The basement and fifth floors, which house the bathrooms and restaurant respectively, are the quietest parts of the building and both have been supplied with a 100V line system based around Dynacord DL70W ceiling speakers. The ground and first floors are home to the café and bar areas where Yeats has specified a system based around EV Sx80 cabinets supplemented by Shuttlesound GSS15 bins. The ground floor sports a total of eight Sx80s and two GSS15s, while the first floor utilizes 12 Sx80s and four GSS15s. The club system on the next floor is simple but more heavyweight, comprising four Sx300s and a single Xi2181 bass bin with a powered Dynacord AM12 acting as DJ monitor. Amplification is provided by Electro-Voice P Series and Dynacord S Series amps throughout.
One of Sugar's most visually spectacular features is a huge spiral staircase which twines its way up from the basement to the first floor. "It's the most amazing structure," says Paul. "I've honestly never seen anything like it - it's almost like a human spine. We found it useful since it gave us the opportunity to do something which to my knowledge has not been done before. We have arrayed seven Sx80s around the top of the staircase which provides seamless coverage for the whole of the first floor, and the areas we couldn't reach, because there were pillars in the way, are covered by a number of separate cabinets dotted around the place. On both the first and ground floors we've chosen to go for quite a lot of cabinets so that the system sounds good both quiet and loud. During the day it's an extremely polite system which ticks over nicely. In the evening once the DJ has turned up to take residence, it starts to get louder, but it's never running flat out. In fact, the bar staff have independent level controls for their own area on each floor in case the DJ gets too enthusiastic!"
