the successful bid.

Sama Sound Product Manager, Edan Kwon, stated that the speakers had originally been specified with another brand. “And so we worked hard to get this changed to Martin Audio,” he explained. “With the help of a presentation we were able to show the company and its engineer the advantages of the new system design over other brands.”

Martin Audio’s Wavefront Precision Compact (WPC)—recently accoladed with the Queen’s Award for Innovation—was a perfect match for the previously specified system, meeting all the same performance criteria. “Therefore this system pretty much decided itself,” he said. “It was the same with our SXC118 subwoofer; since a cardioid subwoofer had been specified, we designed the system with SXC118.”

But from that point on, the scalable Wavefront Precision offered advantages that none of the other previously considered systems could. “The venue was constructed without regard for architectural acoustics, so there were consequently many sound reflections, especially from the venue back wall, as well as from backstage. The Hard Avoid feature [in the proprietary DISPLAY software] helped us to control those reflections, while the customer was more than satisfied at how the SXC118 cardioid subwoofer reduced the radiation behind.”

The Martin Audio loudspeakers—including many from the CDD series—have been installed in a number of multipurpose banquet halls which are mainly used for corporate events, seminars, and workshops. The system needed to be sufficiently versatile to handle a number of source feeds, ranging from background music, voice announcements and occasionally live music.

Set in hangs of five elements a side in the main Juniper Hall, accompanied by four SXC118 subs in cardioid, WPC is driven in 2-box resolution from an iKON iK81 and four iK42 amplifiers. A pair of LE200 wedges have been provided for stage monitoring.

Elsewhere, in the Rosemary Hall the specification moves to a pair each of Martin Audio W8VDQ and SXC118 subs, with two further CDD8B acting as delay speakers—powered from a further four-channel iK42.

The Geranium Hall sees a pair each of CDD8B as main speakers and CDD5B as delays, with four CDD8B in the Iris & Marigold Hall, and a pair of the same speaker in each of the Sage Hall, Jasmine Hall and Verbena Hall spaces.

Overseeing the project for Sama Sound was sales manager, Jong Hwa Seo, while Seung Hwan Kim designed the system. Hong Geun Kim took charge of the speaker installations and system tunings.

Explaining his reasons for choosing Martin Audio, the engineer, Seung Hyuk Im, said, “Since the venue is mostly rented, I wanted to choose equipment that was familiar to visiting engineers. Martin Audio was one of my considerations from the beginning and it provided me with the best system solution. I have experienced [the brand], both from exhibitions and also when I was working in a rental company. The sound is so clear and punchy, and the balance extremely good. Engineers who came in to rent systems for their events were all 100% satisfied.”

The optimisation and Hard Avoid features had worked really well, he added. “I was also fully satisfied with the performance of the SXC118 cardioid subwoofer. Since we are a resort, the aesthetic was also important. Martin Audio speakers look classy and fabulous, but are also small enough to be fairly unobtrusive—particularly the cardioid subwoofer; it is not easy to find one this small.”

Following the commissioning, the contracting team moved on to Forest Resom, where a similar Martin Audio system was specified.

Martin Audio Japan (MAJ) recently staged an outdoor showcase demo at the ancient ruins of the Ama Site Park in Takatsuki, Osaka.

This park was newly opened in 2021, having refurbished the land that was previously used as a university campus. Now the park is open to everyone.

Martin Audio Japan had been unable to hold any demo showcases over the last 18 months due to COVID19 restrictions. Once the pandemic calmed down the company restarted its activity programme—and planned something special.

Director of MAJ, Sam Yamashita, explained the rationale. “Holding the demonstration outside ensured there would be sufficient space for the social distancing as well as fresh air. We had originally wanted to introduce WPL to customers back in 2019, but due to COVID it was postponed.”

In any case, he concluded that showing the capability of WPL to its optimum potential in the previous theatre context may not have been the best solution. “WPL has long throw capabilities that could not be properly evaluated in a theatre. So, I had the idea that by holding the demonstration outdoors, it would solve both social distancing issues and give us the space to evaluate this powerful system to its full potential.”

The event was extremely successful with more than 50 people in attendance. Everyone was smiling with satisfaction as they auditioned both the WPS and WPL arrays.

The MAJ crew knew that everybody had been frustrated by the COVID situation and wanted to listen to the music loud. “Having them enjoy the music so much was a pleasure for the MAJ team as well,” acknowledged Yamashita.