Adjacent to the Windsor Castle, a favourite social gathering point, the new Juice Bar was specifically created as a cutting-edge music performance venue for bands of all styles to ply their trade. As an extension of the Juice Music Television brand, the ability to provide world-class sound quality was a design prerequisite for the new nightspot. With the expertise of Auckland, N.Z.-based Edwards Sound Systems, a new sound reinforcement system from D.A.S. Audio has been installed.
Jonathan Hardie-Neil, managing director of Edwards Sound, comments: "The primary challenge we faced was that the Juice Bar was to be multi-purpose. Our clients, whose expectation of value and high quality sound are well known, intended this space to be used both as a bar and as a live music venue. Being that the typical Juice Bar patron is in their 20's and 30's and that the venue capacity was intended for roughly 500 people, we knew the system needed to deliver concert level sound quality while offering a sophisticated visual aesthetic."
Sound for the new Juice Bar is handled primarily by the D.A.S. Audio Variant 112A installation line array, a self-powered, two-way, full-range loudspeaker system with a compact form factor. Located over the stage at one end of the space, the nearly 5,000-watt system consists of two clusters flown in a left-right configuration. Low frequency support is provided by a pair of Variant 18A powered subwoofers - positioned on the floor and vertically aligned with the loudspeaker clusters overhead.
Projecting into the length of the room, which measures 16m, the new system provides musical, consistent coverage throughout the space with a high level of speech intelligibility. Working from essentially the same feed as the Variant 112A system, a separate zone features four D.A.S. Audio Artec 8 two-way loudspeakers positioned at the front entrance.
"The Variant 112A's sound unbelievably good," notes Neil, "and the integrated amplifier and processing is a huge advantage in installations like this where a different sound engineer operates the rig every night. Since none of the critical settings involving limiting, component time alignment, crossover points, or gain can be modified, the system sounds exactly as intended every time it's used."
The Juice Bar's new D.A.S. Audio system has proven highly successful. "We're delighted with the D.A.S. system and how brilliantly it performs" says the Juice Bar's Daniel Wrightson. "It provides an exceptional audio solution."
(Jim Evans)
