Kinloch lodge

Kinloch Lodge were looking for a discreet audio solution for their new multi-use social space at their luxury catered holiday home in Northern Scotland. The team at Hutchison Technologies worked with Amina invisible speakers, to develop a bespoke and truly invisible audio system that blends into this historic country house.

Having recently worked with Edinburgh-based architectural firm Gras to redesign their annex space, Kinloch Lodge had transformed four small rooms into one larger social space designed to bring their guests together. The new annex space was decorated in Kinloch Lodge’s signature traditional style, complete with wood-panelled walls and ceilings and the team wanted to bring professional sounding audio into this traditional space to allow their guests to relax and party in style. When in ‘standard’ mode, the speakers would create a surround sound for the built-in TV, but the system had switch over to Bluetooth input for manual music control as and when required.

The brief for Hutchison was for a Bluetooth connected, professional sounding audio that was discreet enough to blend into the traditional style of the room.

The technical team at Hutchison technologies considered many solutions, including painted ceiling speakers that would be flush into the wood panelling, however, as cutting into the wooden panelling was not an ideal outcome for the overall look of the space, they investigated other options.

Hutchison: ‘Having recently worked on an up-market high-street retail space using an innovative invisible speaker from Amina, we decided they would offer the perfect solution to our problem by not only providing an obvious aesthetic benefit but also improving the quality of sound in an acoustically challenging environment.’

With the ability to install Amina invisible speakers behind wood, as well as a myriad of other materials, the team saw an opportunity to offer a completely unique solution that would deliver the high quality sound desired by the client, but also keep them completely concealed from view. 
After introducing the concept of using Amina’s invisible speakers to the Kinloch Lodge team. Hutchison Technologies discovered that the owner of the lodge is a bit of an audiophile and he was really taken with the idea, so they were given the go-ahead to design the system.

Whilst mapping out the space to define the audio requirements of the annex, it was determined that four Amina Mobius 5i would more than cover the space, due to the wide dispersion characteristics. 

The Team then cleverly designed a system where they could drop four of these loudspeakers into the ceiling cavity above the annex’s social space, along with an Amina’s A100Q amplifier to power the system.
At the lodge, the team worked in the tight ceiling cavity to install the speakers and pre-built rack. Carefully recessing the back of the wooden panels to incorporate the speaker properly for a quality distribution of sound, the speakers were fixed into the recess after thorough sweep testing.

Finally, the team installed a Bluetooth connection plate to allow guests simple connection to the system. As per the client’s request to keep visible technology to a minimum, this was concealed in an easy to access seating cupboard in the corner of the room.

The result has created a seamless transition into whichever atmosphere guests desire, from Yoga retreats to movie nights to larger celebrations.

For more information about Hutchinson Technologies and their work, please visit: www.hutchison-t.com