Four Seasons Hotel Florence

Palazzo del Nero forms part of the Four Seasons Hotel Firenze, and its renovation needed audio that would perform well while remaining out of sight. Every decision had to respect the building's heritage protections, its historic fabric and a refined interior scheme. The scope covered the whole ground floor and common areas, including the entrance bar and lounge, reception, corridors, breakfast rooms, the spaces opening onto the terrace and garden, and the Conventino, a former chapel now used for banquets, conferences and events.

Grey-finished Vyper-KV25 II speakers blend into the entrance walls and are also built into the breakfast-room furnishings, with subwoofers concealed beneath furniture. At reception, Lyzard-KZ14 I units sit within the wood panelling in a custom wood-effect finish, while Lyzard-KZ1 I speakers cover the corridor. Towards the terrace and garden, compact units fixed to slim window-frame uprights keep the number of sources low, and weather-resistant subwoofers are mounted at the top of the veranda. In the naturally reverberant Conventino, a system based on the Pinnacle-KR802 II brings line array performance into the space: Kayman-KY102 units are suspended and angled towards the audience to limit energy reaching the ceiling, supported by two floor-standing passive Thunder-KS4 I subwoofers in a custom RAL colour. A pair of Python-KP102 I units can be added in the apse as DJ monitors. Everything runs over a Dante network with remote zone control.

The outcome is a ground floor with no visible cables or equipment, just even, intelligible sound and the calm background a luxury hotel calls for. Studio Sound Service was responsible for the acoustic and electroacoustic design, while integrator Nueva carried out the installation, designing shallow custom back boxes for the Vyper speakers and a single-point suspension bracket for the Conventino. The project involved months of coordination with mechanical, electrical and interior designers.

Adapted from the official K-Array case study: https://www.k-array.com/en/case-studies/four-seasons-hotel-florence