Lewis CaliburnScottish hospitality operator, The DRG, has opened the seventh outpost of its popular tapas restaurant, Cafe Andaluz in the Stockbridge neighbourhood of Edinburgh.
With the opening coinciding with the 21st birthday of the first Cafe Andaluz, Tony Conetta, director of The DRG, wanted this venue to be extra special. Interior designer Jelena Kerr and DesignLSM, were entrusted with bringing to life the Moorish and Andalusian inspired interior whilst Nadar Shahzad of Blue Audio was tasked with deploying a complementary audio system to play out the bespoke flamenco-tinged dining soundtrack.
Audio quality and aesthetics were of equal importance in the project, so the choice of loudspeakers was crucial. It was somewhat fortuitous that when the project landed with Blue Audio, they were in discussions with CUK Group to become one of the first 1 SOUND partners in the UK.
Nadar Shahzad explains, “When I saw the mood boards produced for the interiors of the new restaurant, I knew that the 1 SOUND Cannon series would be the ideal match due to their compact size and the customisation options available”.
A demo of the 1 SOUND products at CUK Group’s East Kilbride facility convinced Tony that they would provide the audio quality he wanted for the venue whilst visual samples of the loudspeakers and different finishes available ensured Jelena and her team were satisfied that the loudspeakers would fit with the aesthetics.
The system deployed consisted of the smallest C4i loudspeaker finished in off-white paint with a gold fabric grille; compact WSUB45 subwoofers were carefully concealed out of view to extend the low frequency response.
Another first for Blue Audio was their use of Powersoft’s Dynamic Music Distribution (DMD) ecosystem as a complete amplification, routing and control solution. Two MEZZO 604AD amplifiers are networked along with a WM Touch 4.3” wall controller and a Bluetooth wall plate for local audio input.
Nadar says, “The decision to use DMD was based on a couple of different factors; first was the simplicity of being able to set up the complete audio and control system using a single piece of software, Powersoft’s ArmoníaPlus. Secondly, we had limited rack space available and with the two MEZZO amplifiers only taking up a total of 1U of rack space when mounted side-by-side, this was a big saving over a traditional solution using a separate zone mixer with different amplifiers for my tops, subs and 100V line speakers.”