It had long been the dream of Dave Bradshaw (formerly head of production but now a consultant to the MoS) to make the world-famous club an exclusively Martin Audio house. After last year's PLASA Show the bar underwent a sound system conversion, and this month added the four additional S218 subs to create uniformity, while the club embarked on redesigning the venue's Holy Grail, the main dance space known as The Box. This month that process was completed.
It is around eight years since the venue specified an all Martin Audio Blackline 5.1 monitor domain for DJs working in The Box, although the six-stack system, which enveloped the audience, had been in nearly twice as long.
"It was important that in upgrading we retained the signature six-stack system as it would have taken away the history had we not done so," believes head of production, Alex Barrand.
Nevertheless, Martin Audio's Jason Baird first reviewed a W8LC Compact Line Array approach before reverting to conventional Wavefront technology. "Line Array just wasn't suited to the solution they were looking to achieve," he concedes. "The issue wasn't so much the power as the imaging - which was right in front of your face. They wanted a larger-than-life, but still laid back sound that you could listen to at high SPL all night, with the image appearing to come from behind the stack."
Instead he proposed a five-way, mission-critical, hybrid system, driven by Martin Audio MA series amplification, so that each frequency band was just ticking over when the system was producing phenomenal SPLs.
"We chose the W8C as the basis for the mid/high cabinets as it is famous for its hi-fi and high SPL characteristic," he said. "We made various modifications to ensure the cabinets were equal to the harsh environment of one of London's busiest clubs - after all the previous system had survived for over 15 years." At the same time Baird's technical team optimised the crossover presets. "In particular we changed the EQ so that it would behave differently than when operating in the touring world."
To run the system five-way required an upper bass cabinet with tremendous mid bass punch. The AS118 folded bass bin design was plucked from the company's AM Stadium range and re-engineered to work with the existing enclosures. "As it delivers 108dB for just 1W, it was the obvious choice," believes Baird. "Its compact dimensions also meant that we could squeeze two in to each stack to give even greater dynamics and headroom. Also by removing the ports we were able to make the speed of the upper bass a little faster."
To cover the lowest frequencies Martin Audio first demonstrated their WS218X (2 x 18") direct radiating sub. Although they offered more level and bass extension, MoS were less keen about the appearance of the direct radiator design, and needed to find a way to retain their signature bass bins. "In order to bring them up to scratch, we replaced them with the DLS846 18" driver from the Blackline S218. Now, as the two AS118s were sharing some of the bandwidth, the subs could be driven harder but over a narrower frequency band."
The venue has also upgraded to Martin Audio MA series amplification. Three MA4.2s are assigned to the AS118s, while three MA2.8s drive the W8C low-mids, three MA1.6s handle the high-mids and three MA1.3s are responsible for the high frequency. The pre-existing MA4.2 amplification was retained to drive the subwoofers.
(Jim Evans)
