The walls of Bubbas 33 restaurants are lined with "more TVs than tables" playing music videos, sports games and other video entertainment. Early Bubbas 33 locations used surface-mount loudspeakers between the TVs. To free up wall space for additional TVs, newer Bubbas 33 restaurants use ceiling loudspeakers.
The chain's first ceiling loudspeaker systems were 70-volt designs provided by No Static Pro Audio of Burbank, California. Although the owners were satisfied with these systems, they asked Eugene Gordon of No Static to "step it up a notch" for Bubbas 33's Colorado Springs location.
Gordon offered to retrofit the Colorado Springs restaurant with Community's D Series loudspeakers and he recommended rewiring the system for 8-ohm operation. He says, "Sometimes it's hard to explain how something can sound better going from high impedance to low, so we thought we'd let the speakers do the talking."
No Static rewired the Colorado Springs system and replaced the existing loudspeakers with 50 black Community D6 full-range coaxial loudspeakers and fifteen D10SUB subwoofers all powered by Lab.gruppen E-Series amplifiers. Gordon noted, "After the retrofit, the D6 speakers sold themselves and are now Bubbas 33's new standard moving forward."
DSP and auto-mixing services are provided by an Ashly Protea and Bubbas 33 staff can control both audio and video with an iPad Pro. The system includes a Shure wireless microphone for staff meetings and private parties and a DVD player for movies offered in a supervised children's room on weekly 'date nights'.
Gordon said when the Colorado Springs owner came to hear the new system on opening night, he walked in with a big grin on his face, saying, "I could hear the difference from outside."
(Jim Evans)
