The venue required a robust and reliable system to cope with the heavy usage and high SPLs demanded by its discerning audience, and CP Sound's Colin Pattenden again went for JBL. The new top cabinets are JBL AM 6215s from the new AE installation series - each powered by 750W of amplification. Bass speakers are the JBL dual 18" ASB 6128s, with a meaty 2000W going into each cabinet. CP also installed a new Allen & Heath Xone 464 combined DJ and PA mixer, enabling the venue to cater for live events as well as its regular DJ nights, and they supplied and fitted a new Denon DCD4000 twin-CD player.
Processing and system management control is all done via a dbx Drive Rack. This was the most powerful and feature packed system available for the price explains Pattenden. It was also a first for CP - the Drive Rack is the first digital device specified into one of their many installations. "I was absolutely confident it was the appropriate piece of kit for the job" states Pattenden, "dbx have done an massive amount of R 'n' D on both analogue and digital sound devices. They know exactly what they want their kit to achieve, it's user-friendly and very good," he confirms.
The Drive Rack is linked to a set of new RSE amplifiers, two cc1500s delivering 1600W into 4 ohms - one for each pair of top cabs and two cc2000s delivering 2000W into 4 ohms, one for each bass bin. The PFX 500 amp is bridged into the new DJ monitor - a JBL AM4215. The new amplifier and processing rack is located in the building's basement, which also happens to be very close in physical proximity to the bass bins. With a short cable run, the output impedance of the amplifiers is used to produce a dampening effect on the bass cones, acoustically tightening the bass end.
CP Sound fully tuned and optimized the system once the all elements of the installation were complete. All JBL and dbx equipment was supplied to CP Sound by Harman Pro UK. Access proved the most challenging aspect of the installation, with the venue falling just 100m inside the central London congestion charge zone - resulting in some long pushes between delivery truck and the venue.
(Lee Baldock)
