I have restaurant and we need to replace our sound system with a new one that can produce clear sound with ample headroom in case we need to play things loud (which we do occasionally). Over the last two weeks, I worked with our DJ and one of our in-house technicians to design a replacement system and I'd like to get much needed second opinions from you guys on what you think of our plan. Harsh criticism is welcome whenever warranted. Below are the details and in the bottom you should see the layout of our venue.
What have we missed? What other alternatives should we consider?
- Budget: $20,000 with all the equipment will be purchased from the US. We still need to pay for shipping, customs, and installation which'll be another $20k.
- Venue Design:We have three areas. A restaurant, a sushi bar, and a lounge. The restaurant is the biggest in size and music start to get loud at 11p until we close at 3a. The sushi bar has a couple big tables and a bar seating area where we keep the music volume on the low end just as background. The lounge seats around 30 people and we play background music a little louder than the sushi bar area but not close to the restaurant area.
- The restaurant: We have a seating capacity of 150 guests plus the floor staff (around 40 on average). The area is oddly shaped with the following dimensions: Length: 21.5m in the shorter lower edge and 23.1m in the upper longer edge. Width: 14.8m, and ceiling height: 6m. There are two beams in the middle area which we can use to mount speakers. Other than that, we only have the upper wall and the walls on the right and bottom sides of the restaurant. The wall on the left side is a floor-to-ceiling glass wall except for the three beams shown in dark grey in the layout. The DJ booth is almost centered horizontally (shown in the upper side of the restaurant area in the layout).
- The sushi bar: The dimensions of this area are: Length: 10m, width: 8.4m, and the ceiling height is 6m. It is open to the entrance area and the entrance area is visually blocked from the sushi bar area by some artificial greeneries.
- The lounge: The dimensions of this area are: Length: 14.5m, width: 7.7m and the ceiling is 3.75m. It's open to the sushi bar area and visually blocked from the sushi bar area by decorative greeneries as well. So there is no hard barriers of any kind.
- The plan: Our thinking was that we have to incorporate pendant speakers that have a wide enough dispersion angle as the backbone of our system, supplemented by wall-mounted speakers to provide a fuller sound coverage without being overpowering. So here it goes:
- The restaurant: In the restaurant area, our plan is as follows:
- eight JBL Control 68HP pendant speakers (passive) in a two-row configuration with 4 speakers mounted along each of the two longer sides with the two on the edges of each row being 2.5m away from the two side walls, and the remaining two are placed 5.5m away from each other in this rough placement for one row example: 2.5m X 5.5m X 5.5m X 5.5m X 2.5m (the X represents the speaker). The two rows will be about 5m from each other. We plan to place them 1.5m from the ceiling (4.5m from the floor).
- two JBL Professional Control 28-1L speakers (active) mounted on the wall behind the DJ booth to its left and right sides angled downward. These two are meant to provide enough sound to the area in front of the DJ booth which is usually preferred by customers who love loud music.
- ten JBL SLP14/T wall mounted speakers distributed across the restaurant area to provide just enough sound for a fuller experience without being overly powerful. The basic thinking behind it is a budget-friendly option that can eliminate dead spots without being too powerful.
- two JBL Professional PRX918XLF subwoofers (active) which will be placed on the floor in front of the DJ booth slightly angled toward the sides of the restaurant.
- The sushi bar: In this area, our plan is as follows:
- one JBL Control 68HP mounted in the ceiling at 4.5m from the floor between the two tables (the tables placement in the layout is not accurate. They are closer to each other). It should provide enough background music to the two tables and the bar seating area.
- two JBL SLP14/T wall mounted speakers on the wall of the bar facing the bar seating area and two tables.
- The lounge: In this area, our plan is as follows:
- six JBL Control 68HP pendant speakers placed in a two-row configuration with the first one being 2.5m away from the two side walls (left & right) and 3.9m away from each other. The two rows will be about 2.9m away from each other. They'll be 3.75m from the floor (the actual floor height is 6m but there's a secondary decorative steel ceiling at 3.75m from the floor which has many openings where we can drop the speakers through these openings).
- two JBL Control 60PS/T subwoofers (passive) which will be centered vertically and horizontally will be evenly placed across the seating area.
- Amplifiers: As per our calculation, we need 5,350w of power to power our 27 passive speakers and 2 passive subs. We looked at Crown (XLi, XLs, CDi), QSC GX7, and Behringer NX4-6000. We ran different budget and performance simulation scenarios. I immediately excluded the Behringer fearing its reliability (or lack thereof). The Crown XLs was slightly out of budget but can be manageable. The Crown CDi was way out of budget. The QSC was similar to the XLs in terms of budget. However, what we couldn't figure out is what we'd be gaining and losing in terms of performance under each scenario. Here is what we came up with which'll provide us with 5,800w of power:
- two Crown XLi3500 Amplifiers
- two Crown XLi2500 Amplifiers
- one Crown XLi800 Amplifier
- Processors and other equipment: Currently, we have one dbx Venue 360 processor. In our calculation, we will need another dbx Venue 360 and an ART S8 Signal Splitter to be able to process the sound as per our needs. The farthest speaker from the rack is ~37m. We will use 12 AWG cables throughout. Please check the layout for the location of the equipment rack (red rectangle to right).
- The restaurant: In the restaurant area, our plan is as follows:
What have we missed? What other alternatives should we consider?
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Here is my 2c...
1. You will want separate level control for each zone so it makes sense to have a zone controller.
2. Given point 1 you need enough amp channels to power each zone separately, but also see points 7&8.
3. I don't see the point of all those wall speakers in the Restaurant, the pendants will cover the room if depolyed correctly and adding them will introduce multiple sound arrival times for listeners which just adds mud, it doesn't help.
4. Treat the DJ system as a separate entity and make all the speakers powered, maybe substiture some PRX908's instead of the control boxes so that system can run on it's own and produce some good SPL in the room.
5. No need to angle subs, thier output is omnidirectional so it literally doesn't matter.
6. Optimal placement of subwoofers may not be by the DJ booth, it will take some experimentation to find the optimal placement.. which could be somewhere out in the room. Be prepared to fly one or both subs in the ceiling.
7. Don't load any amplifier channel below 4ohms.
8. Don't power any speaker beyond it's continuous rating.
9 One sub in the lounge will work better than 2 spaced apart, getting the subs to produce even coverage will be the most difficult part of this install. I'm having a hard time believing that pendant sub will produce much output so you may need to substitute something bigger. It should be something that can be flown in the ceiling though.
1. You will want separate level control for each zone so it makes sense to have a zone controller.
2. Given point 1 you need enough amp channels to power each zone separately, but also see points 7&8.
3. I don't see the point of all those wall speakers in the Restaurant, the pendants will cover the room if depolyed correctly and adding them will introduce multiple sound arrival times for listeners which just adds mud, it doesn't help.
4. Treat the DJ system as a separate entity and make all the speakers powered, maybe substiture some PRX908's instead of the control boxes so that system can run on it's own and produce some good SPL in the room.
5. No need to angle subs, thier output is omnidirectional so it literally doesn't matter.
6. Optimal placement of subwoofers may not be by the DJ booth, it will take some experimentation to find the optimal placement.. which could be somewhere out in the room. Be prepared to fly one or both subs in the ceiling.
7. Don't load any amplifier channel below 4ohms.
8. Don't power any speaker beyond it's continuous rating.
9 One sub in the lounge will work better than 2 spaced apart, getting the subs to produce even coverage will be the most difficult part of this install. I'm having a hard time believing that pendant sub will produce much output so you may need to substitute something bigger. It should be something that can be flown in the ceiling though.
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Has your in-house technician successfully done a system like this before? If not, hire someone who has.
However, they should not make a commission on the equipment purchased.
This could easily be a big mess unless it is expertly handled, and could waste a lot of money.
However, they should not make a commission on the equipment purchased.
This could easily be a big mess unless it is expertly handled, and could waste a lot of money.
Your reply is very helpful. I couldn't understand #4. What do you mean by making the DJ system as a separate entity? And by making all the speakers powered, do you mean cancel the pendant speakers and opt for powered speakers?
Ray: No he hasn't and I'm not planning on relying on him. We have a crew of in-house electricians which I'll rely on for the cabling part. Apart from that, I'll hire professionals to do the install and sound calibration from a local Klipsch/JBL dealer.
Get a detailed proposal from an experienced local person. Pay for it if needed. Surely there is someone trustworthy around,
with all the wealth there. They will have to walk around inside, see it filled with people, judge the noise level, use their judgement to deal with the acoustics.
Even concert halls can turn out really badly if not carefully planned. You need someone who knows what they are doing acoustically.There is a science to this, but only a few have the skills. Your restaurant will be a difficult installation to get right.
with all the wealth there. They will have to walk around inside, see it filled with people, judge the noise level, use their judgement to deal with the acoustics.
Even concert halls can turn out really badly if not carefully planned. You need someone who knows what they are doing acoustically.There is a science to this, but only a few have the skills. Your restaurant will be a difficult installation to get right.
I second that.
I don't second this. Your amps are stereo but what you really need is mono - otherwise some ppl only hear just one side, others the other side of the program. Stereo location does not work there (except DJ). Instead of extremely long power cables or speaker cables and calculating which speaker should go on which channel and the high current to distribute, install 100V venue amplifiers. You don't need new speakers, just a 100V audio transformer for each speaker. From low impedance to cost of cables and power distribution, a 100V system is much more reliable and forgiving - by design.
Yes, the best variant is to mount speakers on the ceiling, their dispersion in the important midrange will not 'bleed' that much into the range of the several next speaker(s). Alternatively, build your speakers with delay and let them point in one direction (yes, it will be a 'curve' and that even works with the angled space). Ceiling mount is better though.
I didn't find the planned DJ booth or planned PA and subs place, so I can't comment much on it. I did, however a place, which I found very funny, named 'dumb waiter'. 😀
You need to plan for the DJ and speakers you will always return for it, even if you want to remove that at times you don't need it. It will save tons of time in setting things up and for a venue and the workers, that's one of the most valuable resources.
I strongly suggest not to do that! You should use a mono/center-stack, toothrow or cardioid (well, depends on how many subs you've got) because 2 sub placements will get more zero (interference) zones than one. Alternatively, install a DBA but that doesn't work very well in non-rectangle spaces. I'd prefer a toothrow setup.
In the overall plan of the whole venue I'm suggesting that the DJ system be a separate zone so to speak, so it can be used with or without the rest of the system.
No I was just talking about the DJ speakers there, I didn't realize the Control 28 speakers were powered but having looked at the specs I still think some matching PRX boxes would be better suited.
You didn't mention it has to be mono, so I did. It's a crucial point in the planning.
They are if you buy the 2,50€ ones from Ali.
You can already stack two. I was thinking about 4 12" (which is the same membrane surface as 2 18") and he will have enough to grant them a long life and he's flexible and can decide later to change things. And because he also said he wants it loud (again, enough headroom)
Your suggestion was completely understandable in your former answer and I support that. The DJ sound should be connected to the venue sound system too so the rest of the areas can adjust the volume as needed.
I have read your concept and can not see it to have any professional attitude.
May I ask if you have to buy from the USA or would Europe, France or Germany, maybe UK be OK?
The budget of 40.000 US$ is not really impressive, given the size of the location. What I do not know is why the installation is so expensive. I try not to be insulting: Are there cost involved you would not have in a regular, European country? Like family middleman getting a share for services not listed on a regular bill? 50% of budget for undifferentiated cost is a little unusual in my calculations. 5% would be high.
A 2024 installation would use active speakers, which are individually tuned for room acoustics, position and function. The level is regulated by the area manger, but can, of course, be joined from a central position, for a "whole house" party mode.
The DJ or "club" area has to be handled in a separate way. In most cases there will be a loud (dancing) area, while all other speaker play with reduced level. How much has to be adjusted to taste by a professional, just as any other major option. In the end the people running the venue can only chage the SPL, the DJ can adjust tonal balance for his place only. Otherwise any idiot will start to ruin the carefully adjusted system.
So in the end you will have a network cable to any speaker and mains. A central point where basics can be adjusted and a separate, integrated DJ system.
Such an installation can be planed to the last cable delivered in the right length, so there is no need for any custom modification, except a few hooks in the ceiling. Which reduces the option to mess up things for the locals to near zero.
The most advanced and complicated system leads to the most simple installation on site. In the end a specialist will measure a lot of different positions and adjust any speaker. Thats all.
May I ask if you have to buy from the USA or would Europe, France or Germany, maybe UK be OK?
The budget of 40.000 US$ is not really impressive, given the size of the location. What I do not know is why the installation is so expensive. I try not to be insulting: Are there cost involved you would not have in a regular, European country? Like family middleman getting a share for services not listed on a regular bill? 50% of budget for undifferentiated cost is a little unusual in my calculations. 5% would be high.
A 2024 installation would use active speakers, which are individually tuned for room acoustics, position and function. The level is regulated by the area manger, but can, of course, be joined from a central position, for a "whole house" party mode.
The DJ or "club" area has to be handled in a separate way. In most cases there will be a loud (dancing) area, while all other speaker play with reduced level. How much has to be adjusted to taste by a professional, just as any other major option. In the end the people running the venue can only chage the SPL, the DJ can adjust tonal balance for his place only. Otherwise any idiot will start to ruin the carefully adjusted system.
So in the end you will have a network cable to any speaker and mains. A central point where basics can be adjusted and a separate, integrated DJ system.
Such an installation can be planed to the last cable delivered in the right length, so there is no need for any custom modification, except a few hooks in the ceiling. Which reduces the option to mess up things for the locals to near zero.
The most advanced and complicated system leads to the most simple installation on site. In the end a specialist will measure a lot of different positions and adjust any speaker. Thats all.
That will be expensive to maintain. Every time something changes, tables and chairs are moved, that would need to repeat the measurements, not to speak of how much the sound will change when the venue is almost empty, medium- to fully packed, with or without the DJ. And the speakers aren't interchangeable (if one in a important position fails) , for anything the trained tech has to repeat the measurements or at least upload the settings to a new speaker. That may be feasible for an opera house or big cinema with fixed seats and next to no changes or a big venue but not for a venue like this, that's too much alone in maintenance cost. He gave me the impression he didn't want to rely on the tech but that would make him even more dependent on a tech who knows the venue well.
Don't forget, the measurements (sound) will be different if you move around, making it there possibly worse than before. The benefits are less than it sounds at first.
I've asked myself something similar but it's possible there are safety measures and rules to be kept and checked.
I don't think it's the attitude, that's more likely just lack of the experience.
You should check your relation to theory and practice.
In theory the sound absorbtion changes with any person that enters a room.
In practice a professional will tune each speaker for a specific position, which will correct the worst room effects and sound good, independend of changes in seating, tables and the like.
As speakers will be high at the walls or under the ceiling, this is less critical than your wifes backside in front of your home stereo speaker. It is about getting the best out of a situations with acceptable compromise. That is why I mentioned "a professional" that should do it and not you or the restaurant owner. Sure, sound will be brighter in an empty room and some hights will be gone if it is crowded, but still 300% better than simply screwing some passive speaker under the ceiling and hoping it will fit. Somehow and if not we have another drink... til it sounds right. Won't work in Saudi, with the drink.
In theory the sound absorbtion changes with any person that enters a room.
In practice a professional will tune each speaker for a specific position, which will correct the worst room effects and sound good, independend of changes in seating, tables and the like.
As speakers will be high at the walls or under the ceiling, this is less critical than your wifes backside in front of your home stereo speaker. It is about getting the best out of a situations with acceptable compromise. That is why I mentioned "a professional" that should do it and not you or the restaurant owner. Sure, sound will be brighter in an empty room and some hights will be gone if it is crowded, but still 300% better than simply screwing some passive speaker under the ceiling and hoping it will fit. Somehow and if not we have another drink... til it sounds right. Won't work in Saudi, with the drink.
So far I completely agree.
And there is where I don't. Firstly, I already wrote a lot about there should not be just placed passive speakers. And I also wrote why "a professional" is needed for your suggestion and that it's creating an unwanted dependency and cost factor. You can still measure and correct the FR but you don't have to do it for each speaker separately because the big advantage can only be achieved in the bass because everything else changes constantly and it's a madness to spend money on that while much more important things are on the list!
Secondly, he got 27 speakers, let's take one of the cheapest DSPs you can ready made buy, the t.racks DSP 4x4 Mini or the t.racks DSP 4x4 Mini Amp, the former costs 159 €, the latter 195 €. If you want the speakers active and dsp controlled, you need 14 of the mini amp (with two ch. spare), which is 2730 €. Or in other words, ~14% of the budget for a feature which mainly costs primarily in additional maintenance (for the "professional"). A feature which does not get you any real advantage because the behaviour from ceiling speakers will be very, very similar and the difference of single corrected speakers to a general correction is so small (except in the bass) the guests will hardly (if at all) notice. Where it makes a difference - in the bass - you're shooting in your own foot because in the bass diespersion is circular, what means, the correction of one speaker got influence on the neighbouring ones - a massive timeconsuming endless orgy of measurements is the result. You won't get a good, even result afterwards but you'll end up with some speakers at -15dB in the bass while others will get +15dB and die because of the immense power it will get because of the correction and that still doesn't give you even sound reproduction. Really, that's not a solution, that's throwing money out of the window.
Yep all of this is DIY work, so there you go. The US is much easier for us and the exchange rate is not in our favor with EUR/GBP but we still can source from Europe if need be. All the countries you listed can be used for equipment sourcing.
Most of the additional expenses above the equipment cost will go to shipping (these are heavy equipment). It cost us ~$4.2/LBs to ship from the US. Then we have to pay for VAT (15% on all equipment + shipping cost), and then we have to pay customs which is between 5% and 20% depending on the item. The installation part isn't that expensive as we have access to reasonably priced professionals from local big-name brands.
Valid point and understood. Good thought there.
I understood your second statement well, but could you please elaborate on the first one. What do you mean by a network cable running to any speaker? Are you hinting I should opt for Crown DCi/BSS BLU architecture?
This is a brilliant idea. I need a little pointing in the right direction though. What kind of architecture would give me this end result? Example equipment models or specifications would help me understand better.
You've been helpful Turbowatch! Much appreciated!
My thinking was that we can deal with the sound controls on the processor level, no?
I thought about using 100v over low impendence architecture to save on cables, but I was afraid of running into issues with power loads. I know the conceptual basics of the 100v, but I have no idea how it is done in practice. And I have no way to verify its reliability which is something we can't afford to sacrifice. We can't have interruptions whatsoever. Our system has to be zero-failure.
Between the pendant option and in-ceiling option, what would you recommend? The in-ceiling can have a wider dispersion angle but are more expensive, harder to install, and will require more power. This much I know. But more than that, I need insights.
English-as-a-second-language byproducts 😀. Anyway, all the equipment will be permanently installed. We have 3 full-time DJs, and we don't have to move things around at all. Here is the DJ booth location in the restaurant area (it's ~1.5m away from the back wall):
Yes that's why I wanted to have 2 subs to minimize the null issues. The placement will be a challenge but we'll move things around and see what provides the best output once we have everything in place.
A quick observation from a customer's perspective - any speakers which are too close to where I am eating and are turned up during my meal have me asking for the bill very quickly! No dessert, thanks...
Try to keep customers in the reverberant, not the direct field. They won't hear the difference anyway!
Try to keep customers in the reverberant, not the direct field. They won't hear the difference anyway!
Yes, that's the idea.
Zero-failure systems don't exist.
With 100V doesn't need low impedance architecture, it's the opposite, that's one great advantage. The power isn't more than what you put in with normal speakers, it's just a higher voltage with much, much lower current, therefore you have lower losses and can use very small cable diameter wires. The impedance is very high so even with a short, the amp will continue to work and not go into protection or shutdown.
There are disadvantages too, though. Turbowatch2 already said it, it can diminish the SQ but that essentially depends on what you buy. The installation is completely different than the other options (passive, active) like none of them can be easily switched later, if you decide for one system, switching to another is practically a new installation. I don't claim it's the best system (every one of them got a bunch of advantages and disadvantages)
but it's worth knowing it's an option.
Why would they need more power? That's not true. They aren't more expensive either. If you want, you could also mount any speaker on the ceiling, that just looks a bit strange. The main thing is, once you've decided what system and where to place the speakers, it's a lot of work and new cables etc if you want to change the placement, though the 100V system is the cheapest if you want to change anything.
If you want to place the PA speakers on each side of the booth, they need to have extremely wide dispersion. Most PA speakers are between 60° and 90° horizontally. Sound wise it would be better to place them on the short side of the room but that would interfere with the seating and the door. The columns are a problem.
The subwoofers aren't the main problem and don't need an immediate decision, that can still be changed later. About the dispersion and zero zones, two places are usually the worst placement regarding the dispersion. On this page (Jobst Audio) you can see how each configuration performs (sry, the page is in German, the pictures are very helpful even without the text).