LONDON – The first UK installation of the new OmniLine Micro Line Array from Martin Audio has been installed in the new three-story, glass-fronted Kingly Club in London’s Covent Garden. The scalable system was specified by Bernard Mani, head of London integration company, Systems Etc, after witnessing its launch at PLASA 2007 and seeing it immediately adopted in America for Star Trek The Tour — billed as “the largest interactive Star Trek exhibit ever.”
The Kingly Club is the brainchild of entrepreneur Dezzi Mc Causland, founder and creator of the original award-winning members club of the same name in Soho — on which Systems Etc also worked.
The new operation in St Martin’s Lane consists of a contemporary Japanese restaurant, Kyashii, a lounge bar, a VIP mezzanine area and al fresco seating during the summer months.
Overlooking the ground floor with a private bar, DJ and the largest floor to ceiling screens of any bar in Europe, the VIP mezzanine area offers fabulous views over the lounge bar and onto St Martin’s Lane. Downstairs, the restaurant comprises three dining rooms, the Blue Room, The White Room and the Chef’s Table.
Providing even sound coverage provided a real challenge for Mani, although he already had experience of the space, since he had provided the sound system in the building’s earlier incarnation (as Denim). “This time, not only did we have to provide even distribution through three floors, but the system needed to be tiny and discreet — in fact Dezzi wanted the components to be near-invisible.” It was important that the sound reinforcement blended in with the high-glamour design concept created by the owner himself, and architect Phillip Watts.
Bernard Mani investigated just about every product catalog, but when he and Mc Causland visited Martin Audio’s High Wycombe HQ they knew they had the answer. “He was completely sold on the looks,” says the installer.
Thus, the main system comprises seven hangs of four OmniLine boxes — some flown from the ceiling and some wall-mounted. Full range infills are provided by Martin Audio’s architecturally-designed white C115s with 11 mounted to the wall, along with a combination of 17 distributed C4.8Ts and two C6.8T. Ceiling Series speakers.
The floor-mounted sub-woofers needed to be invisible and both the eight CS265s on the ground floor and three AQ series AQ210 (2 x 10 in subs) in the mezzanine have been concealed within the furniture.
Special dispensation was made for the Martin Audio Blackline F10, which forms the DJ’s reference monitoring in the highly-specified booth — as this does have a strong muscular presence.
In order to balance the levels of the source inputs — with different DJ and background music feeds — Systems Etc have once again used Martin Audio’s new Engineer 418 DSP, as they did recently at Pacha Victoria, working in conjunction with a separate zoner, which distributes the sound to 14 different zones. Any containment issues have been dealt with by clever soundproofing — with added insulation and double-glazed skylights.
Summarizing the installation, Bernard Mani says, “OmniLine is great looking kit and it really works — delivering the right SPL. Everyone at the venue is delighted.”
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