At the Dali EDITION resort in Yunnan, China, K-array and KGEAR loudspeakers deliver zone-tuned sound across dining, ballroom and outdoor spaces while staying concealed within the resort’s nature-led design.
The Dali EDITION is the third EDITION hotel in Greater China and the first in Western China, set at the foot of Cangshan Mountain with views across Erhai Lake. Designed by CCD around a contemporary courtyard concept, the resort uses aged timber, bluestone and cobblestone drawn from local Bai traditions in low-rise buildings that follow the terrain. It has 151 guest rooms, suites and pool villas, four dining venues, a banquet and meeting space, a spa, terraces and lawns for weddings and private events.
The challenge: concealing a full pro audio system
The project was sourced through an audio consultant, with K-array selected for how closely its loudspeakers could integrate visually with CCD’s interior design. Shanghai JETA, K-array’s official distributor in China, provided technical support from component selection to on-site tuning. Jason Zhao, director of sales and operations at K-ARRAY.CN LTD, worked with the consultant to match models, mounting and coverage to each zone, coordinating with the architecture, MEP and hotel operations teams.
The main challenge was concealing a professional audio system inside an interior built around exposed natural materials, while meeting very different demands from zone to zone: quiet, even background sound in dining and lobby areas, and higher dynamic range and low-frequency output in the ballroom and outdoor bar. K-array’s team joined early design reviews to fix speaker locations, mounting depth and cabling routes, then returned to recheck placement and tune each zone.
Zone by zone
The dining rooms, lobby and pool areas use Tornado KT2 point sources and KT2C ceiling speakers, chosen for their small footprint and even distribution of background music across large, open floor plans, with KU44 I compact subwoofers.
The ballroom, which hosts conferences, weddings and live performances and can be partitioned, runs on KY102 line arrays with recessed KS2P I subwoofers that extend response down to 35 Hz while hidden within the wall structure, giving speech clarity and the headroom a live band or DJ set requires.
The terrace lounge and outdoor bar use weatherproof KGEAR GF82 I line arrays with GU210 subwoofers, sized to move from soft daytime background music to higher-energy evening events, with DJ input ports. Placed along the covered terrace perimeter, they keep sightlines to the mountain and lake clear.
Signal for background music, banquets and events runs through an audio matrix and zoning processor to dedicated amplifier channels for each zone. Each space has its own volume and playlists, and the ballroom has a digital mixing console linked to the matrix for live events.
This project demonstrated K-array’s strength extends far beyond compact, minimalistic hardware. K-array and KGEAR form a complete hotel audio ecosystem, solving concealed installation while delivering scalable coverage, dynamic range and low-frequency support for background music, banquet PA and outdoor entertainment alike, said Zhao.
Products used. All-day dining, lobby & pool, Chinese restaurant: 4 KU44 I compact subwoofers, 70 KT2C ceiling loudspeakers, 16 KT2 point source speakers. Ballroom: 4 KY102 line array loudspeakers, 2 KS2P I recessed subwoofers. Terrace lounge & outdoor bar: 8 KGEAR GF82 I weatherproof line array loudspeakers, 4 KGEAR GU210 subwoofers.
Photos: © Marriott
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