Clearwing Systems Integration Selects QSC for Ark Encounter Attraction

Clearwing Systems Integration recently provided a complete audio and video package for Ark Encounter. Featuring a full scale Noah’s Ark spanning 510 feet long, 85 feet wide and 51 feet high, this 7-story feat of engineering was one of the biggest system installs in Clearwing history.

The first phase of the project required Clearwing to distribute audio to nearly 200 zones park wide. To make this happen, Clearwing selected the QSC Ecosystem, installing redundant Q-SYS™ Core 1100 with 50 CXD4.3Q and CXD4.5Q amplifiers to power over 500 QSC AcousticDesign™ Series loudspeakers.

All 144 audio input tracks used throughout the installation were routed into Q-SYS through Dante I/O cards. They were then routed over a redundant Q-LAN™ network to 11 distributed amplifier racks located throughout the Ark, grounds, restaurant and guest services areas. Everything is routed over the network allowing for a purely digital signal throughout with no analog connections running between racks. Also, multiple Q-SYS paging stations and touch screens allow the users to control and page throughout the park-wide system.

By using Q-SYS, the Clearwing team was able to use a single redundant processor that drives the entire system and handles hundreds of inputs and outputs with less than one millisecond of latency. This saved the installation miles of additional cable runs, dozens of system processors, several additional racks of amplifiers, and weeks of additional labor.

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