Verdi Viale is a brand new health and fitness centre in Yotsukaido, Japan, a suburb
that’s a half-hour east of Tokyo. It stands alone in a purpose-built two-story building
and has a comprehensive range of amenities to help its clients achieve “life
balance.’ Specifically, Verdi Viale is split into three studios: a cardio studio, a yoga
studio, and a machine room. With the assistance of Morimoto Naniwa Sound
Projects Co., Ltd. of Tokyo, Verdi Viale supplied each studio with its own powerful
sound playback and instructor reinforcement system. Each studio uses One Systems
108im loudspeakers powered by a four-channel Ashly nX4004 four-channel
programmable output amplifier.

“The main purpose of the system is to allow for background music or for program
music with instructor reinforcement,’ explained Masaki Morimoto, co-owner of
Morimoto Naniwa Sound Projects, who, along with Makoto Akashi, helped select the
sound reinforcement products, specified their placement, and tuned the installed
system. “Most of the facility is surrounded by glass walls, which led to long
reverberation times. Of course, intelligibility was very important, and it was
necessary to maintain perfect, undistorted fidelity. Ashly amplifiers are excellent in
this regard, and Ashly’s reliability would allow Verdi Viale to operate without
interruption.’

Kazuhiko Hosoi, president of S and A Planning Co., oversaw the installation of the
system. A big part of Hosoi’s job was making sure the system blended invisibly into
Verdi Viale’s sleek interior design. “This aspect of the job is very important in
Japan,’ Morimoto explained. “There is a premium placed on making sure everything
in the interior design is consistent, and Mr. Hosoi has a lot of experience making
sound and video systems work with the interior designs of restaurants and retail
stores.’

Within each of the three separate studios, a four-channel Ashly nX4004 amplifier
delivers 400W each to four One Systems 108im full-range loudspeakers. “The large-
format compression driver of the 108im contributes to the high intelligibility of the
system despite the reverberant character of the glass walls,’ Morimoto said. “And
the one-to-one pairing of loudspeakers with amplifier channels allows the system to
operate with plenty of headroom for undistorted playback. In addition, the Ashly
amplifiers are robust to the area’s poor power supply – most commercial facilities
have less than 100V AC, and there is no grounding point. Despite this, the Ashly
amplifiers perform reliably and sound excellent.’ Each One Systems 108im hangs
from a custom bracket built by Morimoto Naniwa Sound Projects Co., Ltd. A simple
DBX processor mixes inputs from various background music sources, a CD player
for each studio, and an instructor microphone for each studio.